Have you got dozens of family members in Manila whose lives would be in much greater danger without the enforced lockdown? I do.

You need to bear in mind that Duterte is not Trump. Trump’s a coward, a wannabe dictator who is so easily manipulated by anyone willing to debase themselves by giving him praise he never earned.

Duterte is no coward. He is a hard man who is not afraid to kill if that’s what it takes to protect the nation as a whole. And despite what you seem to think, Duterte has made greater progress in minimizing corruption in the Philippines than did the five presidents before him combined. It is significantly safer to walk the streets of Manila now than it was four years ago.

Now, let’s pretend for just a moment that Duterte’s every bit as bad as you seem to think. What do you think would happen if he was assassinated? Perhaps you should look back and see what happened when Aquino was assassinated. He was immediately seen as a martyr. It resulted in Marcos being deposed and the Aquino family catapulted to the top of the Philippine power structure…and corruption grew by leaps and bounds.

IF Duterte were as horrible as you believe, it would be every bit as big a mistake for him to be assassinated as it would be for Trump to be assassinated…because Trump would be seen as a martyr, many more would die, and we’d be saddled with yet another false heroic narrative just as we are today with the obscene “lost cause” narrative of the Confederacy.

Is that what you want? No? But that’s what would happen.

Good day, sir.