Avid Duterte Supporter Asks: What Has The Opposition Achieved So Far?

June 30, 2017 marked the date that Rodrigo R. Duterte was sworn into Philippine presidency, and recently the statements from the opposition claiming that his administration has not achieved anything have created a ruckus around the media, both local, national and online.

In light of which, Pinky Omac-Santiano, a staunch supporter of the Philippine president has posted a long, detailed opinion in response to the opposition's attacks. Granted, the post is a bit long, so here's a bird's-eye-view of what her statement was about.

Santiano, in her Facebook post dated July 7th, started by mentioning how, one year into the presidency, Duterte has already begun implementing drastic reforms in governance and politics and has achieved a lot into addressing the needs of the poor. She then proceeds to say that the opposition belies these achievements and claims that the PRRD administration is a "dismal failure". She also called abhorrent the comment of LP stalwart Cong. Edcel Lagman who, together with cronies like Sen. Antonio Trillianes and the other "alipores"[i] of the opposition, claims that Duterte has achieved nothing after one year as president.

Next, the netizen who has been a serious supporter of the president way back since the moments leading towards the presidential elections last 2016 then presented her challenge: How about rating the opposition as to its performance after one year under the Duterte presidency? According to Santiano, the opposition's purpose is to oppose the current government, to offer better alternatives to the decisions that the current administration are making, and to make sure that the voice of the people is not violated. She asks the question, "What has the opposition done so far?" and the proceeds to answer them in the next paragraphs.

Here is a list of the things the opposition has done either done or tried to do, albeit with unsuccessful results, according to Santiano.

* They tried to take down the Mindano Martial Law - going against the will of the Filipino people who supported it.

* They tried to annihilate the government's Drug War program, claiming that the drug situation here is not as bad as the administration claims, and that the Philippines' drug problem is only a hype proliferated by Duterte

* They have promoted as human rights violations the deaths of drug lords, pushers and addicts, even involving the international community in heavily criticizing Duterte's war on Drugs.

* Above all, they have tried to impeach PRRD --- who is immensely supported by the Filipinos --- from the presidency.

And these are just flecks from the tip of the iceberg. Pinky Omac-Santiano, in the afore-mentioned post, continued to go over the series of wrong turns by the opposition which, in her opinion, are faults which will eventually lead to the downfall of their causes.

As of the present, the said Facebook post only has over 60 reactions and 45 shares, most likely owing to its direct English and TLDR (too long; didn't read) presentation and format which, admittedly, is not very saleable to majority of Filipino social media users.

Regardless, it presents a ton of valid arguments and is a definite must-read.

Hopefully, a tagalized version will be forthcoming, making it more relatable to the Filipino masa. 

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[i] Alipores – henchmen, minions of a person/s in power