82,700 Pinoys register to cast ballots in Vancouver

Overseas-based Filipinos are leaning towards the Southeast Asian nation’s version of U.S. presidential hopeful Donald Trump, to be the country’s next leader a recent poll shows.
Of the five presidential candidates, Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, who is making a spectacular, obscenity-filled charge towards the presidential palace, was the top choice of overseas-based Filipinos polled by the Dubai-based Illustrado Magazine.
The poll comprising 5,000 Overseas-based Filipinos from 92 countries with the bulk from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Canada, US, Qatar, Kuwait, Japan, Bahrain, Australia, Oman, China, Malaysia, UK and New Zealand showed that the next set of Philippine national leaders must prioritise the following: corruption, 91 per cent (4,550); crime, 70 per cent (3,500); economy 51 per cent (2,550); peace and order, 42 per cent (2,100).
About 87 per cent polled Duterte to be the next president of the Philippines.
Second was Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago at seven per cent, while third was Interior and Local Government Secretary/ administration bet Mar Roxas at four per cent.
Senator Grace Poe and Vice President Jejomar Binay shared one per cent each with.
Sixty-seven per cent considering Poe as inexperienced.
The Philippine presidential and vice presidential election is scheduled on Monday, May 9, 2016. 
Incumbent President Benigno Aquino III is barred from seeking re-election, pursuant to the 1987 Philippine Constitution. Therefore, this election will determine the 16th President of the Philippines. The position of president and vice president are elected separately, and the winning candidates may come from different political parties. 
According to the magazine survey, when asked about their most important factors for choosing a president, 38 per cent (1,900) of the respondents said discipline or strong rule; 25 per cent (1,250) pointed at track record; 18 per cent (900) invoked ability to facilitate change; and 13 per cent (650) noted honesty and incorruptibility.
The overseas absentee voting is scheduled a month ahead of the election day in the Philippines that will run from April 9 to May 9. 
There are a total of 1,376,067 overseas voters registered for this year’s elections — the highest number of Filipino overseas voters, ever. Kuwait has over 49,000 registered overseas voters. 
About 82,700 Filipino-Canadians and temporary foreign workers have registered to cast ballots in Vancouver
Philippine Senate President Franklin M. Drilon, author of the Overseas Absentee Voting Act, urged the overseas Filipinos to take part in the upcoming May 2016 elections.
Drilon, who is running for a re-election in the Senate under the Liberal Party, said that their fate, as well as the future of their families in the Philippines is at stake in the elections.
“We should not take for granted the May 2016 elections. We should exercise our right to vote and take an active role in choosing the country’s next set of leaders, Drilon said.
Drilon said that the main reason why he pushed for the absentee voting law is “to empower the overseas Filipino workers to participate in shaping our country’s future by electing qualified leaders.”
“The outcome of this election will have an impact on our country’s policies on the welfare of around seven million Filipinos living abroad including the 2.3 million overseas Filipino workers,” he stressed.
Citing Comelec’s (Commission on Elections) data, Drilon said that there are 1.37 million registered overseas voters who are expected to participate in the 2016 national elections, 826,880 of which are new registrants.

Who is Rodrigo Duterte?

Rodrigo Duterte curses the pope’s mother and jokes about his own infidelities, but many voters in the Philippines want to elect him president so he can honour a campaign pledge to kill thousands of criminals.
Duterte is making a spectacular, obscenity-filled charge towards the presidential palace by selling himself as a ruthless leader willing to bypass the judicial system in an unprecedented war against crime, reports the South China Morning Post.
“Kill them all,” Duterte, 70, told a cheering crowd of supporters this month at a campaign rally in the small northern city of Lingayen as he outlined his plans to eradicate drug traffickers in the Philippines.
“When I become president, I’ll order the police and the military to find these people and kill them.”
Such comments are typical fare on the campaign trail for Duterte, who in Lingayen also jokingly gave business advice to those in the crowd to start up funeral parlours in preparation of him winning the May elections.
“The funeral parlours will be packed ... I’ll supply the dead bodies,” he said, to more cheers and laughter.
On a previous occasion Duterte, a lawyer, pledged to kill 100,000 criminals and dump so many in Manila Bay that the “fish will grow fat” from feeding on them.
Surveys indicate his law-and-order platform, which is a centrepiece of his election strategy, is winning him many fans in a nation bedevilled by crime, corrupt law enforcement agencies and deep poverty.
The long-time mayor of the major southern city of Davao is one of four candidates with a genuine shot at succeeding President Benigno Aquino.
And he is gaining popularity, climbing into second place just four percentage points behind Senator Grace Poe, according to the latest survey by Pulse Asia.
“Duterte is really a phenomenon. I like what he is saying,” Clarita Carlos, a political scientist at the University of the Philippines, said.
“I like the fact that he has fire in his belly and he is politically courageous.”
His unique form of political courage has extended to insulting Pope Francis, who is revered by many in a nation where 80 per cent of the population are Catholics.
In a speech to launch his presidential bid late last year, Duterte described the pope as a “son of a bitch” for causing traffic jams when he visited the Philippines.
Duterte, who is in a long-term relationship with a woman after having his first marriage annulled, also admitted then to having two girlfriends.
However Duterte jokingly assured taxpayers they would not foot his mistresses’ bills, explaining he only spent 1,500 pesos a month on their boarding room rent and saved money by taking them to short-time hotels.
Carlos said voters were willing to ignore his indiscretions as they focused on his track record in Davao, a formerly crime-plagued city that Duterte says he transformed into one of the nation’s most peaceful.
“Never mind he cusses a lot, he is a womaniser. I don’t think that will intrude into his effectiveness as a political leader,” she said.
Duterte also maintains a frugal lifestyle, in contrast with many corrupt Filipino politicians who use the powers of office to enrich themselves.
Human rights campaigners are not enthusiastic about a Duterte presidency, warning he has the track record to back up his rhetoric.
They accuse Duterte of organising or tolerating vigilante squads that have targeted suspected criminals and street children in Davao, killing more than 1,000 people since the 1980s.
For many years Duterte denied the existence of death squads, which were allegedly made up of local policemen, ex-communist rebels and hired assassins.
Rodrigo Duterte also maintains a frugal lifestyle, in contrast with many corrupt Filipino politicians who use the powers of office to enrich themselves. Photo: AFP
But Duterte has in recent months said he was involved in them and that rights groups had in fact underestimated the number of people to have been killed.
“They miscalculated ... 1,700,” Duterte told reporters in December.
That law enforcement agencies have failed to pursue allegations against Duterte is not surprising, according to Philippine Human Rights Commission chairman Chito Gascon.
Gascon said this was part of the nation’s “culture of impunity”, where politicians and powerful figures often get away with crimes. Other politicians are also accused of running death squads.
Voters are attracted to Duterte’s promise of a quick fix to such fundamental justice problems, according to Gascon and other rights campaigners.
“He is popular because he taps into this extreme disappointment in criminality and the inability of the government to deal with it,” Carlos Conde, a Manila-based researcher with