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"I will kill you, you son of a b*tch!"
Western media loves such statements, blasting them all over, as if they were some sort of proof that the President of the Philippines is a mafia-style murderous maniac.
But I am told by many in his restive home base in the south; in Davao City:
"No way; this is how we speak on Mindanao Island. President is Visaya -- he says what comes to his mind. Tagalog people are polite, but their actions are often brutal. Talking dirty means nothing bad where Duterte comes from."
But for the Southeast Asian region, the most important topic is how President Duterte is handling foreign policy.
All over Asia Pacific, the United States, desperate to keep its global hegemony, is antagonizing Beijing on all fronts. It is pushing China from all directions. The South China Sea is constantly in the spotlight, through the international courts (often controlled by the Western countries and interests) as well as through the Western mass media. The dispute over the Spratly Islands has been poisoning the relationship between Beijing and Manila for decades.
However, after Duterte became president, things changed, dramatically. The rhetoric significantly softened, and both China and the Philippines clearly stated that they are willing to talk, negotiate and compromise. To the great dismay of the West, any military conflict between two countries is now out of question.
This approach is having an enormous (although grossly under-reported) influence on the entire region's policy towards China. The country that is watching particularly closely is China's historic rival, and a fellow Communist state -- Vietnam.
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