The President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, is one of the most popular presidents in the world, despite – or perhaps in part because of – his history of biased remarks about women, gay people and minority groups.
Send the news: Polls suggest that his daughter and successor as mayor of Davao City, Sara Duterte, is the voters’ best choice to succeed him in 2022 as president.
- The presidency, he said, was “not for women” as they had a different “emotional set-up” than men.
- Duterte, who regularly complains about the misery of his job, added that his daughter ‘will go through what I went through’.
What to look for: Duterte could not be re-elected at the end of his six-year term, although an attempt by his allies to amend the constitution sparked speculation that he would try to stay.
- “Even if you put it on a silver platter or give it another ten years for free, I’m done,” he said Thursday.
Meanwhile, Duterte faces A Senate inquiry into reports that doses of an unapproved Chinese vaccine have been smuggled into the Philippines and given to more than 100,000 Chinese citizens, as well as to some soldiers guarding Duterte.
- Duterte told the soldiers not to cooperate in the investigation, and his office described the vaccines as a ‘gift’ from China.
- Note: Many of the Chinese citizens involved work in foreign gambling. Several illegal medical clinics for Chinese citizens working in foreign gambling were discovered in the Philippines last year.
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