Challenging the gods

We are tired of the misguided and self-serving crusades of the few. It is time that they be challenged.

Giving an Asian perspective to the global situation, President Rody Duterte put the United States in the crosshairs during the Valdai International Discussion Club Forum on the theme “The Dawn of the East and the World Political Order.”

Most of the problems now confronting Asia and the rest of the globe are in some way related to the declining power and influence of the United States on the world stage.

From multilateral organizations which are heavily dependent on US and European funding to the political associations that serve to protect American interests, the dominant role of the traditional powers of the West are “under challenge” from the rising East.

The President noted the liberal global order built after the Second World War, which is Pax Americana, had “its appeal weakened and its hold over countries diminished.”

Quoting Leo Tolstoy, the great Russian author, he said, “All families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Thus, Rody said each nation has unique challenges that “would require different sets of solutions.”

“Yet some so-called friends act like they know the answers to our problems and impervious to our socio-economic and political conditions. They create rules and norms for almost everyone and some refuse to be bound by the same,” he stated, obviously in reference to the United States.

He exposed the hypocrisy of powerful nations, saying that they create rules and norms for almost everyone and “some refuse to be bound by the same.”

“Think of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the Convention on the Rights of the Child,” he said.

The US is not a party to the UNCLOS, while it has not ratified the UNCRC and has pulled out from the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Also, the US government is not a signatory to the International Crime Commission (ICC), which is running after Rody’s war on drugs at the instigation of American groups and legislators.

“We are tired of the misguided and self-serving crusades of the few. It is time that they be challenged,” Rody stressed.

Hitting at the West, Rody accused that, “They weaponize human rights oblivious to its damaging consequences to the very people they seek to protect.”

“Just look at the chaos and instability that ensued in Libya and Iraq following military interventions,” he noted, as he accused critics of “weakening my government’s ability to protect law-abiding citizens from the outlaws” on the guise of human rights protection.

“They see what they want to see to justify their perceived notions and do not try to understand what is truly happening in my country,” he continued.

The exclusive forum said Rody was invited due to his strong brand of leadership.

Andrey Bystritskiy, chairman of the Valdai Discussion Club, shared that Rody “changed the direction of development of the Philippines.”

Rody’s rise as a leader who is followed closely by the world, however, is merely the result of pushing for what Filipinos deserve in the community of nations.

“What we seek, as I assume what the Russian people and all nations also desire, is fairness, equality and mutual respect,” Rody pointed out.

Rody’s presidency is taking potshots from mostly the Western powers since they see his thrust to make the country strongly independent as a threat to their domination aims.