News about Rodrigo Duterte

Since Philippines Drug Enforcement Agency agents stormed his house and arrested Elden Chamberlain, 60, in Cagayan de Oro City Jail in February 2022, he has been detained. He has been charged with selling 1000 Philippine pesos ($27) of methamphetamine and being in possession of the drug, which he denies.' When Mr Chamberlain, a worldwide leader in public health and HIV/AIDS, was in Cagayan de Oro and working with the Global Fund for HIV, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, he and a colleague were arrested. For the first time as he begins his desperate fight for independence, the West Australian has opened an exposé on the terrifying ordeal.

On Monday, President Joe Biden told his Filipino counterpart Ferdinand Marcos Jr. that the US's commitment to helping its ally was 'ironclad,' during a meeting designed to strengthen a key link amid growing tensions regarding China's growing military threat. Marcos, nicknamed 'Bongbong,' was the first White House visit by a politician from the Philippines in ten years. They decided on greater military cooperation in an attempt to restore US-Philippine relations in the year after he took power from Rodrigo Duterte, who's hardline, nationalist policies put him at odds with the Biden administration.

ARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT An English photographer has captured the brutal world of cockfighting in the Philippines in a series of stunning photographs. Between 2019 and 2020, John Bolloten, of Bradford, England, documented the cockfights in Pasay City Cockpit, Manila (left). The photographs depict birds armed with 3-inch blade leg-spurs (top-right) who are 'hack fighting' as they're forced to fight each other to the death. Spectators (bottom right) can also be seen betting on the brutal wars that kill up to 30 million birds per year and up to £9.6 million in government revenue each month. Mr Bolloten said that although cockfighting was a "difficult thing to monitor" and a'stense climate,' it was important to record the 6000-year history 'honestly'.

The annual drills by the long-serving treaty allies, Balikatan, will run up to April 28 and include more than 17,600 military troops, as well as a live-fire drill. It will be the first demonstration of American firepower in Asia as the Biden administration expands an arc of alliances to better combat China, including a potential war against Taiwan, an island democracy that Beijing claims to be its own. Chinese warships and aircraft were still operating around Taiwan, Taipei's defence ministry said, a day after Beijing declared an end to the massive war games. China announced Monday that a three-day Chinese military exercise that mimicked strike operations and a blockade of self-ruled, democratic Taiwan, which Beijing considers part of its territory. However, Taiwan's defense ministry said it had seen nine Chinese warships and 26 aircraft around the island as of 11:00 a.m. (0300 GMT) on Tuesday.

On February 6, the Chinese ship (pictured shining the green light) also manoeuvred dangerously close, about 450 feet, to prevent the Philippine patrol vessel BRP Malapascua from approaching Second Thomas Shoal, a submerged reef that has been occupied by Philippine forces, according to a Philippine coast guard. In 2022 alone, the Philippines has registered nearly 200 diplomatic protests against China's vigorous operations in the disputed waters. The incident occurred during rising tensions between the US and China, the Philippines' ally. Earlier this month, Washington reached an agreement with Manila to gain access to four additional military bases in the Philippines, days before a US warplane shot down a Chinese spy balloon that had flown over American airspace.

The US and the Philippines signed an agreement on Thursday to raise America's military presence in the Southeast Asian nation, effectively giving Washington new ground to push up aggression against China. According to the latest terms of the deal, defence minister Lloyd Austin (right in the Philippines) will have access to four more Philippine military camps, stitching up a banner of alliances around China stretching thousands of miles from South Korea and Japan to Australia (main). It comes as Taiwan yesterday scrambled fighter jets and activated its missile systems in response to the most threatening military maneuvers from Beijing in recent memory, with up to 20 Chinese aircraft crossing the central line of the Taiwan Strait

The Philippines was'seriously concerned' by a news that China had reclaimed several unoccupied areas of the Spratly Islands, according to the Philippines (pictured). Bloomberg announced that new land formations have emerged around the contested Islands in the sea, where a Chinese vessel with a hydraulic excavator has been seen operating in recent years. "We are extremely worried,' the Philippine foreign ministry said this week, because such conduct violates the Declaration of Conduct on the South China Sea's efforts on self-restraint and the 2016 Arbitral Award.' Other departments had been asked to look at the report, according to the ministry. Beijing claims that over half of the country's resource-rich waterway, which sees trillions of dollars in trade every year. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan are among the islands' rivalries. China has dismissed a 2012 decision by a UN-backed tribunal that the country's assertion is baseless. Over the past few years, the Chinese government has constructed military installations and airstrips, as well as artificial islands on reefs in the contested waters.

Around 300 troops were sent to participate in an amphibious drill held on an uninhabited beach in Zambales province, about 150 miles east of Scarborough Shoal, which China seized from the Philippines in 2012. Images of the drills displayed striking photos of platoons storming beaches from amphibious landing craft, while US marines were seen instructing Philippine soldiers on the use of specific military arms and weapons. In the drills, a small group of South Korean and Japanese troops served as well. The KAMANDAG - the Philippines' acronym for 'Cooperation of the Warriors of the Sea' - started on Monday and will be held throughout the country's largest island of Luzon until October 14.

Seagal, a long-time President Putin supporter, has returned to Russian state television to defend his visit to Olenivka Prison in Donbas, where at least 50 Ukrainian POWs burned to death last month. The 70-year-old former action film actor said he went there to make an 'objective' film before spouting Kremlin propaganda that Ukraine was to blame, despite the fact that US-built HIMARS missiles were used in the attack. That is nonsense, according to Ukraine and western experts: The jailer's body would have been blown to bits during a HIMARS attack, but the evidence instead points to an intense fire raging within the building itself, which Ukraine blaming Russia for starting.

Steven Seagal, an American actor, was photographed visiting a prison camp in Olenivka, which housed hundreds of Ukrainian prisoners, just days after an explosion killed at least 50 people on July 29. After Putin granted him citizenship and handover his Russian passport in 2016, Seagal was banned from entering Ukraine for five years. Seagal said in February that the majority of us have acquaintances and relatives in Russia and Ukraine. Both as a family and fully agree that it is a foreign entity investing significant sums of money on propaganda to compel the two countries to be at odds with each other.