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All right, so the Philippines will be stripped of its Generalized Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+) tariff privileges by the European Union (EU). The reason is that the EU finds the human rights situation in the country disturbing and so to make sure the country will do something about it they need to impose a harsh economic penalty.

Under the GSP+ tariff scheme, 6,200 Philippine products including fruits, textile, optical products, metals, electrical machinery, and vehicle parts are accepted duty-free. That means zero tariffs. In 2018 alone, that amounted to €1.9 billion.

However, starting on Monday, exporters will now be paying around 20% on tariffs. But the reason could simply be based on hollow grounds: what could be interpreted as gossips, false information, lobbying from the opposition, highly exaggerated reports and figures, blown-up descriptions of the situation on the ground, lop-sided and biased media reports, and so on.

In the global economic war, influential countries are trying to build up clout through partnerships. While the EU's real intention may be genuinely noble, it might lose some important points in the competition against China.

In addition to China showering so many countries with economic grants, it also has a very large domestic market the entry to which does not require certain measures on democracy, human rights, press freedom, and so on.

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Sources:
1. https://rappler.com/business/european-union-lawmakers-revoke-gsp-tariff-perks-philippines?fbclid=IwAR3I6HN3QZXfGY9cUXA-J2Yf9arRhsJRUSsRehyK8HjwYW8w47l4TXuSWVo
2. https://rappler.com/nation/death-penalty-threat-tariff-perks-abante-not-costly

If i am not wrong, all these accusations seems to have stemmed from the strong-arm actions of Rodrigo Duerte. I heard about him in international news when he had given a statement about executing drug dealers to deal with the drug menace. I think the EU and other western countries are very easily taken for a ride on the basis of certain left-leaning bodies projecting human rights abuses. The judgement should be left to the people of phillipines and their democratically elected president.

Yet, the west, particularly EU seems to always have a desire to compensate for their own historically violent past by taking this "kitten on a stove" approach to allegations of human rights violations from motivated groups like you pointed out. Though i doubt that such actions will push anyone towards China, atleast not the SEA countries facing their expnasionist policies.

Public groups within Phillipines should lobby the EU in such cases rather than making a deal with the devil that is the CCP.

I don't think so, the EU have tried to caution Rodrigo Duterte on some of his policies in the country since he came to power in 2016, but from what it looks like, Rodrigo has been defiant to the EU's concerns, even calling the union 'stupid' at one point, see the exerpts below:
'Rodrigo vs the EU' seems to have been brewing for some years now, in 2018, after Duterte had initially issued threats of rejecting any donations from EU, he and his administration rejected aids sent from the EU to their country.
Source: https://www.philstar.com/business/2020/09/18/2043413/philippines-sees-no-reason-eu-revoke-trade-perks

Removing Gsp+ tariff privilege at this period in time will be indeed devastating for exporters in the Philippines, while the pandemic will make the situation even worse. Rodrigo Duterte and his administration have to come to an agreement to either abide by the EU's policies on human rights/political issues or just pull out from the organization totally.

See China is trying to build an army , not comprising of soliders but actually of the indebted neighboring countries   together , in such a way that this would harm nations like India if they started a war or something.

But, when we are talking about the situation of China , yes it is not that worse but they have had rumors of two more potent virus stains of pandemic potential.

The economy of China is also hit , but not as bad as these countries,
 •I do believe it's extension of their scheme to earn favor of the nations to help them eventually if something happens.

I don't believe they are feeling bad about the virus Contamination which is 100% their fault for sure.

I'm starting to think that we gonna have to ban all political ideology and replace politicians with managers that solve particular problems in their countries. Because right now there are too many of extremely low quality politicians that lobby their own interests for the taxpayer money and at the same time pushing EU towards the wrong way. It is like some of these politicians got their KPI, their close friends getting boost for their business, and someone else stayed silent because you won't argue with human rights. EU residents are kinda fucked in this chain.
Asia always was like another world and Rodrigo Duerte is far not the worst guy. China always had a lot of shitheads in their government and pretty often their politics turn completely crazy but when it comes about Chinese market then money makes everyone in EU fucking blind.

This development  is very alarming because there could be a possibility that other trading partners of the Philippines that are allied with EU's human rights policy will also do the same like what EU have done - which could be tantamount to economic sabotage.

At this point, the Philippines will have no recourse but to strengthen trade relations with China or other possible trading partners, although they don't interfere with our local policies, I doubt they will forge more trade agreements with the Philippines without getting any concessions in return - one of which is the Philippines stance in South China Sea issue.

Either way, the Philippine's economy would be at a disadvantage in these unfair trading policies.

When Duterte was still campaigning for the presidency, and even when he was still a local chief executive with no dreams whatsoever of making it to national politics, he was already very transparent of his strong stance against drugs. And yet, on this very same platform and with his track record against drugs, he, the dark-horse candidate, was able to secure a landslide victory as president.

4 years within his term and with what others would call as violent and dirty drug war, he is still enjoying high approval, trust, and satisfaction ratings among his people.

Could it be that the man's defiant and very vocal attitude, often cursing and using words as rough and unstatesmanlike as stupid, son of a bitch, and so on against prominent western leaders, is the reason for being economically punished by international communities? Could it be that his strong independent policies often laced with anti-western pronouncements are really the reason why he is being so disliked among western leaders?

Are the same economic penalties meted on countries with similar, yet relatively more quiet, strong stance against illegal drugs? The neighboring Indonesia's Jokowi, for example, has even executed a number of foreign nationals in the name of the same drug war.

After the crisis that occurred due to the COVID19 virus, many countries are trying to pressure other countries to pay more money and in the end, the weaker party will bear the cost of the economic conflict.

Considering apple is moving to India a bit, other nations trying to find manufacturing places in India, Belgium, Bangladesh, Pakistan and many more like that will eventually start to hurt China.

China already made so much money that they could just invest that into other nations and get money that way, if you own Mercedes 20% shares in china, it is still a company run in Germany but it doesn't matter anymore because 1/5 profits goes to china now, that type of logic could still help them however in the long run I feel like more and more companies will leave, they can't do it right away but over time it will happen. When that happens the results will be felt in China over long years, it will eventually hurt them a lot once again and they will stop with human right violations.

Philippines and for EU on other side of the world. Only stuff that cant be acquired from elsewhere should be traded between such countries. Other stuff EU and Philippines should acquire from countries that are closer to them. This way a lot of cost the shipping and that shipping also add a lot to worlds pollution. 

Politics should continue to exist because that is the only way that differing beliefs can co-exist. The problem with the world right now is the extreme demagougery and a complete lack of any kind of bipartisan agreements between parties on the left and the right. I think the left is to blame for getting us to this point because they over spent their goodwill from all the goody-feely years of "multi-culturalism". While multi-culturalism in itself was a beautiful concept, the left sabotaged it by the targeted freebies in the name of minorities. Be it immigration, job reservations, all of this "positive-action" was overdone for consolidation of vote banks.No doubt that the residents, as you say, are fucked.

As @Darker45 too pointed out, this may have more to do with Duterte ruffling feathers amongst EU politicians by his "I don't owe you shit" attitude. It would be interesting to know the actual impression that Filipinos have about the human rights impact of Duterte's personal drug war. If there have been reports of abuse, are they actually documented or this is just because EU politicians don't want an end to the lucrative drug market?? West is the biggest consumer of drugs and its own drug war has always been an irony.

This is a continuation of the EU resolution condemning alleged human rights violations by the Duterte administration. Due to the absence of significant progress and ignorance of EU criticism of the lawless killings carried out by the Philippine government authorities under Duterte. The EU assessed that the government and legal authorities in the Philippines could not punish Duterte, so the resolution was passed in the hope that the international community would pay attention to human rights issues in the country.

What the European Union has done is similar to what has been done by the United States Government in 25 countries, the majority of which are recipients of Chinese OBOR assistance, including China. USTR has designated 25 countries as developed countries and not developing countries so that they do not get preferential tariffs from the US for import duties on goods they export to America. The EU's relationship with Duterte has been heating up since 2016 when Duterte carried out a massacre under the pretext, the war on drugs, the EU criticism has been met with scorn by Duterte.

Lol. This is easily one of the silliest statements that I have read recently. China and freedom don't usually mix well together op and almost everyone knows this. Their policies aren't as radical as North Korea, but they still impose restrictions to a large extent.

These restrictions are the reason why they haven't fully developed yet. Currently, thanks to the entire Corona origin fiasco, more and more countries are steering clear of China.

Even though EU policies might hurt certain countries as you mentioned, this doesn't automatically mean that they will shift away from them to other nations.

Honestly I am getting tired of this drama. Philippines is an independent country and the EU can't dictate their policies. And it is so hypocritical to blame Philippines when many of the EU nations are supplying weapons to the worst human rights violator in the world (Saudi Arabia). If they want to criticize Philippines, then they should criticize the human rights violations in Saudi Arabia as well.

I do not see this move as something created exclusively in the minds of EU politicians, but at least for me and more than obvious pressure on the Philippines to change one of the very controversial decisions for their American friends. I have already written a post about this in a topic about the Philippines, but it is about the U.S.-Philippines Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) (https://thediplomat.com/2020/06/in-sudden-step-philippines-reverses-course-on-ending-us-visiting-forces-agreement-for-now/) which is currently suspended and if it stays that way it will prevent the US military from being present in the area that is very important to them.

Let no one be deceived that the USA has not had much influence over the EU since the end of World War II - and that influence is still very great. Although some may classify something like this as conspiracy theories, the political background of such decisions is generally much more complex than the fact that the EU decided something because it has some benefits from it.

I believe this is literally the reverse of what is going on and China is not getting more customers, it is literally the opposite. The fact that countries realized that they "need" China or they would bankrupt made them realize that they need two things; One is have another place in the world like China, if they are all alone in making stuff and there is no proper competition in the world, it would hurt all nations but china, we need another place like it and India emerges as the big candidate so far, secondly they also need to make sure that they have some local stuff as well, the more stuff you make in your own nation and sell to other nations the more money you make, obviously you are not going to be China, but you could move some of it to your own nation and make 3x of the profit that way by selling to other nations.

Do you really think that EU, which is already pretty slow to take any action, would do anything if they weren't sure that it's 100% true? If they indeed had some motive to crush Philippines economy for some really strange reason, because what would they gain, then they would have acted much more harshly and much more sooner. This all just sounds like a conspiracy theory to whitewash Duterte's crimes, which is really lame, because Duterte himself isn't really hiding that he wants anyone related to drug use to get killed.

Duterte has been abiding, but I don't think that he should be pressured this way, this is already economic sanctions in paper, and EU and US are only imposing it rouge nations, so Philippines is not consider to be an enemy of EU?

And why would they forced another sovereign nation to follow their rules? I think there's more to it, perhaps they just want Duterte to be ousted and some Filipinos outside of the country are conniving to get him out of the government. Just look at how they shutdown those oligarchs in the country, like this

(https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/10/world/asia/philippines-congress-media-duterte-abs-cbn.html).

So "war on drugs" and now "freedom of speech" crackdowns. Someone needs to do something about the Duterte adminstration, whether it is a country, group of individuals, specially outside the Philippines. But the thing is that he still has the support of the Filipinos and with this move, they drove off the Philippines to look for countries like it's neighbouring China.

So where is the silly statement there? I'm not sure you got the quoted statement right but we're probably saying the same thing.


No, of course, not. But if there is an available option where high tariffs are not imposed and where standards are not so stringent and wide as to include press freedom, human rights, and so on, they might probably leave EU.


I believe the intention was never to crush the Philippine economy. They won't gain anything from it. But with that very harsh economic imposition is a very strong statement probably saying, "Shut your effin dirty mouth up and toe the line. You know we can make it economically harder for you!"

I don't understand the issue of the EU with killing drug criminals. The Philippines doesn't even have a death penalty. And even the same tariff perks are being held hostage against the country possibly imposing death sentence to drug criminals. I mean, isn't it something that should be left to the sovereign country to decide?

I still believe that Duterte's war on drugs was a success. Thousands became collateral casualty, but the death rates from overdose and drug-related violence. Some of the drug lords were killed and some others were forced to flee towards "friendly" countries. Soft approach towards crime seldom works in third-world nations. The "iron-hand" approach is needed, just like what Duterte is doing.

Since 2018, Duterte has drawn closer to China and Duterte has realized that China's presence in the Asian region is more important and must be considered than the presence of the United States. Although there was a tug of war between the Philippines and America regarding the Philippines 'support for the United States' military maneuvers in the South China Sea, in the end Duterte decided to side with China and not join the American and Australian military alliance.

This shows that the dynamics of Xi and Duterte's relationship have ups and downs, it's just that for the Philippines which is arguing with China over territorial claims in the South China Sea, China's military intimidation is more frightening than America's, besides Xi's support for Duterte to overcome protesters who criticize regional policies. Duterte, who is pro-China, has made the Philippines even less inclined. There is no free lunch.

Prior to this, the EU demands the Philippine Government to drop the charges against Maria Ressa and Reynaldo Santos Jr., who are both connected to the Rappler, which is the same article shared in the post. Apparently, a private citizen filed a case against the two for a malicious article they published against this private citizen and the Philippine court found them both guilty.
- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/maria-ressa-european-parliament-urges-philippines-drop-charges-rappler-ceo/
(I think this article is one sided too.)

Philippine Government remained strong and even dared the EU to just do it.
- https://www.manilatimes.net/2020/09/19/business/business-top/palace-to-eu-go-ahead-revoke-gsp-perks/769519/
(In this article, EU also called on the release of a senator who is currently detained for drug charges.)

EU is imposing their will to an INDEPENDENT developing country by taking down previously agreed trade agreements. That's just fucked up man. If that isn't coercion and power trip, then I don't know what is. I also see this as a political move.

......

Looking at the data on Philippine exports, I can see why the Philippine Government remained firm. Not many member countries of EU are in the top export partners. For sure the removal of tariff privileges will sting a bit on the Philippine economy but I don't think it's that significant to bring the country down. They can have new deals with its top Asian trading partners or with other emerging neighbors.

EXPORTS

Top countries:
http://www.psa.gov.ph/sites/default/files/itsd/Fig_4_3.PNG

Economic bloc:
http://www.psa.gov.ph/sites/default/files/itsd/Fig_5_3.PNG
- http://www.psa.gov.ph/content/highlights-philippine-export-and-import-statistics-january-2020

.......

I think it's relevant to see data on Philippine Importations too. It's only logical for the Philippine Government to retaliate against EU member countries.

IMPORTS

http://www.psa.gov.ph/sites/default/files/itsd/Fig_8_0.PNG

http://www.psa.gov.ph/sites/default/files/itsd/Fig_9_0.PNG

Because who says the world is already past the colonization era? The colonization has just shifted into other forms but still colonization, imposition of other people's standards on other countries which are different culturally and traditionally. They want others to dance their tune or else they won't give them the economic privileges they badly need. This is what happens to the Philippines. They cannot be independent because they are a poor country. 

I don't think that Duterte is either pro-Chinese or pro-US though, what he is doing is just playing his cards right. Well, there could be arguments that his war or drugs is state sponsored and that's why EU and the rest of the world believed. But up to know, there is still proliferation of drugs in the Philippines and I will say that the battle will be ongoing and so is the economic hostage being used by UE. And I doubt that he himself will buckle down to this kind of pressures. He has strong willed, politically and doesn't back down. He attacks Trump, the Pope, the wealthy and the rich in the Philippines. So probably he will go to the Chinese because of this act of economic sabotage and I'm sure he still has the backing of the US government though,

https://rappler.com/nation/duterte-grants-absolute-pardon-us-marine-pemberton

I'm sure something is in the 'works', it was reported that the Philippines will get access to Covid-19 vaccine, although it has been denied by the government,

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1334186/for-covid-19-vaccines-locsin-says-no-exchange-for-pemberton-pardon

This isn't a probability anymore because that's exactly what the Chinese government are doing. Their presence can be felt in most countries in africa, they're responsible for most development ongoing in that region. China knows there's lots of untapped opportunity in africa and are doing everything humanly possible to dominate.

Credit has to be given when something is been done right, the Chinese government's are improving alot of counties economy and if that means they're building an army for themselves that's not much of a problem provided they're not forcing it on the countries.

For the next 2-3 decades, if you want the maximum returns, then you should invest in Africa. It was China during the 1990s and the first decade of 2000. And then it was developing markets such as India and Brazil during the last decade. But now all these markets are saturated and it's Africa's turn. Many of the African countries will witness steep economic growth in the next few decades. The Chinese are aware of this, and that's why they are investing there.

Pres. Duterte has had his sights set on China and his pivot away from the USA when he assumed office. He was probably preparing for something like this to happen and he knows Asian neighbors like China and long-time 'friend' Japan will continue to respect the country's jurisdiction unlike those of "human rights countries" who are still acting as big brother. Yes, there has been territorial disputes among Asian neighbors but that's another matter of discussion.

This "setback" is minor but will have a bigger impact because of the pandemic. I think he and his economic team was able to establish a strong foundation in the four years of his Presidency. The Government will continue as usual with the projects laid out already and form new partnerships with other countries willing to trade building stronger ties in the process.

EU might be bigger right now but Asia is growing fast. In the next few years, Asia could surpass EU.
 
Yeah he had multiple run ins with human rights groups way before he became known on a National level. I didn't know him and how he transformed his city into a what it is today - top class - until months prior to the 2016 Presidential election.

The Man has a poor image internationally and he pretty much said he doesn't give a damn since day 1 of his Presidency. There are definitely forces at work that's tarnishing the image of Pres. Duterte. If I'm not mistaken, it all started with a drug war report from Rappler. That news has long been debunked though. At first, she told everyone that the data came from the PNP themselves but later retracted that they're from a different source.but despite that, Ressa (Rappler's CEO) and the people behind her kept on inflating the numbers - Ressa, Coronel and Rappler concocted false ‘27,000 killed’ number in anti-drug war (https://rigobertotiglao.com/2020/07/01/ressa-coronel-and-rappler-concocted-false-27000-killed-number-in-anti-drug-war/).   

I don't know what the President's PR team (if he had any) are actually doing about this but perhaps the President himself instructed them to focus on communicating with the locals. The feel I get is that he wanted to talk and sit down with locals from far areas and let them know the Government is here to help. The President might have thought it's the best way to stop the NPA terrorists from fooling and recruiting them.

It seems to be the reason, by the looks of it. Besides, I see no sense of urgency from the administration to withdraw with their bloody fight, or let's say patching up the issue at hand. What's worse is that, they even fanned those flames with this seemingly unyielding-attitude. Might be because, common Filipinos (exporters, and the likes) is the one who would suffer in this event, and perhaps not them.

Take a look at this:
Source: https://globalnation.inquirer.net/190968/go-ahead-palace-dares-eu-to-revoke-phs-tariff-perks-over-human-rights-violations

China indeed imitates what America did in China, therefore, why did China build Africa with the one belt one road program, the geographical proximity of Africa to Europe will accelerate the transportation of production products to Europe which means cost efficiency, besides because the majority of African countries are still classified as third world countries (poor countries) so that they get cut in import duties in many developed countries, which facilitate market penetration.

China is making its own supply chain system. Semi-finished goods are produced and shipped from China to Africa and then finished goods are exported from Africa to Europe. So China won a lot, the manufacturers that supported the OBOR program continued to produce, and the semi-finished material processing industry was also running. What China is doing is imitating, not following America, if it follows America, then China is subject to America and is not sovereign.

It's not that he decided China, perhaps the Philippines will get more benefit from it instead of having the US on his side. Although this has open up a lot of influx of Chinese in the Philippines specially with the POGO with give the government another extra billions which can help the Duterte administration with their 'build, build' slogan.

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/03/10/20/pogos-are-clean-duterte-tells-filipinos

But he is not totally shutting down the US, in fact he just issue a Presidential pardon to one US citizen who has been convicted of killing a Filipina. Which the adminstration received a lot of backlashed from the victims family and the rest of the country.


Still volatile though, and I agree that it's not as close as we think. They still have the West Philippine Sea issue to settle down and I would say that the Philippine is still divided in the case. Majority wanted to reclaim our rights, but others say that it will lead to a China war wherein we don't have any chances. And if the latter is the case, who is going to be on the side of the Philippines, it will be the US.

Based on what I know, they had a prior agreement based on the attributes a trading partner must have, plus, there was already a warning made back then in 2017 about EU removing their GSP rights, so it isn't really that odd that they removed it now after 3 years, seeing as there's no improvement on the attitude of President Duterte. You can see this in the links provided by OP.

This is basically a fight between the humanitarian side (EU) and Duterte with the realistic side, with the former holding the economic privileges of the latter as a hostage, which is, in one way or another, pretty stupid. I can't agree with how Duterte did the Drug war, a lot of casualties were made yes, but you can't' disagree that his actions did indeed help remove drugs from the country.

Duterte would inevitably be damaged by this no matter what, it is the economic privilege of the country his reign is in after all. EU does account for the 4th biggest trading partner the PH has, but as for the numbers I'm not particularly sure. If China would support PH with trading at this point and possibly fill the void, then Duterte can basically skim over this issue and possibly live on with his unyielding attitude regarding the issue.

I don't know how much Duterte can trust China. If the spat with EU goes out of control, then Philippines may become over dependent on China. And the Chinese are experts in exploiting such situations. And now let's not forget the fact that China is locked in a decades-long territorial dispute with the Philippines, over the Scarborough Shoal and some of the other islets in South China Sea.

The arms war between the Philippines and China will not happen in the near future because China's strategy is to minimize America's presence in Asia, even the American maneuvers in the South China Sea are ignored by China. If China starts combat, there is the legitimacy for America's presence in the South China Sea which will dissolve the regional design that China has been drafting so far. China does not want to be ashamed and loses face, because in fact, America's military power is greater than China, besides that the Chinese army has no experience in fighting. China's control around the South China Sea will not be through violence but rather through soft diplomacy with the diaspora and approaches through lobbying with oligarchs so that many government policies of a country will be pro-China.

The cost of Chinese diplomacy will remain cheap because it only needs to prepare facilitation payments to lobby government officials of a country, while the investment can follow the OBOR protocol.

I think America is just the general term for all Western countries. China is trying to influence in conflict with most western countries. The Chinese strategy is to minimise American influence all around the world, not only Pacific. As America was the last super power. For example, China his heavily investing in Africa and also south America. I think China wants to be a super power themselves nd for that they are trying to secure high commodity countries all around the world. Chinese ownership in foreign companies is increasing every year and another way to influence countries.

A lot of western companies (and even sovereign wealth funds from the western nations) have invested in the Chinese stock market. Chinese companies such as Alibaba do have partial foreign ownership. So what's wrong, if the Chinese investors purchase shares of Western corporations? On the other hand, Americans and Europeans should be concerned about the growing Arab ownership in various Western firms.

You have a really good point here, they are always trying to enforce their own way of living on other smaller countries.
I think every country should be allowed to do things the way they think is best for them, because before now there has been what’s called tradition and some of them you can’t overlook, and things like that.

Every country knows what’s best for them and should be allowed to follow that, as long it’s not something that’s going to be seen as an oppression on the side of their citizens.

What people do not understand about sanctions and to try and rule other nations as well with it is the fact that every nation has their own rights to put up sanctions against another nation, if you need them it is your own problem. For example if USA puts up sanctions against China and china sees this as a bad thing but Americans don't care, that means it is a problem for china not for USA.

Same goes for Philippines as well, if you ever think that EU putting up sanctions against you is a way for them to control you, that means you are not strong enough to live yourself and you need EU to continue, which is by nature is wrong and you should fix that. Nobody should be forced to deal with other nations to be good to begin with, you should be good without them as well, you should be nation that people want to trade, not threaten you with it.

this is a fake news actually. Its not EU that sanctions this, they can't do this. its just the faction of EU, some douchebag who just suggested to EU to sanction Philippines to its tariff and Filipinos also listen when in fact the law can't allow this. rappler and all the media in the Philippines are all owned by the bastards yellow who thinks they are the ones telling the truth. THIS IS FAKE NEWS.

EU would never do that in times of Crisis. don't listen to this bullshit.

I tend to agree with you by this statement.
I don't really think the EU has to do something between China and the Philippines. Think first, the Philippines is an independent country. Probably I have doubt that it could be they are just igniting a fire. It seems like the EU is doing something under the table just to be able to be even with their competition. However, China is getting better. To the point that even the EU would create these kinds of penalties.

I'm also not sure why does EU did not investigate further regarding the running admin that the Philippines had. It seems like their puppets has been disconnected from their previous powers and were replace to something that they cannot control, IMO.

its not related to china however.

its about maria ressa the CEO of rappler.com that spreads lies. She has libel case for spreading lies to an individual in the philippines. now trying to convince Nuemann a MEMBER of European Parliamentary to file a resolution threatening trade sanction against Philippines if the cases against her isn't withdrawn.  its CASES because she also have tax evasion case and more which are proven to be true.

THIS WHY MARIA RESSA spreads this fake NEWS through that RAPPLER.com which is also the publication used for libel.

The EU is facing a budget shortfall following the exodus of the UK under #brexit. Tax hikes often naturally follow.

The philippines (and other nations, I would guess) were selected to fill the gap. It could be related to the philippines opposing china's expansion in the south china sea as some have said.

After former philippine President Ferdinand Marcos passed away in 1989. The billions of dollars his administration stole were never found. IMO the funds were likely stashed in an offshore tax haven. To a certain degree this reality could reflect why Duterte and many other world leaders implement certain policy decisions which are unpopular, unsupported and not understood by the majority of people.

Philippines is not opposing Chinas expansion, Duterte even wants to be part of the one belt road which is why Chinese government is providing assistance. and there is no filling the gap here. rappler news is not true. this is all propaganda of the liberals who can;t stand duterte being the winner in politics.   ;D

here is  maria ressa's bullshit tweet about it. https://twitter.com/mariaressa/status/1307277038361784321

she lost a made up case as neuman said. made up?  ;D she can't even provide details of her tax and the publication her rappler news as being the evidence of her libel is not made up.

Read this: https://globalnation.inquirer.net/191001/eu-parliament-threatens-to-revoke-ph-trade-perks

You are clearly a sycophant and credulous citizen of the Philippines. You tolerate the killings just because they are suspects, what are you, a vigilante? And that isn't a fake news you goof. To anyone who reads my post, do not believe this sycophant I quoted above because there are news articles stating that tariffs are being imposed by EU to the Philippines. He is a fanatic dog of the government called DDS. And most of them especially the uneducated one labels the critics of the administration the campaign color of the opposition (Dilawan/Yellow).

Regarding the tariff, it will hurt the exporters and imposing the tariffs to levy the president to answer for his crimes is a pretty shitty move for EU, I hope that the impose of tariffs do not go further as Philippine economy is still in shambles due to Billion Peso Corruption of PhilHealth and continuous lockdown that impairs workforce.

If you try to search for Philippines issues in Google, you can witness the greatest circus in your life. I am backing this claim because I am a citizen too.

If china's short term goal was to take over and conquer hong kong.

Would it make sense to oppose china's expansion in the south china sea. Knowing their next target for takeover would likely be the philippines years later.

China is currently building 3 or 4 additional aircraft carriers. Presumably their long term goals involve an expansion into the pacific.

Duterte's address speech to the United Nations General Assembly, he stressed that Philippines right on the disputed island against China.


https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/9/23/duterte-invokes-the-hague-ruling-against-china-in-un-address

As I have mentioned in my previous posts, the relationship is volatile and I don't think that Duterte is pro-China. And as a good leader, he weight his options, but if push becomes shove, the President will exercise his right to protect the Philippines against China.

There is no doubt that China is still having an expansionist mindset. With a population of 1.4 billion, they can easily afford to sacrifice millions of soldiers, in case any of these territorial disputes transform in to full-fledged war. They already claim almost 90% of the South China Sea. And none of their neighbors in that region have the military capability to take them on.

As of now, among the neighbors of China, only Japan and Russia are capable of taking part in a military confrontation against China (May be India as well, to a limited extent). None of the other countries can even last a few weeks against the Chinese military.

The former could actually be a factor in the EU decision but probably not the latter. Is EU that weak that they could be dictated by China in their decision making?


I would like to believe, and I guess, that most of it were found, even those offshore accounts. Unfortunately, only a tiny portion of those were successfully sequestered in favor of the government. The justice system in the country didn't improve much even after the unscrupulous dictator was overthrown in what was considered a generally peaceful revolution. Most of the cases against the dictator, his family and cronies, were dismissed.