President Duterte’s Visit to Mindoro

It was March 29th, 2017 when the President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte visited Oriental Mindoro. He arrived in Socorro around 4.20pm and held a speech for 45 minutes. Everyone in the crowds was waiting to see and hear the president while he was joining the People’s Day Celebration at Barangay Batong Dalig. Crowds gathered together way before lunch to hear what he has got to say.

The hours of waiting was hard to take of course, but peoples been entertained by our leaders. Governor Alfonso Umali Jr., Congressman Paulino Salvador C. Leachon and Congressman Reynaldo V. Umali joined in to the concert held at the site and all of them sung for the Peoples popular songs.. So did some of the joining Mayors therefore the waiting was not as bad as it would have been without their “Singing Contest”.

With very little exemptions, all Mayors of Oriental and Occidental Mindoro where present. Some held speeches. The Governor, the Vice Governor and both of our congressman’s joined in, and everyone had somethings to say.

The first of the Manila Prominence, arriving by chopper was Secretary Emmanuel “Manny” Fantin Piñol. And he had also somethings to state. He informed the Public about his plans for Mindoro. Mentioning Manila, calling the City with Millions of people the “hungry mouth of the Philippines” he added how important Mindoro will be as producer of the urgently needed food products for the capital region in the future. Feeding all the People within the Manila area is one of the biggest challenge so Pinol, and Mindoro will be the Key Solution beside Quezon and Batangas Province to solve that problem.

He made clear, that he did not came to Mindoro right after his appointment as secretary of the Department of Agriculture by accident. He stay to his promises to help the people of our province to develop and prosper. Secretary Pinol also  informed the crowd that there will be changes in micro lending for farmers and fishermen (more on that in our next issue of Fortnightly Journal).

Finally, the chopper of the president arrived. Security was tied and everyone was envious on what the president have to say (and how many times he would be swearing of course).

In general, Digong did not said anything new, he thanked the People of Mindoro for their support, talked about China the United States of America and why he believes that peace is more important then conflicts in our region. He was happy to announce, that China lifted the travel- and Export-ban. Ask the Farmers to plant Calamansi, Pinjas and Banana as the demand in china is enormous and explained his support for Pinol’s plans for Mindoro. He also made clear that he will not break the friendly ties the Philippines have with the USA, but he cleared his position on how important a good and respectful relationship with china will be.

Regarding the over and over reports by some of the media that he might think about calling for martial law, he said : “Hindi talaga totoo! I was elected by the People of the Philippines to bring peace to our Nation, not to declare war on our people”.

He also defended his position on the war on drugs, talked about the situation regarding NPA, ISIS and other groups, and made clear that he is still willing to talk “sense into them”.. with one exemption, ISIS! Calling the all kind of names, Duterte promised to wipe them out. After calling to the European Union, he wants them to come here so he can slap them silly, the President left the scene and went back to Manila..

Everyone who was waiting for him to swear like a sailor, was pleased to notice that President Duterte will never change anymore. P…ng ina….

All in all, i can report that everyone was enjoying the day and it was with great honor to meet the man, who the Time Magazine listed as recent number one on their list of the most influential peoples in the world. That must hurt mister Trump…