>>Mistake on our part.
I tried to come to some opinion and just couldn’t. Too confusing and too many pros and cons on each side.
One of the big cons is that without our military alliance with PI, Duterte is likely to align more closely with China. That is not good for us.
GHWB and Clinton left both PI and the USA in a bad spot when they closed Subic Bay, and then sold our nation out to China. GWB and Odinga made the relationship worse.
Trump and Duterte have similar objectives, and we could both benefit from repairing the damage done by the previous four administrations.
I have a good friend from the PI - she lives there but visits the US fairly often. Well connected large family. She said Dueterte is overwhelmingly popular and the main reason is his cleanup of drug lords and corruption. The drug crime and associated violence in the Philippines was absolutely horrific. So the Filipino people were fine with his methods.