[...] My contacts in the capital informed me via text messages that I had been “red-flagged,” clearly by the pro-US faction in the Philippine military. So before my presence was finally cleared from Manila, I was detained and held in a provisional military base in the city of Saguiaran. Here I was “softly” interrogated by military intelligence. A few steps away, a howitzer was firing artillery toward ISIS positions in Marawi, some 10 kilometers distant.
“So you believe the United States is responsible for spreading terrorism all over the world,” I was asked late at night by one of the officers, point blank. It was clear that someone ‘behind the scenes’ was busy studying my published work.
The Western establishment media and various servile NGOs (including those which are “defending human rights” in several rebellious and independent-minded countries) consistently demonize President Duterte, an anti-imperialist, progressive leader who enjoys a 75 percent approval rating. It is no secret there are two distinct fractions inside the military – one supports the president and his drive for independence from the West, and another, which is trained and often corrupted by Washington and other Western capitals.
The pro-Western fraction wanted me out, detained, perhaps even disappeared. The other one that stands by its president wanted me to see the truth, to be allowed into Marawi. [...]
