DID YOU HEAR WHAT WE HEARD?

LESS THAN NEWS, MORE THAN RUMOR

DUTERTE WOULD LOVE NEW U.S. STATE CHIEF

Rex Tillerson, at confirmation hearings on his appointments as U.S. state secretary, said he can’t judge the abuses on human rights in Russia, Saudi Arabia and the Philippines until he’d have intelligence briefings.

Tillerson ignored, according to Sarah Margon, Washington director of Human Rights Watch, “the U.S. government’s own previous findings.” Which cited the “Philippine government’s abusive ‘war on drugs’” which has resulted in more than 6,200 killings of drug suspects in the last six months.

Tillerson is “either ill-informed or apathetic to human rights issues.” Worrisome, she said, Tillerson “can’t be an effective state secretary.”

Which may just suit President Duterte fine: he wouldn’t be calling Tillerson son-of-a-whore.

LOOT GOT DUTERTE’S IRE

A line from a news story on the meeting of PDut with Visayas mayors tells us that the Cebuano general was specially mentioned. “He really got angry at Loot.”

The president is mad that the police and NBI still can’t nail him down?

WATCH ON ‘INDEPENDENTS’

Cebu City Councilors Dave Tumulak and Hans Abella, Team Rama defectors who vowed they’d stay independent, didn’t help the TR move to override Mayor Tomas Osmeña’s veto on three budget items. Abella joined BOPK nay-ers and Tumulak skipped the session. Even if they voted “yes” though, it would still be one vote short to override (the magic number is 12).

WHO GOT IT FOR HIM?

The question that follows each appointment of a Cebuano to Duterte’s government is: Who got it for him?

Answer: mostly someone close to Duterte from Cebu or Leyte. More recently, a Cebu native was appointed to a commission.