President Duterte Threatens to Declare War Against Canada Over Garbage
Meanwhile in the Philippines:
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte wants Canada to come get tons of trash that was wrongly sent to his country — and he’s threatening extreme steps if Canada doesn’t clean up the situation. “We’ll declare war against them,” Duterte said Tuesday.
The president was referring to a large shipment of municipal trash that has sat in Manila since its arrival in 2013 and 2014. The more than 100 shipping containers had been declared to hold recyclable plastic. But when the doors were opened, customs officials found “household trash, plastic bottles and bags, newspapers, and used adult diapers,” according to Filipino news outlet ABS-CBN.
“I will not allow that kind of s***,” Duterte said at a news conference Tuesday, adding that Canada has attempted to provide educational grant money to the Philippines — on the condition that it also accept the garbage.
Duterte said he wants the trash gone within a week, even if he has to return it by force. (…..)Duterte said he doesn’t care what Canada does with the garbage: “Eat it if you want to.” He jokingly suggested Canadians should prepare a gala reception to mark the repatriation of the refuse, which dates from the previous Filipino administration headed by President Benigno Aquino III.
NPR via a reader tip
“Prepare and celebrate,” Duterte said, “because your garbage is coming home.”
You can read more at the link, but one obvious question is why is a country as big as Canada exporting garbage to a country as small as the Philippines? Secondly what would a war between the Philippines and Canada look like?
Hilarious.
Speaking as someone in the country on the receiving end of Canada’s largess of trash, if the containers had held what they were supposed to have contained, there would have been no problem. There is a thriving recycling effort going on here in the Philippines from a grassroots level. “Junk shops” as they are known here in the Philippines are places where recyclable materials are gathered, separated, and bundled for shipping to recycling plants in-country or to plants in other nations where the recyclable material can be processed.
As for you asking about a war between the Philippines and Canada, I agree with Kevin Kim, it would be quite hilarious. However, I believe Duterte may have been talking not about a conventional war but an economic one because if the Philippines decided to recall its overseas workforce from Canada, that country would suffer great economic calamity in their hospitality and the medical services sectors. A full 30-35% of the nurses in Canadian hospitals now come from the Philippines and somewhere between 20 and 35 percent of the custodial, kitchen, and other staffs of some of Canada’s better hotels all come from the Philippines. So, if Duterte decided to withhold this resource, Canada would have a problem. Just my two cents. I don’t get to comment authoritatively much on this blog since I left Korea almost 20 years ago
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This story sounds familiar… BTW, the US could easily absorb any trained nurses displaced from Canada, as we have a shortage…
I don’t have detailed stats, and I have a limited experience with fewer than 20 hospitals and clinics in California, Texas, and Korea; but at Baylor in Dallas, MD Anderson in Houston, and a couple other places, nurses from the Philippines were directly responsible for performing the treatments that saved my life, including participation in surgies, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and blood transfusions after the chemo.
They were not the only ethnic group involved; but they were ubiquitous.
Duerte only hurting his own people when they lose their remittance money.
If South Korea took back its garbage, why can’t Canada? Apparently, Canadian garbage was sitting in the Philippines for 6 years.