Ricky Poca
US President Donald Trump’s sacking of James Comey as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) continues to draw flak from the public coming as it is after months of an investigation into Russia’s alleged interference in the US elections.
In firing Comey, Trump described the former FBI chief as a “showboat” who is disliked by the agency’s rank-and-file, but the US president’s claim was refuted by these same employees who thanked Comey for his service to the bureau.
Comey’s firing was questioned across the board by both Republican and Democratic factions of Congress who went bipartisan in soundly criticizing Trump’s decision to sack no less than the country’s top cop.
As per official announcement, Comey’s firing was also the recommendation of the US deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein who was also being investigated for the alleged Russian interference in the US elections.
At the same time Trump categorically declared that he does not have any business in Russia, yet he was photographed by Russian media talking with Russian foreign ministry officials while the American media were shut out of the activity.
There is a growing clamor for an independent investigation into Russian interference and influence in last year’s US elections that may have involved Trump and his people.
Despite the antagonistic attitude of the Duterte administration towards the US, personally I think a lot of Filipinos and even the rest of the world admire and praise the US for its exercise of its democracy and governance.
I join the others who think that the American people voted for a man who is not entirely honest with them and avoids claiming responsibility for whatever decisions he makes which is disappointing to say the least.
The US is now the laughing stock of the world and their election of Trump as president has become a lesson learned for the rest of the world like France whose citizens voted for Emmanuel Macron, a centrist and liberal over the ultra rightist candidate Le Pen.
In voting for Macron, the French clearly don’t want another Trump. Unlike the Duterte administration which is courting China and Russia, the American people’s aversion to Russia is approaching pre-Cold War levels.
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The US, the European Union and the United Nations are unhappy with the drug war being waged by the Duterte administration which had become bloody with the rampant extrajudicial killings, and it didn’t help that the UN rapporteur who visited the country came out with some unfavorable comments on it.
But the President’s apologists have reiterated that the government isn’t sponsoring EJKs and his standing order to police is to shoot only to protect themselves from criminals resorting to violence in resisting arrest.
The drug menace in the country is quite pervasive which is why former senator and now incoming Foreign Secretary Allan Peter Cayetano’s invitation to foreign media to visit the country and assess the situation is most welcome.