Duterte and the New Oligarchs

Attack on telecoms providers could aid a crony

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s use of his State of the Nation Address this week to attack the country’s two major telecommunications providers, Globe, majority-owned by the Ayala Group, and Smart of the Metro-Pacific group, will go down as yet another of the self-inflicted wounds from which the Philippines has long suffered.

For sure, the nation …