by Emil Guillermo
The world feels upside down.
Donald Trump recently bragged that he did not take Greenland by force. That’s the bar now—an American president taking pride in what he didn’t do while everything around him fractures.
But while Trump reassured the world he wouldn’t invade Greenland, something far more disturbing was happening at home.
In Minneapolis, federal immigration enforcement ignited protests that now define the domestic conflict of this moment. Two people—Renee Good and Alexander Pretti—have been killed during aggressive ICE actions.
A federal judge rejected efforts to pause the Trump administration’s “Operation Metro Surge,” inflaming tensions even further.
The violence isn’t the only flashpoint. Federal agents also arrested journalists.
Independent reporter Georgia Fort—who livestreamed a January church protest against ICE—and Don Lemon, now working independently after years in cable news, were taken into custody on federal civil rights charges tied to coverage of that protest.
Lemon says he was reporting, not organizing. Fort livestreamed her arrest from her own front door.
Press freedom advocates from the Knight First Amendment Institute to the National Association of Black Journalists condemned the arrests as unprecedented attacks on the First Amendment. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called them unconstitutional. This is not incidental. It fits a pattern.
Across borders and inside them, fear has become policy. This is Trump’s new “world order.”
He has taken America First and twisted the Golden Rule into something darker and instantly recognizable to those who have lived under strongmen:
Do unto others first—before they get you
Filipinos recognize this instinct immediately. We’ve lived this playbook.
Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972 in the name of order. He shut down Congress. Silenced the press. Arrested critics. He claimed the nation was under threat and that extraordinary force was necessary. What followed wasn’t stability—it was theft, torture, disappearances, and decades of trauma.
Rodrigo Duterte updated the model. He didn’t bother with full martial law. Just Mindanao. Partial Martial. For the rest of the country , he ruled by spectacle and fear. He told police to kill suspected drug users. No warrants. No trials. Thousands dead. Each killing justified as necessary, patriotic, inevitable.
Trump’s version wears a suit and waves a flag. But the governing instinct is the same.
Rule by intimidation. Reward loyalty. Punish witnesses. Undermine institutions. Call criticism treason.
Marcos shut down newspapers. Duterte intimidated journalists. Trump doesn’t need to ban the press outright—he criminalizes it selectively. Sics Pam Bondi to apply an obscure law.
Arrest the reporter. Charge the witness. Drag the process out. Let fear do the rest.
That’s more efficient.
Filipinos learned you don’t need tanks in the streets when you can make filming the streets feel dangerous.
Duterte used death squads. Trump uses federal agencies, prosecutors, and endless process. Different tools. Same effect: silence.
And just like Marcos and Duterte, Trump wraps repression in nationalism. Marcos talked about saving the republic. Duterte talked about cleansing society. Trump talks about law and order, border security, and “America First.”
It’s always framed as protection. It’s always framed as emergency. And it’s always used to justify cruelty.
That logic extends abroad.
At Davos, Trump treated allies as adversaries and strongmen as peers. He scolded Europe. Dismissed NATO. Praised authoritarians. Left behind leaders openly questioning whether the U.S. can still be trusted.
This isn’t diplomacy. It’s ego masquerading as strategy.
Trump says he can end wars in 24 hours. That’s not a plan. That’s a return policy.
He imagines a “Board of Peace” with no rules, no institutions, no accountability—just strongmen posing for photos. Filipinos have seen this too: peace without process, order without justice, deals made at the top while bodies accumulate below.
This is not peace. It’s a selfie with oblivion. Back home, the same logic governs Minneapolis.
When federal agents arrest the journalists documenting their actions, they aren’t just detaining individuals. They’re sending a message: observe, but don’t expose.
Filipinos know that message well.
Marcos shut down the press. Duterte terrorized it. Trump simply makes journalism dangerous. He turns scrutiny into liability.
That domestic assault dovetails with Trump’s other legal controversies, including the release of the Epstein files—millions of pages revealing how power delays accountability, shields itself, and punishes those who pry too closely.
If the Epstein files show how the powerful evade scrutiny, the arrests of journalists show how scrutiny itself is now being punished.
Fear becomes both tactic and shield.
Trump could pivot. He could de-escalate. He could reaffirm that journalists—especially independent ones—are protected under the Constitution.
But he hasn’t. Because fear works.
Fear rallies supporters. Fear justifies escalation. Fear fills the vacuum where trust used to live.
Filipinos learned the hard way that strongmen don’t restore order. They erase accountability until there’s nothing left to restore.
So watch this moment closely—not just for Minneapolis, not just for journalists, not just for foreign policy, but for what we’re willing to tolerate before we name it.
When the state treats phones like weapons and journalists like conspirators, the First Amendment isn’t just threatened.
It’s on trial.
EMIL GUILLERMO is an award winning journalist, commentator, and stage monologist. He has written a column on Asian American and Filipino social, political and cultural issues since 1989. A former host of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” he wrote columns for the Star Bulletin and was on the editorial board of the Honolulu Advertiser.
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