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Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines, appears constantly on the 24-hour TV news channels playing in Filipino restaurants in Metro Vancouver.

The autocratic anti-Catholic populist is also on the front pages of ethnic newspapers in Filipino grocery stores near the Joyce-Collingwood SkyTrain Station and other Filipino neighbourhoods in Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey and Richmond.

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The strongman’s rugged face jumps off the leaflets distributed in Vancouver this week by some Filipino-Canadians, members of the third largest minority group in the country. The politicking is part of the lead-up to the May 13 midterm elections in the country of 105 million, which has 10 million expatriates overseas, many of them allowed to cast ballots.

This Easter weekend, Filipino Catholics in Canada are having to deal with how the Philippines president urged his followers in December to kill or rob Catholic priests, whom he referred to as “useless tools.” He also said the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, which Christians mark today, as “unworthy of belief.”