Move UN out of US

Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III/ The Daily Tribune / 09-23-2013 MON

The Latin American community of nations was up in arms against the US last week. Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro was denied permission to fly through US air space en route to China. At the same time an official Venezuelan delegation to a United Nations (UN) conference was being given by the US a very difficult time obtaining visas, jeopardizing the country's participation in an important international discussion.

Just days prior to those incidents, Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff had already cancelled a scheduled meeting in the US with President Barack Obama in protest of the latter's National Security Agency (NSA) spying on the Venezuelan president's communications.

A month earlier in August, the plane of Bolivia's President Evo Morales, which was traveling home from Russia, became grounded in Austria after Spain, Portugal, and Italy abruptly blocked their airspace to it--a move that was later learned to have been made upon the request of the US, which suspected the presence of NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden on board.

Never mind if the hostile act of these countries endangered the lives of the Bolivian president and the other passengers on board. It was done all at the behest of the US, violating international law.

This incident, coupled with the latest US acts against Venezuela's Maduro, has prompted Morales to prepare a lawsuit against the US government for "crimes against humanity."

The Bolivian president now also proposes that the 33 members of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) withdraw their ambassadors to send a message that "The US cannot be allowed to continue with its policy of intimidation and blockading presidential flights."

These problems, with the increasingly overbearing US attitude toward all countries, is highlighted by revelations of the NSA's spying on the UN itself and all significant member-countries, leading to a UN warning to the US government. But why stop at just issuing a warning to the UN host country that is so incorrigibly abusive of the UN and its member-states? Why not move the UN out of the US once and for all to a country that is genuinely neutral and away from the snooping and abuses of the latter?

There are about a dozen countries that are internationally recognized as neutral: Austria, Costa Rica, Finland, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Malta, Panama, San Marino, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Geneva, Switzerland is the site of the headquarters of many international as well as UN family organizations, such as the International Red Cross and the UN High Commissioner on Refugees, among many others. But smaller countries that are entirely innocuous may be even better choices, such as the small republics of Malta or San Marino, which could never be suspected of having the capacity to spy or intimidate other countries; as they are expected to be the perfect host for the international community's center for dialogue and cooperation.

The idea of moving the UN headquarters out of New York is not a new one. Iran's leaders have raised this in the past, stressing that the US "has proved that it does not deserve to host the United Nations member states… but seeing as the articles of association of the UN state that the United Nations' permanent headquarters is located in New York, transfer of the headquarters requires rectification of the said articles of association."

Although some other suggested sites that are heavily tainted with anti-US sentiments, such as Darfur and Zimbabwe, don't seem appropriate, those two small republics (Malta and San Marino) seem most "neutral" among the neutrals.

There are many other advantages to moving the UN's headquarters out of the US. One of these is reducing the cost of maintenance and operation as New York is one of the most expensive cities in the world; same with saving $2 billion required for any renovation the UN's aging 60-year-old buildings and the replacement of asbestos components that proliferate in them. More importantly, this will end the perennial high handed bellyaching of the US over its comparatively higher share in funding the UN, said to constitute 22 percent and often made a basis by the US to pressure and manipulate various UN agencies to unfairly bend policies toward US interests. It's about time the five permanent and 10 non-permanent members of the Security Council augment their contributions.

A genuinely neutral location for the UN will really enhance the independence of the premier international forum for resolving the gravest issues of our world today; boost humanity's prospects for permanent peace and prosperity for mankind's children and grandchildren; and avoiding the dreaded final world war that will permanently poison the future of Earth.

(Tune in to 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN Destiny Cable Channel 8, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., also on www.gnntv-asia.com, this week on "Kudos MWSS: Water rates reduced"; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 09234095739)

Laying the premise

Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 09-18-2013 WED

The Yellow faction of the ruling class is laying the premise for the conviction by publicity of some of the leading lights of the political opposition. Consider these headlines: "3 senators amassed P581M in kickbacks" and "Exclusive: Napoles partied, joined Estrada family affairs," the latter of which unjustifiably drags the entire family into the picture.

The oligarchy's controlled mainstream and online media--from the Oink-quirer to Rap-purge--are blatantly sidestepping the main stories of the preeminent role of administration porkers (e.g., the Angaras and the Abads) in the entire pork system. While an administration ally like Ruffy Biazon has been included in the plunder case with Janet Lim-Napoles, the consensus is that such a move is mere tokenism.

Moreover, even if it has been repeatedly claimed that other administration allies will eventually be charged, the administration's operators are merely hoping that time and other issues will overtake the public's interest, allowing the Palace's protected species an easier exit.

This administration's complicity in the pork scams is as rooted to the system that has prevailed since 1986. As the inception of the pork barrel was made possible by the mother of the Yellow movement, Cory Aquino, how can we expect the son to be any different?

Former Senator and Marcos Press secretary Kit Tatad, who has reinforced his statesman stature several times over since retiring from elective politics, has written an exposé that has gone viral on the Internet of BS Aquino's day-long session with Napoles in Malacañang before the latter "surrendered."

Tatad exposed the secret August 28 closeting of Napoles with Lacierda and company in Malacañang before her publicized surrender, with BS Aquino joining them intermittently while attending to various events within the Palace grounds. Malacañang tries to belie the exposé by showing BS Aquino's engagement on that day, yet none of his scheduled activities negate Tatad's revelation about the closeting of Napoles in Malacañang.

But even without it, the general public had already believed that the suspicious behaviors of BS Aquino, Malacañang officials, and Cabinet members (e.g., calling Napoles "Ma'am," BS Aquino's deference to her, etc.) indicated long ties between the administration and Napoles.

Continuing with the Yellows' grand zarzuela, the other premise being laid that's farthest from the truth is that the "system" will now be cleansed with these plunder charges.

Truth is, the system will not change because the most fundamental cause of the corruption in our society persists and will become even stronger. The Tribune report of Charlie Manalo at the start of the week is more than enough proof: "'Epira flaws more costly than pork barrel scam – lawmaker'… The chairman of the House committee on energy wants a thorough review of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira), saying Filipinos may be losing more in high power rates compared to the alleged irregularities in the pork barrel funds involving businesswoman Janet Lim Napoles." Kudos to Oriental Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo Umali for raising this issue and Manalo for reporting it.

Manalo's report points to one of the root causes of the disproportionate concentration of wealth in our society and how these powerful economic interests play the most dominant role in a "system" that will continue to corrupt politicians of all stripes through other means than pork to get the legislation they want in order to feed their greedy schemes.

These economic powers who control mainstream media and finance much of the organized PR within social media are also directing the selective campaign on pork and will likely call off their attack dogs only when the right time comes--which is just before they completely suck in the administration "sow-lons."

Rep. Umali will, thus, have to watch out from hereon as he will be a target of these oligarchs, given his comment on the public's losses from Epira dwarfing the cost of legislative pork.

On the international front, the premise being laid by Western media on Syria's chemical weapons use is that the evidence from the United Nations investigation points to Bashar al-Assad's government--that is, that the chemical canisters bearing Cyrillic (Russian) markings point to chemical weapons supplied to the Syrian government during the Soviet era; that the quantities were huge (350 liters) and fired by rockets, etc.

The problem is Western media had already been projecting these conclusions long before the UN investigators had submitted their official findings and before the voluminous report can even be read through by the UN Security Council.

As always, the game is propaganda--setting the premise even before audiences can get the facts straight. Citizens of the world, beware.

(Tune in to 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN Destiny Cable Channel 8, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., also on www.gnntv-asia.com; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 09234095739)

People's triumphs

Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 09-16-2013 MON

The real anti-pork movement, which is shouting out loud for the biggest pork and porker to be eliminated, runs counter to the Yellows' efforts at limiting the scope of this crusade by leaving out BS Aquino and his presidential pork in all discussions.

The meager September 11 Edsa Sila (since I don't believe in them) "prayer rally" at the Edsa Shrine, led by another public relations man and highlighted by the speech of one of the oligarchy's icons, Solita Monsod, is another Yellow anti-pork activity where a ban on placards speaking against presidential pork and BS Aquino was imposed. The Philippine Daily Oink-quirer, in obvious support of it, even headlined, "Edsa Tayo: Leaner, meaner crowd but with more passion," when the truth is that the event was absolutely pathetic.

In contrast, it was the Friday the 13th anti-pork rally at the Luneta that was more authentic--highlighted by really outspoken and straightforward anti-pork crusaders who openly lambasted the biggest pork and porker, BS Aquino. I wanted to attend but had my GNN show taping on the Mindanao conflagration with Al Tillah (by phone patch from Mindanao), Bono Adaza, and Erik San Juan.

I watched the rally on the Internet and heard Party-list Rep. Neri Colmenares castigate BS Aquino for not rejecting pork even as VP Jojo Binay had already. Even though the Oink-quirer whittled the number of participants by half with the headline, "About 3,500 call for pork abolition in Luneta," the news still put the Yellows' Wednesday Edsa rally to shame.

The people's anti-pork campaign has succeeded in surmounting the formidable efforts at redirecting the campaign against BS Aquino and his cohorts despite the Yellows' massive media control. Though it is already a victory, it is only half the fight. Other administration and Yellow stooges in both houses of Congress, such as Angara, Drilon, Mar Roxas, the Abad husband-and-wife team (exemplars of fine Jesuit moral education) et al.--all much bigger porkers--are being spared the Commission on Audit hatchet job.

As such, the struggle to keep the anti-pork, anti-corruption crusade along the right path will continue well into the September 21 anti-pork rally in order for the people to discern the real from the fake.

On the global plane, the peoples-of-the-world won one round against the US and Western ruling classes in stopping their attack on Syria. We laud the efforts of Russia, through the brilliant diplomatic stratagem of President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov; the steadfastness of the Syrian Army; the unity of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) nations in and outside of the UN Security Council; and most of all, the Internet's alternative and social media, as well as the hundreds of thousands of anti-war marchers in the US and all over the world for this victory of peace over war.

Truth is the greatest weapon for the anti-war movement; and the ultimate truth is US capitalist-warmongers are at the core of such warmongering.

The truth in Syria is that the West and its Saudi-Qatari-Israeli partners have been on a campaign of destabilization in Syria from the onset of the civil war. The West had armed and infiltrated the internal "color" or "season" revolution (a la the "Arab Spring") in Syria, funding rallies and fielding armed agents provocateurs shooting at Syrian Army soldiers during mass demonstrations.

Based on United Nations data, of the 110,000 casualties of the Syrian civil war today, half are government troops or militia while only 30 percent are anti-Assad rebel-terrorists who are mostly male adult civilians. Eighty percent of refugees, meanwhile, are women and children, suggesting an organized exodus of families where males stay behind to wage the civil war.

Western propaganda, which some of the local Catholic priests have swallowed, is that Bashar al-Assad is a brutal dictator and the mastermind of the chemical gas attack that is giving Obama the reason to bomb Syria (the way the US did in Libya and killed more than Gaddafi could ever kill by putting terrorists in charge).

The fact is Syrian Christians, Alawites, Shiites, and even Sunnis who refuse the Western-backed rebels' atrocities are joining Assad's army against these rebel-terrorists and the foreign fighters sent in and armed by the US gang, who are, in fact, allied with the al-Qaeda and al-Nusra terror fronts.

Stopping the wars in the Middle East will end all wars under the ambit of Western imperialism. Without the total control of MidEast oil, the US cannot hope to succeed in its encirclement of Russia and, eventually, China.

There can and will be a 21st Century of universal peace when the world is finally rid of the idea of a lone "superpower" acting unilaterally as the global Wyatt Earp.

BRICS is the building block of global peace and prosperity on the principles of multipolarity, non-interference in nations' internal affairs, and their economic sovereignty (as embodied by a BRICS bank capitalized at $100 billion to counterbalance the International Monetary Fund's imposition of "privatization" economics).

It is therefore heartening to watch these victories. Corruption and war benefit only the ruling classes of each society, where ordinary people are always the main victims.

The progressive elimination of corruption and war thus becomes a triumph of the people.

(Tune in to 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN Destiny Cable Channel 8, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., also on www.gnntv-asia.com, this week on "Martial Law: Historical review"; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 09234095739)

9/11, WTC 7 revelations

DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / 9/11/2013 / Daily Tribune

Twelve years ago today, I was lying on my bed, sick and woozy, as I turned to cable TV, switching from channel to channel. Then the images suddenly froze on the scene of the Twin Towers in plumes of smoke, burning. Replays of the two planes crashing into the tall structures soon followed.

I stopped at one particular channel, CNN, as I was mesmerized by the clips for long, long minutes before I could think of the next thing, which was to rush to the Internet to get the reaction of my geopolitical "guru" at that time, Lyndon LaRouche, a legendary prophetic political-economic American philosopher and leader of the LaRouche Movement, whose analysis then perplexed me.

LaRouche believed that the complexity, not to mention extensive intelligence and resources, required for the World Trade Center (WTC) terror attacks could only have meant that states (governments) were behind it.

And if I recall correctly, despite the many long years since that initial moment of reading his commentary, LaRouche had already identified elements from within the US government or the Israeli Mossad as among the main suspects.

At that time, I couldn't even comprehend the meaning of it. How could the US cause the death of its own citizens? Why would Bush Jr., who had just become President, allow that? Why would Dick Cheney, his Vice President, similarly allow it? Does the Mossad have that capability?
I have to admit I was still skeptical of LaRouche's analysis then even though I was already a follower, but as I learned in the months after the 9/11 incident the many contrived aspects of the said terror attacks, I became convinced.

In the years that followed, thousands of US citizens, scientists, engineers, architects and families of victims who died in the Twin Towers have become convinced that the "terror attacks," including the buildings' collapse, were an "inside job." The evidence just kept pouring in as the worldwide movement demanding the reopening of the investigation into the 9/11 incident has grown.

This year, the movement has launched Rethink9/11.org to focus on WTC Building 7.
If the reader is still skeptical about 9/11 being an inside job, it would take all the columns of the next two weeks if I were to try to explain it here. I would therefore suggest visiting Rethink9/11.org to follow the hundreds upon hundreds of investigations conducted by competent civilian experts of different nationalities.

These individuals were all free to study with objectivity, unlike the investigations conducted by two US agencies, the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) and the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST), which reported conclusions that the late American National Science Medal winner, scientist Lynn Margulis (former wife of late physicist Carl Sagan), severely criticized.

We must first bring to the reader's attention WTC Building 7 because it was a 49-story structure one football field away from WTC 1 and 2, and with Buildings 5 and 6 sandwiched between them. Yet it burned and collapsed on its footprint at the speed of gravity, without any plane crashing into it.

Then, the government investigation claimed "office fire" melted and collapsed the building, a conclusion not supported by the history of burning buildings and by thousands of experts. And worse, some 185,101 tons of structural steel from Buildings 7, 1, and 2 were scrapped without being examined and shipped to China and India, with other debris sent to recycling yards in New Jersey.

Margulis thus said of the FEMA and NIST probes: "You can't do science when you are deprived of the evidence, and when your hypothesis is the least valid, instead of the most likely … The most likely hypothesis, in the case of Building 7, wasn't even mentioned. This is not science. So the claim is that it's something else? It's trying to prove preconceived ideas."

Indeed, the WTC official investigation was meant to be a cover-up. But evidence citizens innocently picked up during and after the buildings' collapse soon mounted, and ran the gamut from pictures taken from Ground Zero, to firemen's testimonies of explosions, as well as comparative videos of explosions, melting steel, plumes of dust that only explosions can create, spherical molten iron balls, steel beams cut clean, chemical nano-thermite, etc.

Why should anyone in the Philippines care about the truth in the so-called 9/11 terror attacks? Don't we have enough issues, i.e. pork barrel, Edsa Tayo (a.k.a. Edsa "Sila" of the oligarchy's patsies whom I reject), the Moro National Liberation Front's Zamboanga City attack (thanks to Aquino, Deles and Leonen's brilliant "a-peace-ment" and Edsa II's sabotage of Erap's pacification), bedeviling us?

Everyone should care because 9/11 reveals how power cabals that control money, politics and mainstream media can keep vital facts — such as WTC 7 — out of everyone's awareness and, in the process, murder thousands of innocents by creating decades-long "wars on terror" for profit.

Every Filipino should care because, in the Philippines, this cabal and its local counterparts have kept 100 million Filipinos perpetually addled in a state of perpetual poverty — and they're not about to stop anytime soon.

(Tune in to 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN Destiny Cable Channel 8, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., also on www.gnntv-asia.com, this week on "The MNLF rebellion redux"; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0923-4095739)

MRT ghost resurrects

DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / 9/9/2013 / Daily Tribune

The public relations operators of this administration probably thought the extortion scandal involving the First Family was finally buried when they put up that act of publicly shaming and "firing" a high-level official of the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) system. They were, after all, busy burying every other vital issue under the continuing avalanche of the Janet Lim-Napoles caper, as well as the pocket rallies against it.

But truth will always out as the saying goes and the truth about the MRT extort try is not about to stay buried for too long.

The high officials they suspended (or sidelined — nobody really knows what action was taken) then put under investigation have been quietly reinstated, as reported by one veteran media man, Deo Macalma of Pilipino Star Ngayon.

MRT general manager Al Vitangcol, for instance, surprised the Department of Transportation and Communications (DoTC) rank-and-file when he reappeared and assumed his old post. Vitangcol was put in the freezer after being named by Czech Ambassador Josef Rychtar as among those involved in the $30-million kickback try for the purchase of new coaches for the MRT.

The explosive report that was originally aired on radio station dzRH two months ago that smashed the lily-white image of BS Aquino, sister Ballsy and husband Eldon was primarily due to insinuations attributed to the Czech envoy, which were not denied until weeks into the scandal.

Eventually, BS Aquino first cousin Jorge Aquino-Lichauco was revealed to be brokering the deal for Inekon, the Czech company. It's all in the family as they say, with an in-law of a close Aquino Big Business ally also acting on Inekon's behalf.

In addition, that controversy (had it been covered properly) would have seriously marred Mar Roxas as it happened under his watch as DoTC secretary. Mar must therefore be feeling a sense of relief over the Napoles scandal as he is spared continuing bad publicity over the MRT case — at least for now.

But before we get too far into the other aspects of the story, it must be recalled that since Vitangcol was the only name mentioned by the Czech ambassador, even when, in truth, three other officials were supposed to be in on the deal, too, it would appear that he was made the sacrificial lamb, with reports, as late as Sept. 2, still depicting him as having gone "on leave" while under investigation.

Alas, Macalma's update on Vitangcol's reentry leaves very serious implications for those who have tried to make him a scapegoat. It implies that the guy is actually untouchable and only one thing could make him so — his knowledge of who the real "brains" behind the MRT extort try are.
Vitangcol may have leveraged this knowledge to get back to his post while DoTC chief Emilio Abaya hopes and prays that the controlled newspapers' front pages and broadcast media headlines will still be so preoccupied with Napoles, the anti-pork hype, and the meager rallies to allow him to tide this over.

This MRT extort try ghost will continue to haunt BS Aquino, his family, and their ruling class allies who feed on the people's blood, sweat, and tears. There will be hell to pay for them when the population finally rises up and drives the stakes into their hearts. The pork plunders certainly pale in comparison to their large-scale looting.

Meanwhile, the Riles Laan sa Sambayanan (or Riles) Network continues to coordinate efforts to organize popular opposition to the threatened fare hikes of the MRT/LRT (Light Rail Transit). Every delay we can deal these exploiters in their effort to hike the fares is without doubt another stake in their blackened hearts.

Elsewhere, on the geopolitical front, particularly in the matter of Philippine-China relations and the Syrian situation, the BS Aquino administration's policy direction is really proving to be a huge liability to the nation. With China, it is too combative to the point of bringing upon us the kind of trade isolation highlighted by that "snub" on BS Aquino at the recent Nanning trade show; but with the US, this government is obsequiously canine. Either way, the consequences are devastating for the country.

Highlighting the first is this text we received: "World's biggest ship the… Triple E, can in one trip, transport 111 million pairs of shoes from Shanghai to Rotterdam or 182 million iPads from China to Northern Europe, boosting record trade between Asia and the West. Maersk of Denmark has ordered 20 of these giant ships. Can we in the Philippines afford to be economically cutoff from China instead of being pragmatic like the Viets, Thais, etc.?"

Highlighting the effect of the BS Aquino regime's canine loyalty to the US is the country's isolation from the BRICS economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), which is the hope for world peace and prosperity.

In the last G20 meet, BRICS plus Indonesia and Argentina, together representing 3.2 billion people (and 40 percent of the global economy), opposed the impending US attack on Syria, while countries representing only 850 million people signed the ambiguous statement sponsored by the US.

None of these augurs well for our nation's future. It's time to get rid of the economic and geopolitical baggage that is BS Aquino.

(Tune in to 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN Destiny Cable Channel 8, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., also on www.gnntv-asia.com; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0923-4095739)

Billions of dollars lost, yet Napoles rules

Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 09-04-2013 WED

The failure of BS Aquino III to develop good relations with the rising economic power in the region--and the world--will cost the Philippines billions of dollars in lost economic opportunities. Still, all that BS Aquino, his government, Pinoy "social media" operators, and their mainstream media cohorts are focused on is the Napoles scandal. If they were truly intent on doing better for this country, they would have promptly focused on the message sent by China to the Philippines--that the present attitude displayed by the leader of this country toward its Asian neighbor is unacceptable.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) is alleging that China's snub of BS Aquino's trip to the 10th China and Asean Expo is due to unofficial conditions it imposed on the Philippines. These conditions were supposedly not to be publicized, namely, the Philippines' withdrawal of its case against China before the United Nations Arbitral Tribunal and the pull-out of its military presence in Ayungin Shoal.

Analysts have noted that the Chinese conditions and the subsequent cancellation were made when the Philippines and the United States started talks on a new framework agreement and when Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin offered all Philippine military bases for US troops' "rotational" presence.

Vietnam, which has similar territorial disputes with China and had experienced more physical encounters with Chinese maritime and naval elements, did not receive such a snub. That should be a dead giveaway that the territorial dispute alone is no major reason for China's tiff with BS Aquino--neither should negotiations for increased presence of US troops in the Philippines be as the US has also had similar talks with Vietnam since 2009 (when former US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta lauded the "tremendous potential" of US ships again becoming a common sight at the deep-water port of Cam Ranh Bay).

In the months leading up to the September trade meet, BS Aquino had already publicly enthused about attending the expo in Nanning, capital of southern China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. And so, the unwelcome mat that China sprung late last month had a shock effect on almost all observers such as this writer, who could recognize the primordial significance of this act emanating from the Chinese side. For China to do so is indeed earthshaking, as it has not even acted this way with another Asean country with which it had drawn blood in the past. Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, in fact, attended with over 100 Vietnamese businessmen.

To wit, three other prime ministers from the Asean (i.e. Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand) attended while Myanmar and Singapore sent their Vice President and Deputy Prime Minister, respectively. Although others such as Brunei, Malaysia, and Indonesia merely sent cabinet-level representatives, the Philippines' embarrassment emanated from its president announcing enthusiastically his attendance last August 28 and the DFA reversing this the day after on the 29th.

Ellen Tordesillas gives a good account of the timeline of the fiasco:

July 24: DFA Undersecretary Evan Garcia informed Chinese Ambassador Ma Keqing that Aquino wants to visit China; subsequently Garcia and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin met to discuss Aquino's possible visit at the Nanning expo on September 3 and for Garcia to "feedback" the Chinese side on their talks. Reportedly, Garcia never communicated to Liu or to the Chinese Embassy in Manila.

August 23: Just a week before the event, the Chinese Foreign Ministry informed the Philippine Embassy in Beijing that since no formal preliminary meetings on the President's trip to Nanning transpired, China "can't guarantee that it would be fruitful," which apparently in diplomatese means "you're not welcome."

Tordesillas' account points to a failure of the DFA to coordinate the affairs on the Philippine side that could have resulted in the embarrassing situation. China expert Chito Sta. Romana also referred to this when we corresponded with one another about this incident. He, however, additionally pointed to the alleged Chinese conditions, wondering if these would be indicative of a "hardening in China's position and diplomatic tactics."

If true, I agreed that it may be an overreaction. But, at the same time, it sends a "crystal clear message," which should lead one to ask: Does this mean a "shut out" of Philippine trade efforts with China for as long as BS Aquino and his Cabinet's policies prevail?

Chinese tourists visiting the Asean region increased from 3.9 million in 2007 to 7.3 million in 2011. The Philippines got only around 150,000 of that.

Over the past 10 years, China-Asean two-way trade reached $400 billion, a six-fold increase, which now makes China the largest trading partner of the Asean bloc. Mutual investment is over $100 billion.

In the next five years, China's overseas direct investments will increase by $500 billion, while its imports will reach $10 trillion, with its outbound tourists jumping to over 400 million.

Therefore, we ask: Is the combination of increased US troop presence, together with BS Aquino and his Cabinet's incompetence, as well as the presence of US gofers in the elite, the bureaucracy, and media meant to sabotage Asean economic collaboration and progress for the Philippines?

(Tune in to 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN Destiny Cable Channel 8, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., this week on "Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth"; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 09234095739)

BS Aquino, Obama exposed

Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 09-02-2013 MON

They were both touted by their respective social elites as their hope for change. Barack Obama won a second term promising to carry "Forward" the change away from the wars of his predecessor, George W. Bush. Instead, he has pursued more wars and now promises an imminent attack on Syria. BS Aquino campaigned on "Kung walang kurap, walang mahirap" but even a taxi driver, in noting Aquino's enigmatic behavior in his super-special treatment of fugitive Janet Lim-Napoles--personally receiving and escorting the pork plunder facilitator from "surrender" to "detention"--had to ask, "Is he taking care of Napoles to keep her silent on his pork secrets?"

The Napoles caper is actually the almost decade-old "Fertilizer Fund Scam" of the Gloria Arroyo regime where Napoles NGOs helped divert sow-lons' pork barrel funds to ghost fertilizer deliveries. The current case only resurfaced amid the scandal involving BS Aquino's sister Ballsy and her hubby Eldon Cruz in the alleged attempt to extort $30 million from Czech train company Inekon.

Around a month and a half ago, a major mainstream daily raised and sustained its headlines on the Napoles case, focusing on the alleged involvement of major opposition figures. Expectedly, some PR elements joined in through social media and came up with a "Million Man March" in tandem with the Catholic hierarchy.

All of mainstream media, controlled by Big Business oligarchs who for some weeks had also been on the hot seat over income tax issues, also started to zero in on Napoles while drumming up the protest marches that the Catholic Church was to have a big role in. Of course, it is no secret that many elements of the Church hierarchy, being bona fide Yellows, are promoters of the Ninoy and Cory Aquino "sainthood" legacy--which is why such moves smacked of efforts by the clerics to insulate BS Aquino from the Napoles pork scandal.

Now this inexplicable "tenderness" with which BS Aquino is treating the "criminal" Napoles, being accorded better treatment than presidential political prisoner Joseph Estrada over 10 years ago. Prisoner Estrada was treated like a common criminal while last week Napoles was treated like a VIP.

This has made the entire Filipino nation wonder what exactly BS Aquino sees in Napoles that she should be treated with such special care. Some headlines on the public's reaction reported, "Napoles surrender in Palace draws mixed views in Visayas," while another said, "Roxas defends Aquino's handling of Napoles' surrender." BS Aquino has thus come under suspicion himself.

Obama, on the other hand, found himself in dire straits late last week when the attack on Syria, announced for him by US State Secretary John Kerry, suddenly lost the support of longtime ally UK. Other countries also stepped back: Jordan announced it would not allow any staging of the attack from its territory while Iraq denied its airspace to any US war planes. The US Congress, too, had enough dissenting voices to finally compel Obama to take cognizance and promise to consult it. Even the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) has held back, leading the Prison Planet Web site to sum it up as "Under Colossal Global Backlash, Obama Holds Off on Syria Strike," underscoring the world's realization that it has nothing to gain but has everything to lose from such an attack.

Nonetheless, nobody is to gain except one. That beneficiary is certainly neither the US nor Israel (as some would think) but the House of Saud, ensconced in its oil kingdom, fending off demands for an end to its ancient monarchy and for greater democratization and/or secularization as represented by the multiple threats from the populist Muslim Brotherhood (hence, the Saudi coup in Egypt) to Syria's secular government, as well as democratic-Shiite Iran.

A US attack on Syria invites retaliation via an attack on the US' key Middle East ally Israel, with Syrian allies Hezbollah and Iran promising to follow suit. This can then spill over into a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, threatening 80 percent of the world's oil supply.

The House of Saud is the ultimate intriguer in the current Syrian crisis. This has been highlighted by the recent Moscow visit of Prince Bandar a.k.a. Bandar Bush (as he is often called due to his closeness with "Dubya" Bush) where the following were offered for Russia to drop Syria--a $15-billion arms purchase and a promise to hold back the House of Saud's proxy, the Chechen fundamentalist terrorists, from threatening the multi-billion Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Just what did Bandar Bush offer the Obama officials to push this attack on Syria, despite many vigorous objections? This is Obama exposed.

(Tune in to 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN Destiny Cable Channel 8, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., this week on "Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth"; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 09234095739)