RP hawks letdown

DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / April 30, 2014 / Daily Tribune


For the entire day, Philippine mainstream broadcast media dissected every statement of presidential visitor Barack Obama’s speeches and press conference, looking for whatever they could belabor for days on end — from commitments to counter China’s assertions in the South China Sea to any pronouncement supporting anti-Chinese prejudices among social media and beyond, generated by three years of anti-China demonization from their circle of critics. Instead, what stood out are the high hopes and encouragement that Obama holds for the “peaceful rise of China” and its adherence to the “rule of law.”

Highlighted globally from Mr. Obama were the following: “We welcome China’s peaceful rise. We have a constructive relationship with China. Our goal is not to counter China. Our goal is not to contain China…” and at the press conference that followed, “Well, let me repeat what I said earlier; I think that it is good for the region and good for the world if China is successfully developing … The more they’re able to develop and provide basic needs for their people and work cooperatively with other countries in the region, that’s only going to strengthen the region — that’s not going to weaken it. It’s inevitable that China is going to be a dominant power in this region.” Those words have doused cold China Sea waters to the obviously letdown anti-China rabble-rousers here.

Obama did have words about “international law:” “I do think that… China as a large country has already asserted that it is interested in abiding by international law. And really, our message to China consistently on a whole range of issues is we want to be a partner with you in upholding international law. And I think that there are going to be territorial disputes. We have territorial disputes with some of our closest allies… some islands and rocks in and around Canada and the United States where there are probably still some arguments dating back to the 1800s,” which echo Deng Xiaoping’s words to Cory Aquino to mutually shelve the territorial dispute and engage in “joint development” of the disputed areas.

However, if the anti-China talking heads are thinking that Obama’s reference to “international law” can be interpreted to mean adherence to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, they are in for a surprise. The US itself has not signed on to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLoS) and continues to raise many questions and objections to many of its provisions. As we and others have pointed out, the US in fact regularly conducts “operational challenges” to provisions of the UNCLoS such as deliberately sailing through Philippine archipelagic and internal waters, as what the USS Guardian did when it got grounded at the Tubbataha Reef, which is indisputably within Philippine Baselines. As Manila Times writer Ric Saludo said, “What if Chinese vessels tagged behind US ships and entered these areas?”

Obama here was several decibels lower than in Tokyo, on the Diaoyu (or Senkaku) Islands dispute. There Obama was more explicit, to the delight of Japanese PM Shinzo Abe; but not necessarily to other allies of the US. Here’s the word from Korean Times’ editorial: “Obama raised, subtly but unmistakably, Tokyo’s hand in the Sino-Japanese dispute… while not saying a word about his host country’s historical regressions. We are afraid Obama’s seeming endorsement of their acts, and his embrace of Tokyo’s right to exercise collective self-defense, will give the wrong signal… (and) a blank check for their military resurgence… without making due repentance for their imperial past.”

The ultimate goal of US “rebalancing” to Asia was defined in Hillary Clinton’s 2011 article in Foreign Policy magazine that stated, “Our economic recovery at home will depend on exports and the ability of American firms to tap into the vast and growing consumer base of Asia.”

That, dear Juan de la Cruz, is the real reason the US “pivot,” renamed “rebalancing,” has been going into high gear, to which the defense issues are but preparation to ensure US “freedom of navigation” to send its goods to Asia. But it can also work another way, to block its competitors when US strategic intentions arise. Hence, the US has its “Offshore Control” plan to choke off China’s supply routes, in case it needs to spring an “embargo” or “blockade” against China.
The US has targeted so many for its “blockades” (such as Cuba) and “embargoes” (such as Iran). Now the US is slapping step-by-step sanctions against Russia. If ever Russia subsequently shows any weakness and the US starts targeting China, it will do so only for its own interest and not to defend any interest of the Philippines.

(Tune in to “Sulo ng Pilipino” on 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; catch GNN’s Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., this week on “May Day, a call for hope or help?” with labor leaders; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)

Obama’s Asian persuasion tour

Last April 23 began the first day of Barack Obama’s four-nation visit in Asia, landing in Japan for the first leg of the tour. According to CNN, “Obama's appearances in Japan will be tinged with formality — meetings with the royal family, a stop at the Meiji shrine and a protocol-bound state dinner… Japan's first state visit by an American president in almost two decades comes as the United States works to reassure Abe and other Asian leaders that the United States remains committed to turning foreign policy focus on them.”

Meanwhile, Channel NewsAsia writes: “Ahead of his visit, protests in the capital Tokyo are intensifying with members of the Labour Union, citizens groups and farmers coming together in front of the Prime Minister's Office to voice their opposition against Japan concluding a regional trade pact called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).”

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a proposed multilateral trade agreement between Australia, Brunei, Chile, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam, which can be seen as the US’ attempt to control the increasing economic dominance of China.

But various sectors around the world have criticized the TPP for the negotiation’s secrecy, as well as pushing for stricter intellectual property provisions, which many internet freedom activists fear

The TPP also requires countries to lessen its restrictions on foreign trade in order to join the said agreement, such as in the cases of Japan and in the Philippines. Channel NewsAsia also writes that: “Tokyo is not willing to lift all tariffs, especially in its highly-protected areas of rice, wheat, pork, beef, sugar and dairy products.”

It is also seen that the Philippine Congress, led by administration ally Rep. Sonny Belmonte, is aggressively pushing for charter change to revise the current nationalist provisions in the constitution, in order to join the TPP.

Under the present 1987 constitution, Philippine citizens can own up to 60% of businesses while foreigners can only own up to 40%. Known as the “60/40 rule”, it has been called “restrictive” by advocates of foreign direct investment (FDI) and liberal-leaning economists.

On the other hand, various groups led by the umbrella organization Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) held a solidarity protest in time for Obama’s first day in Asia. The protesters were blocked by policemen as they pushed their way towards the US Embassy. After a short program, they ran towards the embassy only to be fired upon by water cannon (NB: unfortunately, I was also hit by it).

Bayan, along with other groups, condemned the Agreement on Enhanced Defense Cooperation (AEDC) which allows American forces to build facilities inside Philippine bases. Bayan’s secretary general Renato Reyes Jr. likened the plan of inviting US military to the country against Chinese ‘bullying’ to inviting a rapist in one’s household to protect themselves from a town bully.

The protesters said that they would come back when Obama visits the Philippines, the final leg of his Asian tour.

Who defends RP from US?

 DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / Daily Tribune / April 28, 2014


Barack Obama arrives to firm up his country’s purported commitment to “defend” the Philippines from China. But who defends the Philippines from the US--the imperial power that grabbed the Filipinos’ victory over long-time colonizer Spain; the one that launched the Philippine-American War of 1899-1902 and killed up to a million Filipinos?

Half-a-century of US colonialism suppressed what should have been the first modern democracy and economy in Southeast Asia. Then, World War II saw the US use Filipino soldiers and civilians as cannon fodder, before it subjected the country to post-war neocolonial exploitation with parity rights and US military bases for its wars in Asia.

To this day, the US continues to suppress the country’s industrial aspirations while it ruthlessly conducts massive wealth extraction through debt, taxes, and privatization-price gouging of public services.

Obama’s offer of protection to Filipinos from China’s supposed aggression over the two countries’ maritime territorial disputes comes with many unexplainable requests. For example, while the disputed areas such as the Kalayaan Group of Islands or the Scarborough Shoal and Ayungin Reef are hundreds of kilometers out to sea from Luzon, and even farther from Visayas and Mindanao, why is the US requiring access to and use of the almost 50 Philippine military bases and facilities spread across the entire archipelago from Aparri to Jolo? Are the Chinese, in pursuing their claim over the China Seas, going to invade the Philippines, all the way to Jolo?

I asked a retired Filipino army general about this and his answer was “That’s not for China; they are for the anti-terror war.” I then countered, “But the terrorist Abu Sayyaf, Al Qaeda, and Jemaah Islamiya are in pockets in Mindanao. What does Fort del Pilar in Baguio or Camp Nakar in Quezon or Camp Lapu-Lapu in Cebu have to do with them?” There was no answer. I then suggested one: “Some of these bases, like Camp Buayan in General Santos, are vital for the protection of US military facilities in that area.” He agreed--which led to the question: Is US access to and use of all these Filipino military bases for the protection and defense of Philippine interests or those of the US? He had to agree; it is for the protection of US interests. But what about the bases in Legazpi, (such as Arasain Naval Station) or in Guimaras (such as Palencia Naval Station), which are far from Scarborough or the terrorists in Basilan, why should the US need access to them?

While Filipinos are all eyes on Obama’s visit and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) to defend against alleged Chinese violations into Philippine maritime territories, as well as its EEC (Exclusive Economic Zone) as claimed under UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea), the US is actually and deliberately sailing through Philippine archipelagic and internal waters, which are part of its undisputed sovereign territory, on a regular basis in what the US officially declares as its “operational challenge” to the Philippines’ claim over these. Manila Times columnist Ricardo Saludo wrote, “By its official admission, the American military has… deliberately violated Philippine internal waters… nearly 20 times last year… within our recognized territorial baselines (which are) disputed by the US…”

We researched further and found a US Department of National Defense report entitled “US Navy Challenges to Excessive (UNCLOS) Maritime Claims, FY 1993 to 2010” that detailed 17 years of deliberate incursions into Philippine archipelagic waters to defy Philippine claims of sovereignty over such internal waters and the “multiple excessive claims (of the Philippines overs its) “excessive straight or archipelagic baselines,” as well as its “restrictions on access to international strait or archipelagic waters.” The grounding of the USS Guardian damaging the Tubbataha Reef in June 2013 was one of these “operational challenges.” With this kind of “friend” swearing to defend the Philippines from invaders but actually invading it with impunity, why is China being made the enemy?

The Philippines wants to defend against China’s claims over what it now calls the West Philippine Sea where oil and natural gas are waiting to be tapped. But China has long advocated the principle of joint exploration and development, on a 50/50 sharing basis. Philippine authorities, in contrast, want it all and would prefer to settle the matter at the UN tribunal, despite China’s offer.

However, as the Philippines waits in vain for a settlement that will never come (as China is not participating), the US and Britain are already sucking Philippine natural gas dry at the Malampaya on the basis of a 95 percent to 5 percent scheme (where investment and taxes are deducted from the Philippines’ 10-percent share and defense purchases from the US and its allies also taken from it). When the US pressured BS Aquino to scuttle the China-Vietnam-Philippines joint marine seismic survey, Filipinos lost out on a chance to know the true wealth of their seas--which the US does.

So again we ask: Why does the US want access to and use of all Philippine military bases and facilities? Isn’t it like the Big Bad Wolf with his big eyes and teeth telling Little Red Riding Hood, “The better to see and eat you my dear”? Certainly, with the US as friend, who needs enemies?

Despite this, Filipinos still view the US more favorably than Americans themselves, according to a 2013 Pew Research poll. With such unmatched gullibility, who’s to save the Filipinos from themselves now? (Our next column: “The Obamanable TPP”).

(Tune in to “Sulo ng Pilipino” on 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; catch GNN’s Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., this week on “The Miss Manila search” and “Erap’s Hong Kong reconciliation success”; visit http://newsulongpilipino.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)

Erap rebuilds HK ties

DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / April 23, 2014 / Daily Tribune


By now President-Mayor Joseph Estrada should already have landed on China’s Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong. Erap will be carrying a check of as yet an undisclosed amount corresponding to the “compensation” expected by the families of the eight victims of the August 2010 Luneta massacre. Accompanying Mayor Erap is Councilor Bernie Ang of Manila who has been instrumental in the mayor’s efforts to mend the bridges with Hong Kong. Secretary to the Aquino Cabinet Rene Almendras, reported to be part of the entourage, apparently to represent Malacañang, was not in the entourage, however.

It must be remembered that BS Aquino and his extremely close and trusted police ally cum mayor of Manila at the time of the tragedy, Alfredo Lim, both became extremely disliked figures of the victims’ families, as well as the Hong Kong people and government, due to the bungling of the rescue effort of the Manila police under direct supervision of Mayor Lim, along with Aquino and his Malacañang officials’ unresponsiveness when being contacted by Hong Kong authorities during the crisis and his own maladroit demeanor displayed in media photos and newsreels during the incident (such as that infamous PeNoy grin in amid the mourning that set off the Hong Kong people’s chagrin). But topping it all was Aquino’s adamant refusal to issue an apology.

We are told by sources close to Mayor Estrada that his Hong Kong trip is actually in behalf of Malacañang to bring the compensation that the Hong Kong victims’ families have demanded all these years. Estrada’s role and presence was actually requested by the Hong Kong victims’ families, probably a result of the persuasive effect of Mayor Estrada’s early and open declaration of his feeling of remorse and expression of public apology for the City of Manila where the incident happened — a sort of substitute contrition for the Philippine government’s refusal to express that apology. Mayor Estrada’s acute empathy with the sensitivities of people, a unique quality of his, sets him apart as a leader. It is something found in very, very few other Filipino politicians, if at all.

Mayor Estrada is expected to return at the end of this week with all the expectations of fully normalizing relations between the Philippines and Hong Kong fulfilled. It’s been four years since that tragic incident at the Luneta that had soured Philippines relations with Hong Kong, mainland China, and many Chinese people, tarnishing the country’s image not only with its Asian neighbors but with many other countries in the world, west to east, whose people witnessed the Keystone Kops performance of the then Manila Police’s SWAT Team at the cost of eight innocent lives, and the then the mayor displaying utter incompetence and crudeness in allegedly ordering the rubout of the hostage-taker’s brother in full view of local and international media.

When Mayor Estrada returns — and, hopefully with the four years of acrimonious relations with Hong Kong ended — happier events await him. Aside from already clear successes in raising Manila’s revenues that’s going a long way to radically improving the city administration’s management of traffic, public security, health and sanitation, computerized tax management, and city governance, Mayor Estrada will be presiding over the revival of a tradition that made the City of Manila a landmark in the pre-war and immediate post-war times — the search for the 2014 Miss Manila, a new version of what was known as the Manila Carnival Queen from 1903 to 1939. The climax of this search, marking the return of the glory of Manila, will be on the June 24 “Araw ng Maynila” celebration.

Never forgetting the grim realities that face his “masa,” the poor, now especially of Manila, Miss Manila 2014 is aimed at raising funds for the benefit of the Manila Dialysis Center and the other projects of the city, as well as Mrs. Loi Estrada’s Mare Foundation, which also has many medical mission projects. The Miss Manila event is a change of pace from the tense and hard fought campaigns to rid Manila of the horrendous traffic that used to plague city residents and commuters, and the struggle to restore sanity to sidewalks and market areas such as Divisoria, which have all been successfully won. But one challenge coming up that will truly test the will of Mayor Estrada is the removal of the oil depots in Pandacan. That’ll be a fight of the century.

(Tune in to “Sulo ng Pilipino” on 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; catch GNN’s Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., this week on “’O-Bomb-Ma’ in Asia” and “An animal called ‘Bank bail-ins’”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)

Russia, fulcrum for peace

DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / April 21, 2014 / Daily Tribune


The West, led by the US, has been on a quarter-of-a-century crusade to impose its global hegemony on the world after its Cold War counterbalancing rival, the Soviet Union, collapsed under the weight of its inefficient and incompetent apparatchiks (political bureaucrats). But that crusade itself has been in collapse since 2008 as the Western economies got to be eaten by the cancer within. That cancer comprises the West’s own apparatchiks — from the corrupt monopoly finance bankers of the Western world’s financial centers, Wall Street, City of London, and European Central Bank, under the aegis of a handful of key banking families (including the Rothschilds and Rockefellers), who have controlled the world through their control of the US Federal Reserve, to the global oil and defense industries and establishments. Only a new world war can save them.

Few Filipinos ponder the implications of the events in Ukraine and the parallels they hold in the Philippines, in China, as well as the China Sea issues. The Philippines is unique in its belligerence as not even Vietnam has taken the “no dialog” stance with its Asian neighbor. Few Filipinos understand that the crisis in Ukraine today was triggered by the last phase in a two-decades-long plan to cripple Russia (“Without Ukraine Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire,” Brzezinski, 1998). Vladimir Putin put a stop to that with the welcome reintegration of Crimea (including Sevastopol) into Russia to protect his country’s defense perimeter. China’s “superintendence” (not monopoly, as it offers bilateral development) in its own backyard also aims to define its defense perimeter against the West’s domination.

Overwhelming demographic and economic advantages of China ostensibly gave rise to Napoleon Bonaparte’s prescient prediction 200 years ago of the “waking dragon.” Strategic analysts see China as the West’s ultimate rival, although China has always declared that it seeks only respect as a coequal of other world powers.

Russia is the underestimated world power because of its moderate demographic potentials and 20th Century historical debacles, but these notions should now be set aside with Russia now shifting its global geopolitical relations, as seen in Putin’s actions in Ukraine and, more importantly, in his strategic economic vision of “turning to the East” not only rhetorically but in very unequivocal terms.

The 2012 Vladivostok Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit signaled Russia’s move to the East, away from the conflict zones to its West. Two years later, Putin orders a new production-type industrial zone in Vladivostok. Then, this May, Russia and China will sign one of the largest deals ever to realize the pipeline and facilities to supply 38 billion cubic meters of gas per year and 900,000 barrels of oil per day directly to China — using rubles and yuan. Russia and Iran are also discussing 500,000 barrels a day of Iranian oil in exchange for Russian goods. Moreover, Russia’s Rosneft is joining India’s state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp. in setting up pipelines to supply oil to India over the long-term, circumventing the US dollar. All these spell the end of the US petrodollar hegemony.

And, as everyone should know, as the US dollar wanes, so goes its geopolitical clout. What remains is its military-naval supremacy, which is also fast eroding. US military development, upon which the North Atlantic Treaty Organization depends, also faces dwindling resources. Such uncertainties spawned by the US military’s decline, coupled with the certainty of Russian and Chinese military hardware and technological advances, have contributed to the vacillation of Western Powers in Afghanistan, Syria, Middle East, North Africa, and even East Asia. Only the Philippines is bullish on the US “pivot” to Asia. The decline of the US threat to the global balancing of forces is the best harbinger of durable peace in the world.

Meanwhile, the dwindling prospects of US global trade domination is also being clearly demonstrated in the difficult straits that the US-sponsored Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has faced even with a client state like Japan foot-dragging in signing on. And that’s because the TPP promotes US corporate interests over and against national economic and political sovereignty, sacrificing popular welfare and concerns in favor of profit and economic control of corporate transnationals.
Russia and China have shunned the TPP while promoting Apec, SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization), the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) alliance (with a BRICS Bank to challenge the International Monetary Fund), and the RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership).

The year 2014 will see a great shift in geopolitical power relations. Thanks to Russia and its “Look East” policy, Putin’s new Russia has shaken off its infatuation with the Western model and rediscovered its destiny as the great balancer for global peace and development. Russia has become a fulcrum of sorts as the bridge for the New Silk Road to the East (to itself) and then to Europe’s most powerful nation, Germany, and at the same time, wresting the center-of-gravity away from the US (and British) hegemony.

(Tune in to “Sulo ng Pilipino” on 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; catch GNN’s Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., this week on “Ms. Manila revival” and “Bank ‘bail-in’ exposed”; visit http://newsulongpilipino.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)

UN: Flu, climate and other frauds

DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / April 14, 2014 / Daily Tribune


Last week Oxford University reported a study of the UK’s spending on anti-flu drugs — over a billion US dollars between 2006 and 2013 on medicines that had very limited efficacy, and often serious side effects. The United Nations (UN) and World Health Organization (WHO), it must be recalled, raised global swine and avian flu pandemic alerts from 2006 onwards, projecting millions of deaths. Governments then spent billions on useless flu drugs for pandemics that never happened. The Philippine government, for its part, spent at least P3 billion in 2006 for flu meds that never used.

What we learned: UN bureaucrats, beholden to powerful member-governments that are beholden to big business in their home countries, are often used as tools in gigantic money-fleecing schemes of global big business.

The UN led the charge against “population explosion” since the 1990s. It wasn’t known until later that the US was behind the anti-population campaign. That was when Henry Kissinger’s National State Security Memorandum (NSSM) 200 was declassified, revealing the US view that population growth in 11 underdeveloped countries — the Philippines among them — threatened US access to their raw material resources.

With US-initiated population control funding for the UN and others like USAID, Third World governments were compelled to add their own and buy from US-invested contraceptives companies. That funding dwindled with the US financial crisis of 2011; and that was when the Reproductive Health (RH) bill was torpedoed in the Philippines.

The Supreme Court last week declared the RH Law “not unconstitutional.” Both anti- and pro-RH partisans declared themselves winners from the High (or Hyde) Court’s decision. Known “porkers” in Congress, such as Edcel Lagman, spoke for the solons: “A grateful nation salutes the majority of the justices.” It was a gratefulness that Dinagat Island Rep. Kaka Bag-ao expressed more honestly: “For as long as the State is still mandated and empowered to implement a reproductive health program with the appropriate funding… the historic Supreme Court decision is still a victory for the people, albeit incomplete.” In the final analysis, it is the people’s money at stake, and billions of pesos of it.

Given the supposed “end” of the “pork barrel,” the RH Law will certainly offset the expected losses of our senators and representatives. When it was last debated in Congress, the amount earmarked for an RH program was upwards of P10 billion per annum that government is obliged to provide under the law. That’s several hundreds of millions of dollars for big pharma for condoms, contraceptives, etc., as well as millions for PR agencies behind the pro-RH campaign every year, and millions more for NGOs and women’s organizations of the “Akbayad” stripe; while no specific earmarks for the biggest health scourges of the land such as tuberculosis, dengue, and many other diseases including the “unemployment” epidemic, which is the real driver of poverty and disease.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which issued new alarmist projections, is like the WHO and the UN Population Commission. Its roots and money go back to Britain’s Prince Philip and The Netherlands’ Prince Bernhard, both of Royal Dutch Shell, setting up the World Wildlife Fund in 1961, from which clubs and networks of the man-made global warming campaign sprung. Later WWF associate Maurice Strong (“the international man of mystery”), Rockefeller trustee and oil magnate, set up and sat as first executive director of the UN environmental program, from which rose multilateral government and corporate funding for “global warming” campaigns and an IPCC-Al Gore Nobel Peace Prize to hype Antropogenic Global Warming.

New climate alarmism is being spread by “green” crusaders, including Western PR darling Bishop Desmond Tutu equating the climate change campaign with the anti-Apartheid crusade. (By the way, South Africa’s Apartheid persists, with 70 percent of that nation’s resources still owned by Whites as of 2006, and with Black unemployment five times higher than that of Whites).

But even as IPCC alarmist projections are six times higher than factual temperature increases the past decade, there is a “warming pause” that these alarmists are hard put to explain: “Physicist and Arctic research expert Syun-Ichi Akasofu of the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in the US predicts that the temperature in 2100 will be 0.5C± 0.2C higher than today, rather than the 4.0C± 2.0C predicted by the IPCC.”

Following the money leads to these: Friends of the Earth got $5 million from the EU between 2007 and 2009; Coca-Cola donated $24 million to WWF in 2008 alone; in 2007, Conservation International raised $9.4 million from corporations, about 5 percent of its total revenues of $176.6 million; WWF took in about $7 million in corporate grants, about 4.3 percent of its $161 million in revenues in 2007; A Wiki report projects “carbon trading” revenues to hit $50 billion if UN and Kyoto Protocol carbon caps are implemented (Gore’s company GIM earned $218 million between 2008 and 2011); Washington Examiner reports that the leaders of 15 top Big Green environmental groups are paid more than $300,000 — up to half a million dollars for the top “earner.”

I wish I could be that poor.

(Tune in to “Sulo ng Pilipino” on 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; catch GNN’s Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m.; visit http://newsulongpilipino.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)

Puzzled by Alunan et al.

DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / April 9, 2014 / Daily Tribune


April 2 was a big day for the China Sea-West Philippine Sea issue. It was the day of the much-talked-about forum entitled “Understanding 21st Century China: All Under Heaven?” sponsored by such big-named institutions as Asia Society, Harvard Kennedy School Alumni Association of the Philippines, Tufts Fletcher School Alumni Association-Philippines, the hangers-on Ramos Peace and Development Foundation Inc. (where did FVR get the money?), and former senior government officials (hangers-on to hangers-on-governments dragged along by Uncle Sam). It had to be held, of course, in the corporate cadre training center, the Asian Institute of Management (AIM).

Despite the corporate aura that I do not care for, the forum did offer unique and substantive insights from the depth of knowledge and experience of three speakers: Professor Marwyn Samuels of Syracuse University (married to a Chinese and teaches in China, according to Chito Sta. Romana); Dr. Liping Zheng of the Asian Development Bank, who provided in-depth understanding of China’s economic situation; and, of course, Chito Sta. Romana himself, the fountainhead of understanding and wisdom on China for Filipinos, who balances off the official attack dogs under the US leash like Rafael Alunan, Roilo Golez, Fidel V. Ramos, Albert del Rosario, Voltaire Gazmin, and the Philippine mainstream media.

We are thankful to Jerry Quibilan, a retired corporate executive, who has become a web-journalist e-mailing and recounting his travels and his participation in kapihans (from Melo Acuna’s at the Aristocrat every Monday to the Rembrandt and to wherever else these are held), for sending us the summaries of the forum talks and various exchanges of views he had on the Internet with his AIM alumni friends.

Jerry’s summary of summaries: The forum dwelt on the recent development in the socio-economic landscape of China; how China’s changing geopolitics and national politics affect other Association of Southeast Asian Nation economies; and how we strengthen people-to-people relations with China in spite of the ongoing issues on the West Philippine Sea.

But some of the public reaction at the forum addressed to Jerry in the e-mails reveal even much more truth. For example, from a certain Alex to Jerry reacting to Alunan and FVR: “I noticed something very different from the forum today compared to the forum of anti-China activist Raffy Alunan, Roilo Golez and President Ramos also at the AIM in December. They got former commodores and commanders of the US 7th Fleet to tell us Filipinos we have to prepare for war with China and shed our blood. We got videos on recycled airplanes and ships to buy for the coming war with China… videos on the Korean war where 10,000 Filipinos allegedly killed 40,000 Chinese. Today President Ramos laughed at the Philippines’ decision to buy 12 new jet planes to use against China. That shook me up. My impression is that Raffy Alunan and President Ramos have noticeably lost their belligerence. They were as nice to China as apple pie. Both said Filipinos should try to understand China and restore normal relations soonest. I am quite puzzled to say the least.”

I’ll suggest an answer to Puzzled Alex: The P20-billion deal to buy the used FA-50 from South Korea has already been signed and sealed; and so the syndicate can now relax the propaganda scare-mongering.

Here’s another from Charlie, a Filipino expat, which I translate to English from Tagalog: “P’reng Feliz, You’re right! From our very safe haven in Canada and in the USA, you and I need not be bothered at all about how China reacts from a ‘shaming’ by the Philippines. We are the noisiest and most war-freakish against China because we are not going to be bombed by China and penalized with economic sanctions. Let’s hear it from our brothers back in the Motherland. They are the ones who will have to face the Chinese. Let us go by their decision and be as supportive to them as any expatriate Filipino can be.”

The trouble with US steak commandos such as Loida Nicolas-Lewis and Rodel Rodis is they merely want the Philippines to act as cannon fodder. And, Charlie, the US and Canada will get their share of intercontinental ballistic missiles too.

Back to the forum, the real gem came from Chito Sta. Romana, as summarized by Jerry: “‘If China does not respect any decision of the UNCLoS, which Professor Samuels also says will happen, the Philippines will have no choice but to negotiate with China directly, the Chinese way. People-to-people contacts and friendships between the Chinese and the Filipinos will continue as usual’” but Chito confirmed that China will not give any FDIs or economic assistance to the Philippines for the foreseeable future.”

Then came this quip from one reactor in the forum, Wilson Lee Flores: “We were colonized four times —the Spanish, the British, the Americans, and the Japanese. Filipinos were killed and the country’s resources were plundered. On the other hand, what have the Chinese done in over a thousand years here? They just traded and gave us siopao, siomai, mami, and lomi.”

(Tune in to “Sulo ng Pilipino” on 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; catch GNN’s Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., this week on “Meralco siphoning capital out of the country” with Butch Junia and “Mayor Erap kicks out Big Oil”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)

Hy-Poe-crisy

Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 04-07-2014 MON)
 

The Inquirer emblazoned this on its April Fools Day issue: “Grace Poe says she’s not ready for 2016 run.”  First of all, who on Earth ever believed she was?  Secondly, did she once think she was ready for 2016?  If so, why did she change her mind?  Or, was that announcement a “reverse psychology” ploy actually intended to put her 2016 run in the public mind?  Sly, isn’t it?  Scheming even--just as riding on the coattails of that masa-idolized figure’s name without representing any of his real values is disingenuous?
 
Yet, there are indeed some behind-the-scenes prepping of this “not ready” little doll--a cross between the Yellow (a color now sported by this doll) Cory Aquino and the diminutive Gloria Arroyo, exceeding both in artificiality.
 
If Gloria was an “Orocan,” this one is a “Zooey.”  And some like this quality for the candidates they support.  Keen observers of Philippine politics should know by now that the Poe-ppet is being prepared for 2016 by the likes of Serge Osmeña and Inquirer star columnist Conrado de Quiros (see his April 3 column, “Tuloy Poe Kayo” prodding the Poe-ppet to replace the current puppet in Malacañang they installed in 2010 when it was already known then that BS Aquino was absolutely unqualified).
 
De Quiros repeats the same argument he had for the current Palace idiot: “Why Grace Poe? ... Because... she has the mythical, symbolic, larger-than-life quality that makes for presidents.”  But no mention of competence, commitment (except to vanity), and insight.  Just like Cory Aquino--the love of the oligarchs, of Serge, Conrado, and the Yellows.
 
This Poe-ppet indeed loves the West and Cory Aquino’s legacy, the exact opposite of the real Fernando Poe Jr. or FPJ, who took the platform as guest-of-honor at the militant, anti-globalization Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas in 2004 to lambast globalization.  FPJ held highly the traditional Filipino values of patriotism, loyalty, and love of the “masa.”  But the Poe-ppet even turned against these, betraying her absence of loyalty by finding common cause with the exploitative Yellow movement in turning against those who had nurtured her.
 
The ruling oligarchs and their US backer would love to have the new Poe-ppet, as their PeNoy has begun to smell so rotten that it’s time to discard him--just like they did to Gloria Arroyo, whom they foisted onto the nation in Edsa II.
 
Yes, indeed.  Conrado de Quiros is right.  ”Mythical, symbolic, larger-than-life”… and without a clue!  That makes for a perfect president (at least, according to him).  And to cap it off for their perfect candidate: A touch of “hy-Poe-crisy.”  But then, isn’t this a country of hypocrites anyway?  Like the scores of super-patriots now railing and flailing at China for insisting on bilateral dialog instead of multilateral talks that would be open to interlopers, such as the real global bully, BS Aquino’s Uncle Sam?  What?  No dialog even if the rest of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) are already talking with China, including “The Real Man” on the Asean bloc, Vietnam?
 
Even the wise old senior statesman Lee Kwan Yew in a Forbes interview advised: “A resurgent China isn’t going to allow its sea boundaries to once again be decided by external parties.  Therefore, I don't believe the Chinese will submit their claims… The US won’t risk its present good relations with China over a dispute between the Philippines and China … One-third of the world’s trade passes through the South China Sea, a vital sea line of communications.”
 
There is really very little “Lee-way” for the US to maneuver except to exercise its jaw as Assistant State Secretary Daniel Russel insists that the US stands by its allies.  Yeah, right.  With the way the US is abandoning its allies in Syria and in the Middle East, it is widely doubted.  Instead, what is clearer than the light of day is its desire to use its allies to fight its wars.  Remember Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Let Asians fight Asians” policy in 1965?
 
Filipino super-patriots such as Rafael Alunan, Roilo Golez, Voltaire Gazmin, Albert del Rosario, BS Aquino, and their US “steak commandos” Loida Nicolas-Lewis, Rodel Rodis et al. protest China’s claims.  But would they ask the question “Who’s the worst violator of Philippine territory?” that Ric Saludo in his Manila Times column last week asked?
 
They should perhaps read more of that column: “By its official admission, the American military has openly and deliberately violated Philippine internal waters … Sailing between our islands nearly 20 times last year ... UNCLOS provides that the archipelagic sea within our recognized territorial baselines is part of our republic’s internal waters.  But this is disputed by the US, which has signed but not ratified the Convention … (One wonders how the US would have reacted if the Chinese Navy sailed into our archipelagic sea alongside its Seventh Fleet to join it in challenging our claim of internal waters under UNCLOS.)”
 
(Tune in to “Sulo ng Pilipino” on 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; catch GNN’s Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., this week on “Meralco siphoning capital out of the country” with Butch Junia and “Mayor Erap kicks out Big Oil”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)

Childish games vs China

DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / April 2, 2014


The Philippine government staged a “patintero,” a child’s game of “tag,” complete with reporters invited on planes to film the childish event and mainstream media ready to trumpet the “victory” and “outwitting” of the large Coast Guard of China. The passage of the crew of the Philippine toy boat, admitted to be military men dressed up as civilians, may actually confirm Chinese claims that it does not stop non-military navigation in the area. Whether the motley crew of the disguised boat was really being stopped is another matter of interpretation.

Pictures later come out in mainstream newspapers of the disheveled Philippine Marine detachment on the BRP Sierra Madre being presented medals, which they no doubt deserve for obedience and tenacity, but what do all these benefit the people of the Philippines?

As stressed in our previous articles, the belligerent rhetoric from the Philippine government, backed up by the US State Department, raises a lot of sound and fury but in the end signifies nothing — much like a tempest in a teapot. The other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) South China Sea claimants know this and, as with Vietnam and Malaysia, prefer to maintain high level dialog with China based on mutual respect and principles of the Declaration of Conduct — not the Code of Conduct the Philippines insists on that has found no consensus.

For Vietnam and Malaysia, the result of their dialogs with China has been rewarding: Resulting in subdued tension and increasing foreign direct investments (FDI) from and trade with China in multiples of four or five compared to China’s FDI and threatened collapse of trade with the Philippines.

Vietnam and Malaysia do not see the China Sea territorial issues as a simple matter of their country versus China; they also see it in the context of the bigger historical and geostrategic setting of prior US domination of the region and the China Sea, which China is pushing back against to avert the US and its Western hegemonic alliance’s interloping in the area.

The US is the real bully in the region and, as colleague Rod Kapunan keeps reminding us, it has since the end of World War II considered the seas of Asia — from the Yellow to the South China Sea — as its lake.

The US sent its warships into the Yellow Sea (Korean War), the Gulf of Tonkin (Vietnam War), the Taiwan Straits, and violated Philippine territorial waters several times with impunity. As columnist Ricardo Saludo wrote last Monday, “The Chinese are not the top intruders in the Philippines. China has kept far, far away from the archipelago itself. The American military has openly and deliberately violated Philippine internal waters… sailing between our islands nearly 20 times last year. UNCLoS provides that the archipelagic sea within our recognized territorial baselines is part of our republic’s internal waters. But this is disputed by the US. As the US Defense Department told Congress in its Freedom of Navigation Report for Fiscal Year 2013, the American Navy entered those internal waters within our archipelago, showing Washington’s opposition to that claim. (One wonders how the US would have reacted if the Chinese Navy sailed into our archipelagic sea alongside its Seventh Fleet to join it in challenging our claim of internal waters under UNCLoS.)”

As our readers peruse this column, the China Sea dispute will be discussed in a forum at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) entitled, “Understanding 21st Century China: All Under Heaven?” implying perhaps that China “claims all under heaven.” The AIM is, of course, the US-Philippine corporate class’ managerial diploma mill. As such, it frames the issue according to its bias: That China still needs to be understood. But isn’t China transparent and crystal clear enough in stating that it wants “peaceful development”?

What any forum that promises intelligent debates must discuss is the US “pivot” to Asia and its real intentions, such as maintaining its domination of the region and its seas and interloping all over it with impunity.

I thought I would attend the AIM discussion since speakers such as Chito Sta. Romana (former ABC Beijing bureau chief), Liping Zheng of the Asian Development Bank, and Marwyn Samuels of Beijing University will be there. But I learned from an article of pro-American China-basher and disinformation disseminator Rafael Alunan III (scion of a Japanese-era Makapili minister who served alongside Benigno Simeon Aquino Sr.) that forum participation is “by invitation only.” Although I got an indirect invitation, I believe that doesn’t count. Instead, I will start organizing an international forum of speakers from anti-war, anti-imperialism leading lights, such as GlobalResearch’s Michel Chossudovsky, Anti-War.com’s Brian Becker, LaRouche’s Mike Billington, et al.

Chito Sta. Romana pointed out on our GNN TV show that the Philippines, in signing agreements that open itself to US nuclear submarines, has made itself a target of Chinese medium-range missiles. Yet those are still a few hundred less missiles aimed at US bases across the region as against tons of radiation for our people.

(Tune in to “Sulo ng Pilipino” on 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; catch GNN’s Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., this week on “Fascism on the rise?” with Satur Ocampo and “From truck ban to market clean-up” with Councilors Letlet Zarcal and Dennis Alcoreza; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)