Fil-Am 'patriots'

Fil-Am ‘patriots’

(Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 07-24-2013 WED)

 

Filipino-American (Fil-Am) anti-China crusaders Loida Nicolas-Lewis and Rodel Rodis have been at the forefront of a year-long campaign to rouse the global Filipino community against what they call China’s “invasion” of Philippine territory.  From a failed boycott of Chinese goods last year and the assembly of US Pinoys for Good Governance (USP4GG) to purportedly clean up the Philippines while endorsing a list of its favored candidates for the recent 2013 senatorial polls, to the recent convening of the West Philippine Sea Coalition (WPSC) with US Naval Academy graduate Roilo Golez and FVR man Rafael Alunan, there is indeed no shortage of “patriotic” rhetoric from their end.  But here are a few questions:

 

Have these crusaders said anything on the Malampaya natural gas project, where Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron-Texaco, operating in UNDISPUTED Philippine territory, have been extracting natural gas for export and for the natural gas-fired power plants feeding the dominant power distributor at rates pegged to high petroleum prices?  While the Philippines supposedly has a 10-percent share in Malampaya, it’s a pittance compared to what sovereign countries get: Bolivia, up to 82 percent; Ecuador, up to 99 percent--for oil priced above $23.  Yet even that 10 percent is misleading, as the consortium’s investment and taxes are charged to the country’s 10-percent stake.  Have we heard a pip from them on this blatant and grossly abusive Anglo-US plunder of our natural gas?

 

Worse, the US, Britain, and their local partners--principally the oligarchs (Ayalas, Lopezes et al.) and the corrupt political class--have not only inflicted that grossly iniquitous deal, our country was even forced to use much of its paltry Malampaya revenues for foreign military purchases.

 

On Sept. 2011, Budget Secretary Butch Abad said that $117 million of royalties from the gas facility will go to funding purchases of search-and-rescue and patrol helicopters--not for national emergencies but--“to guard Malampaya” (i.e. US and British interests).  Moreover, he admitted that about $10 million of the royalties was spent on refurbishing the Hamilton-class Navy frigates purchased from the US.

 

The $4.5-billion Malampaya project holds 2.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 65 million barrels of condensates.  Shell and Chevron are estimated to earn $250 billion in 25 years.

 

Then, there’s this other question that is crying out for answers from these “hyper-patriotic” fogies: What’s their take on the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) recently finagling from BS Aquino III’s negotiating panel 75 percent of all the wealth under the MILF’s supposed BangsaMoro substate--territories which include the vast, oil-rich Sulu Sea?

 

Behind the MILF and this so-called peace deal is the United States Institute for Peace (USIP) led by J. Robinson West, also the head of the world’s largest oil consulting firm, PFC Energy.  Among West’s clients is (surprise, surprise) Chevron-Texaco.  They are sure to exclaim, “It’s three for us (the US-MILF tandem) and one for you (98 million Filipinos)!”

 

Going by the Anglo-US record in the Middle East where only a few sectarian Sunni leaders are fattened, we can never expect ordinary Muslim Filipinos sharing in the oil and gas wealth.  Instead, they will be kept in medieval states of poverty while the MILF collaborators make hay.

 

Next, have we heard any patriotic pronouncements from these anti-Chinese “patriots” on the wholesale oil- and land-grabbing of Britain and Malaysia of the Philippines’ very own North Borneo (Sabah), most especially the ongoing murder and abuse of our fellow Filipinos there?

 

Despite this administration’s treasonous actions, the entire Filipino nation has been against the continuing alienation of that oil-rich area from its historic and sovereign motherland, and its original reigning sultanate--the Sultanate of Sulu.  Evidence of Filipinos’ overwhelming opposition to the continued separation of North Borneo from the Philippine archipelago is the way they have given their support to the Royal Sultanate Forces’ attempt to resettle in the Taosugs’ traditional homeland.

 

As far as I can remember, nothing has ever been heard from these Fil-Am “patriots” on this historic issue that is of primordial importance to the sovereignty and integrity of this nation.

 

And so we ask: What gains have accrued to the Philippines from the activities of these Fil-Ams and their local cohorts?  One of the moves that these “patriots” have praised is the elevation of the South China Sea territorial disputes to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (Itlos).

 

Assuming the Philippines gets its way in the Itlos, will that change the final equation in any way?  The only sure result is greater intransigence from the People’s Republic of China, where physical conflict would be the next step.  Any escalation would only make sense if the US joins the fray.  And will the Philippines gain anything from that?

 

From historical and present realities, it is a foregone conclusion that only the Philippines will be the final loser as it had been in World War II, where both the US and even Japan eventually won the war, with the Philippines continuing to wallow in devastation up to this day.

 

Anas Almasri, writing this year in Invest In Web site, says, “Chinese FDI (foreign direct investments) to the Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nation) countries soared by 150 percent in 2011 compared to the previous year, the highest growth in the bloc’s top ten sources of FDI … Chinese direct investment to the Southeast Asian nations were enough to surpass that of the US… due to the US FDI itself decreasing by more than half in 2011.”

 

Militarily, Australian Peter Hartcher, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald in May this year comments, “We rely on the US at our peril,” as he noted how the 10 US aircraft carriers are already being negated by China’s hypersonic anti-missiles.

 

Meanwhile, as writer Bernie Lopez writes in one major daily that China has warned Manila that the presence of US bases in the Philippines will compel it to aim missiles at these facilities, Filipino economist Pancho Lara decries, “We are missing on the billions of investment funds of China.”

 

(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 “OFWs await RP-Taiwan conciliation”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 09234095739)

RP media suckered to war

RP media suckered to war

(Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 02-12-2014 WED)

 

Philippine media reports and opinions, including those of netizens, are turning reality on its head as to who the real bully is in Asia, by deliberately focusing the spotlight on China when it is the US that has been throwing its weight around in the region since 1945.

 

General Curtis LeMay, planner of the strategic bombing of North Korea, said, “After destroying North Korea’s 78 cities and thousands of her villages... over a period of three years or so, we killed off--what--20 percent of the population.” (Actually, it’s 30 percent.)

 

Then, further south, aside from 4 million Vietnamese civilian deaths are “two million Agent Orange victims ... (where) the figure today is greater than 3 million… including children of the second and third generations.” (Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign, US)

 

In the Philippines, apart from the US’ war atrocities at the turn of the 20th Century, the colonial power is leading the merciless financial and economic extractions behind the dictated hemorrhagic debt and expanded Value Added Tax (eVAT), electricity privatization, blockade of cheaper Chinese infrastructure goods (like MRT coaches), ad nausea.

 

The public needs accurate information, such as those coming from James Cogan (“US Analysts Debate Plans for War Against China,” GlobalResearch), who wrote: “Seth Cropsey of the Hudson Institute... told a US Senate subcommittee … ‘With China, our objective ought to be to prevent the rise of an Asian hegemon, a power that would destroy the current US alliance system in Asia … (And) the alternative being advocated... is...by Thomas X. Hammes...

 

“Hammes, a former marine colonel... published several articles... promoting his ‘Offshore Control’ plan… in 2012 that the US repudiate direct attacks on targets located on the Chinese mainland... preparing for an economic blockade of China, which is included within AirSea Battle (the US war doctrine now)… that the US military instead ‘cripple China’s export trade’… (by) sinking or intercepting and turning back vessels… (or) what in peacetime would be piracy on a mass scale.  He noted that ‘80 percent of China’s imported oil transits the Straits of Malacca.  If Malacca, Lombok, Sunda, and the routes north and south of Australia were controlled, these shipments could be cut off,’ causing a massive energy crisis.”

 

As I have quoted the official Chinese declaration last Feb. 1 at the Munich Security Conference in my last column about the “Chinese dream” being realized with “a good external environment,” thereby adding to global “peace and prosperity,” the Philippines would indeed benefit from this.

 

Instead, fear and loathing of the Chinese is being inflamed as the specter of a “threat” is raised.  But a “threat” to what?

 

The Philippines’ gold and other mineral treasures have been sucked dry by the US and its allies over the past hundred years.  That is what the West does not want to lose.

 

China is aware of the eventual “economic blockade,” hence, it is investing in commercial ports in Pakistan (Gwadar), Sri Lanka (Hambantota and Colombo), Bangladesh (Chittagong), and Myanmar (Sittwe and Kyaukpyu).  There is also a proposed project to open up the isthmus of Thailand (like the Panama Canal) to be known as the Kra Canal.  All these are aimed at obviating the passage of Chinese goods around the Straits of Malacca and avoiding any choke-off of trade to and from China.  South Asia and Southeast Asian trade will flourish because of these ports; only the West’s strategic interests are threatened.

 

China basher Ashley Townshend in YaleGlobal Online, for instance, opined, “Viewed alongside the large-scale naval modernization program being undertaken by the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) many worry that these ostensibly trade-oriented ports will one day be upgraded into permanent naval bases.”

 

But why should China do as they fear if others do not attempt to sabotage it and the region’s economic prosperity?  The fact is, the US and its Western allies continue to discuss plots to choke off China as cited above.

 

And why would the US and the West want to start a war?  From “All Wars Are Bankers’ Wars” by Michael Rivero: “The United States fought the American Revolution primarily over King George III's Currency Act, which forced the colonists to conduct their business only using printed bank notes borrowed from the Bank of England… World War I started between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, but quickly shifted to focus on Germany… seen as an economic threat to Great Britain … When the Weimar Republic collapsed economically, it opened the door for (the state) ... to issue (its) own state currency not borrowed from private central bankers.  Freed from having to pay interest… Germany blossomed and quickly began to rebuild its industry...”

 

British wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill once said, “The war wasn’t only about abolishing fascism, but to conquer sales markets.  We could have, if we had intended so, prevented this war from breaking out without doing one shot, but we didn’t want to.” (Fulton, USA speech, March 1946)

 

Suck on that, pro-US idiots!

 

(Watch 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.; tune in to “Sulo ng Pilipino” on 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)

Media-money-go-round

Media-money-go-round

(Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 03-26-2014 WED)

 

"Pay·o·la": pāˈōlə/ noun/ the practice of bribing someone to use their influence or position to promote a particular product or interest."

 

The Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI) is making a big deal about the National Agri-Business Corp. (NABCOR) media payola, as it and everybody else, particularly other media people, should do.  But everybody, including the Inquirer, should make a big deal about its own and other mainstream media's payola too.  Almost all mainstream and even non-mainstream media, such as the Web's "social media," have one form of payola or another.  Only self-financed and people-funded media would have none of it.

 

Even global corporate giants give out payolas, as can be seen in the following: "'Microsoft reportedly pays YouTube uploaders to promote Xbox One'... GAMES CONSOLE MAKER Microsoft is offering 'influencers' money to promote the Xbox One on YouTube ... (It) offered to pay content creators $3 CPM (cost per thousand page views), or about £1.80 CPM for videos uploaded featuring Xbox One content...

 

"Smith's account (one recipient) was deleted after Machinima was proven to be involved in Microsoft Xbox One 'payola'."

 

Payola for media can come in many couched forms.  It could be just envelopes where the content may not necessarily be money but gift cheques.  Whether or not such gifts are sizeable enough to be payola, a media outlet or practitioner may still not consider the interest of the giver at any given instance.

 

Payola can also come in the form of "investments," like the 20 percent stake one business oligarch put into the Inquirer, among other major print and broadcast media amounting to billions.  As disclosure is one of the ethical principles to mitigate the various forms of "payola," the Inquirer probably made the admission in a boxed item one day after one weekly newspaper exposed the said "investment."  But the late disclosure of such a major payola may still be considered unethical.

 

Another form of payola is advertising.  What comes to mind is Linggoy Alcuaz' revelations a decade ago about corruption at the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) under Honeygirl Singson that were never published as promised by the PDI's Editor-in-Chief Letty Magsanoc after a series of giant PCSO ads in the paper, giving rise to the speculation that PDI does have news that are really balanced--in the banks--and views that are fearless in their hypocrisy.

 

 

 

Recently, the PDI emblazoned the names of two media personalities in its headline, "Pork payoffs to newscasters Erwin Tulfo, Del Prado, others bared" but it didn't name one of the significant "other" who got P2 million.  Why?  Why the double-standard?

 

If the media grapevine is to be believed, the said broadcaster is allegedly from ABS-CBN, who has primetime radio-TV-webcast slots.  I once heard this "Tonying" on radio boasting of his seven figure income from the same conglomerate that made its billions from the overly expensive power rates over the past decades since EDSA I to this very day.

 

Recognizing the problem of media workers and their need for economic independence from payolas and payola-givers, including media corporations who run on payolas of all forms and keep these practitioners in constant "economic survival" mode, I picked up an idea two decades ago from the British and former British Commonwealth countries, as well as from France and Germany, where the Fourth Estate is supported by the state (i.e. known simply as government in the Philippines, making no distinction from the state).  Many sectors of public interest are supported this way, such as the statutory funds for the Philippines' National Commissions--for the Arts, for Women, etc.

 

So I proposed in several of my columns in the defunct Today that the Philippines set up a "National Commission for the Press and Media" and be provided by the state a certain amount, say P200 million (about the amounts of the other commissions), to provide media workers and journalists protection, welfare and health, educational, and organizational funds through press and media organizations to be accredited by the media community and the academe.

 

Rep. Tony Roman picked it up when we discussed it in my wife's then restaurant, Mama Rosa.  Roman brought it to Congress but it was eventually shot down by the House's Information Committee, which, I think, was headed by a then Rep. TG Guingona, who said to me in a hearing, "The media owners will get angry."

 

When I was teaching MassCom and Journalism at the PUP between 2003 and 2005, I used to tell my students, "You think it is so great to become journalists?  A rice farmer is independent at least for the months after his rice harvests; as journalists, you will have a pen in one hand and a begging bowl on the other because you cannot even eat without a benefactor to feed you.  In our system, better get a wife or a husband who has a good job if you want to be a principled journalist."

 

(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 "Manila's truck ban" and "The Napoles-De Lima scandal"; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)