Strike Three: Noy’s out

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

5/20/2013

Daily Tribune

1) August 23, 2010 Hong Kong Tourist Association Luneta massacre resulting in death for eight Hong Kong tourists; 2) April 8, 2012 Panatag Shoal incident when "grey ship" (naval) BRP Gregorio Del Pilar was sent to confront and arrest eight Chinese fishing boats triggering Chinese marine surveillance ships to respond; 3) the May 9 Balintang incident resulting in the death of one Chinese fisherman. Each of these incidents resulted from the absence of executive (i.e. presidential) response and leadership from the Chief Executive of the Philippines and blatant politicization of the investigations and perceived coddling of guilty parties in the process. Most unfortunate and to some, deeply suspicious in these series of grievous errors of the president is the victimization of Chinese civilians.

Last week this space wrote "Taiwan's rage, RP's failings" trying to discern the just approach to the incident at the Balintang Islands. We recounted the facts of the case as information trickled in from Taiwan's authorities and media and from the Philippine authorities. Aside from the corpus delicti, the Taiwan side was very quick to report details on the ballistics forensics showing the trajectory of the bullets from the Philippine Coast Guard fire hitting mainly astern, portside or rear left side, hardly indicating a boat attempting to ram the PCG head on as the initial impression one gets from reading the PCG report. The PCG had claims but absolutely no physical evidence to support any of its claims, such as pictures of a damage patrol boat and the like.

After the Balitang incident, May 10, Taiwan media had the images all over the world of the dead fisherman, the grieving family and the Taiwan protests. Taiwan authorities were already demanding an apology, compensation and investigation from Philippine authorities. The MECO (Manila Economic and Cultural Office) representative visited the grieving family, a quick action that must be commended. Deputy spokesman Abigail Valte had a late evening press conference which didn't impact at all. Malacañang waited a week for a high level, formal response through presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda; but by then the damage to RP-Taiwan relations already looked irreversible. Through the week I waited for any proof from the PCG that may show that the Taiwanese, as some allege, are overreacting.

The first indication that the PCG had a credible piece of evidence to its claim that the shooting incident was an act of self-defense against an attacking fishing vessel was the May 17 news report that the PCG had a video tape of the whole incident that would prove its case. If it had this it would have erased doubts about the defensive nature of its action. Without a self-defense motive the PCG was clearly in troubled waters as the international laws covering the situation the Taiwanese fishing vessels and the PCG ship do not permit the use of lethal force, especially in an area where sovereignty is subject to question such as an overlapping exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Even in an EEZ when clearly exclusivity is established, the use of lethal force is not countenanced by international laws.

At this writing 11 days after the incident the alleged video still has not been released raised suspicion that the footage may not really be as helpful as the PCG claims. Malacañang should have called in all this evidence at the earliest opportunity to formulate its response to the Taiwanese claims, but the "noynoying" was also in operation. Today, we are still awaiting the video's release to the public, but in the meantime the earliest indication of the culpability of the PCG by Philippine media comes from a leak form an unnamed PCG official privy to the internal investigation that the "Coast Guard may have violated rules of engagement" which questions the apparent haste with which lethal force was used that may violate even the PCG's Rules of Engagement.

Reports say the video confirm the 1-hour chase the Taiwanese claim the PCG conducted, firing over 50 rounds against the unarmed Taiwanese fishing vessel, indicating hostile intent on the PCG's side. In such situations the PCG is expected only to report the incident and file the corresponding case through appropriate channels. One aspect to look for in this is whether the Taiwanese fishing vessels were actually caught fishing, because if they were not they could claim to be just making passage through the Luzon Straits. That's covered by the 1991 Executive Order No. 473 of President Corazon Aquino providing safe passage to Taiwanese vessels provided they do not fish and have their fishing gears stowed in their holds.

The Taiwanese are not the only victims in this sordid mess. One hundred million Filipinos are also victims, their country suffering further damage to its reputation and many sectors such as Taiwan-bound OFWs and our local tourism hit with crippling boycotts. All victims of the lackadaisical and incompetent BS Aquino III government whose highest officials, after striking out the third time should be offering resignations posthaste if it had any shame at all.

(Tune to 1098AM, 5 to 6 p.m., Tuesday to Friday; Destiny Cable, Channel 8, Saturday 8 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m.; visit: http//www.newkatipunero.blogspot.com)

Taiwan’s rage, RP failings

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

5/15/2013

Daily Tribune

Little noticed over the din of the last elections is a mounting tsunami of rage and potential for economic-political retaliation from the Taiwan government and people over the killing by elements of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) of 65-year old Taiwanese fisherman Hung Shih-Cheng of the fishing vessel Kuang Ta Hsing No. 28.
At first blush the PCG contention seems to be an open-and-shut case as Rear Adm. Rodolfo Isorena claimed the Taiwanese fishing vessels were "poaching" in the Philippine exclusive economic zone (EEZ), 43 nautical miles east of the Balintang Islands which is just about 40 kilometers North-North East of the Babuyan Islands. The PCG defended its use of high caliber weaponry claiming the Taiwanese fishing vessel tried to ram the PCG patrol vessel.

Protests exploded in Taiwan and the grief stricken family of the dead Taiwanese fisherman dominated Taiwan news media. Taiwanese fishermen threw eggs at the Philippines' representative office in Taipei and burned images of the Philippines' flag. Protesters included members of the New Taipei-based National Fishermen's Association, as well as from other fishermen's associations in Hsinchu and Yilan. Politics entered the picture as the opposition DPP (Democratic People's Party) criticized as weak the actions of ruling Kuomintang (KMT) president Ma Ying-jeou who has threatened to cut the employment of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) (87,000 there) unless the Philippine government meets a deadline (Tuesday, midnight) for an investigation, official apology (which the Philippine government is hesitant to make) and compensation for the bereaved family.

The mainland China English news channel CCTV 9 also covered closely the Taiwan fisherman's tragic death. I first understood the Taiwanese perspective on the controversy from CCTV 9 in an interview with a Taiwanese lady politician and two foreign affairs analysts. Taiwan's view is not covered much in the Philippine media. After hearing their view the PCG's defense of its action may not be as tenable as it first looked. The Philippine's claim of the fishing vessel being in Philippine EEZ is only half the story, the other half is that that same area is just 165 miles off the Taiwan coast and within the 200 miles EEZ of Taiwan. Thus, the area is an overlapping EEZ. According to the Law of the Sea, when EEZs overlap or coastal baselines are less than 400 nautical miles apart, it is up to the states to negotiate the actual maritime boundary.

The Philippines may argue that the location where the incident occurred is a point closer to the Philippine coastal baseline and defaults to the nearest state or the Philippines. The more difficult case for the Philippines is the use of heavy armament against the unarmed Taiwanese fishing vessels, and the contention that the fishing vessel tried to ram the clearly heavily armed PCG vessel. Why would an unarmed vessel manned by scrawny, ordinary fishermen, as obvious from the video footages of the crews, dare to assault another armed vessel? Worse, if the Taiwanese view is validated, the Taiwan news reports claim the PCG shots were fired 52 rounds at the rear of the fishing vessel which was apparently speeding away instead of confronting the PCG vessel. The PCG claimed it wanted to disable the "poachers," but 52 rounds do seem excessive.

On CCTV 9 a Chinese foreign relations expert emphasized that the Philippine maritime officers have killed Chinese fisherman before the last time in 2006. He added that 30 incidents of arrests have been recorded over the years, and often demands for ransom for the release of the fishermen were made. The Hong Kong Tourist Massacre incident in Luneta was recalled and opprobrium heaped on Philippine police and governance. The Taiwanese lawmaker added that given the facts, the US must take a position on the side of the Taiwanese against it other ally, the Philippines; implying that otherwise, In the "new era of cross-straits relations" (PROC and Taiwan) where the US does not count as much as previously, Taiwan can gravitate closer to China if the US does not support the Taiwanese case. Taiwan's bitterness can be a coup for PROC's diplomacy.

A fellow Filipino said to me "Why should be stand for a 'deadline' from a country of only 20-million people (Taiwan)?" The Philippines often feels it is always in the losing end of disputes with its northern neighbors of the China or West Philippines Sea, but a lot of its woes has to do with its own failings. Besides, the Taiwanese did lose a life to the PCG, just as the Hong Kong people lost eight killed in the Luneta, and we do have 87,000 OFWs in Taiwan and China does buy billions from Filipino exporters. But the Philippines is in a hapless position not because of them but because it has the kind of leaders like those unremarkable top senators chosen in the last elections who can never oppose US-local oligarchy, corporatist corruption and economic abuse and exploitation impoverishing this country.

(Tune to 1098AM, 5 to 6 p.m., Tuesday to Friday; Destiny Cable, Channel 8, Sat. 8pm and Sun 8am: this week "Circus Over: What to expect"; visit: http//www.newkatipunero.blogspot.com)

Source(ery) code

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

5/13/2013

Daily Tribune

The Commission on Elections' (Comelec) promised source code finally arrives in Manila less than a week before Election Day. Coming three years after it should have been delivered to the voting public for inspection and put in escrow at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, it is now too late to subject it to serious scrutiny. This much has been pointed out by Philippine Computer Society president Toti Casiño, a view backed not only by the organization's 3,000 members but also by various groups such as the Automated Election System Watch (AES Watch) and many others. Similarly, the Facebook commentaries of internet activist Adriano Solomon, which point out that the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines for today's elections had been sent out by the thousands with their source codes since April, question if there is any similarity between these and the source code now said to have been delivered by Dominion Voting Systems.

Other than a face-saving gesture for the Comelec and Smartmatic, the Dominion Voting Systems' delivery of this source code is totally meaningless and downright insulting to the intelligence of the public. Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes had the usual temerity to say, "All those who say that there is no source code should now keep their peace," when it was he who had dilly-dallied on it. The question now is whether the source code (either for 2010 or today) is reliable, trustworthy, and conforms to the automated elections law — something that cannot be as it has yet to undergo public scrutiny.
Dominion Voting Systems, for its part, is also being very dubious for delaying the source code delivery, which, if likened to a basketball game, was made only in the last 10 seconds.
Have Dominion and Smartmatic been playing cat-and-mouse game with the Filipino people all along with their Delaware court suit to cover for a suspected 2010 election fraud, which will continue for as long as we use their PCOS system?

Stranger still was the sum of money that had to be forked out for Dominion's delivery. According to news reports, it was put into effect only after Smartmatic agreed to pay $10 million — an amount first offered by Brillantes, which had to be retracted as Comelec was later claimed to have no budget for it.
Even if it appears that Smartmatic had paid for it, this episode clearly demonstrates that the PCOS election system (under then Chairman Jose Melo in 2010 and now Brillantes) has reduced Philippine elections into a process by which foreign companies can hold the country's democracy hostage and release it only upon payment of ransom. But even more skeptical and technically capable minds go deeper than the scandalous financial aspect of the Dominion-Smartmatic scenario. Information Technology Foundation of the Philippines (ITFP) president Maricor Akol once commented that Dominion may be very coy about the source code as its examination may reveal manipulation for BS Aquino III by the United States.

Questions about conflict-of-interest voting machine companies have come to light in the US where many of these companies are based. As one site, The Landes Report, writes: "Foreigners, convicted criminals, office holders, political candidates, and news media organizations can and do own these companies. It appears that these companies are dominated by members of the Republican Party and foreign investors… Sequoia (UK), Accenture/Election.com (UK-Bermuda), EVS (Japan) and N.V. Nederlandsche Apparatenfabriek (Netherlands). Election.com was formerly owned by Osan Ltd., a Saudi Arabian firm. Many voting machine companies appear to share managers, investors and equipment which raises questions of conflict-of-interest and monopolistic practices." So who are really behind Smartmatic, which has frequently misrepresented itself, and Dominion?

Popular US Establishment critic Alex Jones of Prison Planet wrote an article ("CIA-owned voting machines ensure Bush victory in 2004") where he stated that the "American vote-count is controlled by three major corporate players — Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia (all bought out by Dominion)… These companies… glitch-riddled systems… technology that leaves no paper trail at all… are almost laughably open to manipulation, according to corporate whistle-blowers and computer scientists at Stanford, Johns Hopkins and other universities." The prize for the US in controlling Philippine elections is subversion of the very leadership positions of the country without having to start a costly local invasion such as in Afghanistan or Syria, and getting the success of the BangsaMoro, Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Exxon-Mobil, Mindanao-Sulu Sea oil plot, along with diplomatic coups and tensions against China, etc.

Toti Casiño, in my GNN show, concluded with me that Philippine elections using the PCOS are simply circuses. My other guest who gave his usual "fearful forecast," Linggoy Alcuaz, agreed, saying that the "constitutional circus" starts with the manipulated voter preference surveys (where certain bets are favored with top rankings in early surveys to give them an early boost) and ends with the manipulated PCOS elections.

Although Philippine elections had always been manipulated, particularly from the time of Ramon Magsaysay when the CIA's Edward Landsdale set up the National Citizens' Movement for Free Elections to defeat recalcitrant Elpidio Quirino and for the American Manufacturers Association-funded Diosdado Macapagal to defeat "Filipino First" President Carlos P. Garcia, their manipulation has become infinitely more sophisticated with today's "source(ery) code."

We can take David Niven's advice to "Keep the circus going inside you, keep it going, don't take anything too seriously, it'll all work out in the end." Or we can start wising up by reading Stefan Halper's The Beijing Consensus: How China's Authoritarian Model Will Dominate the Twenty-first Century.

(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 visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)