Futile end games to every Yellow problem

Futile end games to every Yellow problem

(Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 07-22-2015 WED)

 

It's a feeling of exasperation when one takes stock of this country's trajectory--from its elections to its foreign policy, its economic realities, and so on.

 

Elections here are a proven farce with its election body and its automated election system completely discredited.  Yet the freak show goes on.

 

Its major foreign policy pursuit is mired in a hopeless conundrum: UP Maritime Affairs Director Jay Batongbacal recently wrote that the UN arbitral tribunal may still rule in favor of China despite the latter's absence, a disaster as much as any hoped for win that will never yield any compliance even for a hundred years.

 

The Philippine "No Dialogue with China" crowd believed it had struck on a very powerful argument in the international stage when it raised the "island building" issue against China.  But brought to wider attention by US and French-reared geopoliticist Peter Lee's July 18 article on Asia Times ("Okinotorishima-ization: South China Sea arbitration case enters middle game") on the Okinotorishima rock features near Taiwan and mainland China, visible during high tide and built up by Japan into a huge facility with a lighthouse, four-story structures, etc., and the basis of their argument becomes flimsy at best.  Google the word and you'll see the huge Japanese "island," which these rabble-rousers are silent on.

 

At the conclusion of the lengthy article and to point out the futility of it all, Lee referred to our Iranian-Filipino colleague, Ateneo political science professor Richard Javad Heydarian, as "the leading defender of the Philippine strategy in the Western media, (who) endeavored to manage expectations if the Philippines does not prevail in the arbitration case… or prevails and the PRC disregards the ruling…" I texted to Richard that Lee apparently does not read enough of what he has written as I know that Richard has been calling on BS Aquino to start engaging in dialogue with China.

 

Richard texted back to me, "Actually even in my TV interviews on GMA and CNN, I emphasized on the need to have diplomatic engagement and on The Diplomat (an Australian foreign policy-military magazine) they have asked me to analyze the downside of pure confrontation with China.  But there's a lot of negative reaction from the hardliners here when I talk about engagement…"

 

The hardliners he's referring to include the likes of the so-called West Philippine Sea Coalition and big mainstream papers, including the Inquirer, working non-stop to muffle broadminded discussion that could break the "information gulag," which they obviously would like to fence the Filipino public in.

 

But broadminded and visionary discussions calling for productive engagement with China and promising multiple bounties from such actions are eliciting positive responses.  To our last column ("Thailand gets trains; RP, bases"), we received this text from a former multiple-term congressman: "Tnx.  Quarreling with China deprives us of opportunities to link up the whole country by rail.  Huhuhu…"

 

Of course, we also get our share of brickbats and name-calling (like "Fifth Columnist"… hahaha) from the hardliners who can articulate no more than such Neanderthal grunts.

 

The defense alliance of Filipino anti-China and Amboy crowds hoping to rope in to backstop their offensives against China are facing rough seas at home.  The US, though still the world's largest military, is cutting back its forces by 40,000 troops and its budget by $90 billion, both of which do not augur well for its "Asia Pivot."

 

Meanwhile, Japan's Shinzo Abe government that is leading the "reinterpretation" of that country's Constitution to allow its military to join other allied armed forces (like those of the US and Philippines) is being opposed by 66 percent of the Japanese people (represented by a hundred thousand who protested before the Diet's deliberations).

 

Back home, Philippine mainstream media and a premier survey group are hyping the "lowest hunger rate" in a decade, which uncannily comes just before presidential election year, hoping to gloss over the country's continued dependence on food importation to complete its food requirements, its agricultural sector still trapped in marginal productivity, or its institutions for agricultural development wallowing in corruption.

 

What they won't say is that the Philippines continues to be trapped in "austerity programs," as evinced by the real 50 percent under- and unemployment rate for the past 30 years after the International Monetary Fund's structural adjustments saw millions leave for jobs abroad--this much Greece shall begin to see in the years ahead.

 

The Filipino nation is made to hope that the unending cycle of problems, among the many others that cannot fit here, can be solved in the next presidential elections.  But the same old personality game of oligarchy-endorsed, media moguls cum US embassy- nurtured candidates are still in it while the political parties are the wagging tail to the celebrity candidate and not the other way around as it should be in a genuine democracy.  And, to top it all, a foreign-controlled, non-transparent, graft-ridden election company and its machines are still usurping the electoral process.

 

Smartmatic was disqualified twice by the Commission on Elections' briefly reigning, straight and honest Bids and Awards Committee, headed by Helen Flores.  But the Right Honorable Lord Mark Malloch Brown, newly-minted British full owner of Smartmatic (whom the US-based LaRouche movement calls the "guru of color revolutions" and finance predator George Soros' associate), arrives in Manila, sups with BS Aquino in Malacañang, and a week later Ms. Flores is removed, with Smartmatic getting the contracts for 170,000 Smartmatic voting machines.  Where does this end?  Only Noytards will pretend not to know what this end game will be.

 

(Listen to Sulô ng Pilipino, 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN 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.; search Talk News TV and date of showing on YouTube; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)

Thailand gets trains; RP, bases

Thailand gets trains; RP, bases

(Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 07-20-2015 MON)

 

Thailand is on a train-building spree.  Thais rightly find that trains can develop their nation's wealth.  The Thai government, for example, is cooperating with China on the Bt400-billion Bangkok-Nong Khai 160 to 180 kilometers-per-hour trains for linkage of trade and services and goods transportation in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) mainland.  Thais are also very wise.  They're cashing in on the China-Japan rivalry by getting the Japanese to outbid the Chinese on other train projects.  Thailand is getting Japan to develop and fund the high-speed train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai (its premier tour destinations).

 

China has been dominating Asean economic developments for the past decades; only recently did Japan wake up to the need for it to start competing effectively.  Japanese PM Shinzo Abe raised his country's ante in the Asean courting game by 30 percent late last year to $110 billion.

 

The train export and development has become one of the initial battle grounds for Japan and China.  Asean countries are taking advantage: Indonesian President Joko Widodo has asked the Chinese government to develop the high-speed Jakarta-Bandung bullet train--and Japan is hurrying to put up its own offer.

 

In Cambodia, the Chinese are ahead in their development plans with that country for an $11-billion, 400-kilometer rail line cum steel mill from its northern Preah Vihear province to the commercial island of Koh Kong.  Japan is attempting to vie for such projects too.

 

Even Vietnam has a 13-kilometer-long rapid transit train project with China, cutting travel time from Cat Linh to Hanoi.  The list of Asean train projects with China is just too long to list in this column, and Japan is now close on the heels of China to catch up with Asean's modernization of its railway systems.

 

Here in the Philippines, decision-makers are pathetically misleading the Filipino people, isolating the country from productive, beneficial relationships that other Asean member-states are establishing with China.  With Japan waking up to the need to upgrade its competitiveness, most of Asean are using this rivalry to their countries' benefit.  But not here in the Philippines, where supposed "patriots" rally to isolate the country from China; futilely "boycott" its goods; and rally for the importation of "foreign (US and Japanese) military bases" disguised as Philippine installations and lobby for missiles and gunships.

 

 

Of course, the Philippine government begrudgingly has to deal with China.  In the MRT upgrading project of its coaches, the government had to buy from China's Dalian Locomotive because it is the most affordable and one of the best among the world's suppliers.  But that was not without a fight from the country's economic elite rulers who tried to stop it, or from the Western supplying company working through an ambassador, who tried to bribe its way through the top Filipino political family, to impose its train coaches that are four times more expensive than the ones from China.

 

The Philippines is being misled not just on missing out on theses trains but in hundreds of billions of opportunities for trade, tourism, and financing.  The AIIB (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank) is a golden opportunity to tap the huge financing pool China has set up, as well as the NDB (New Development Bank) in cooperation with the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), but the Philippines has been corralled out of them by its ruling powers, i.e. Western powers and their cohort ruling class in the Philippines, who all want to keep the Philippines under their control economically, financially, and militarily.

 

And so the Filipino people are kept in mental, intellectual, and information "concentration camps" while these powers "hamlet" the warmongers both inside and outside the country and peddle their war materiel--like this retired US Naval Academy graduate cum Gloria Arroyo National Security Adviser cum hard-selling vendor for Israeli missiles, who insists on these missiles against the better judgment of our Armed Forces' incumbent authorities who prefer to provide protection to our troops fighting terrorists and the Malaysian-supported Muslim insurgency.  How more insane can these "patriots" get?

 

However, even in military equipment, the Philippines is missing out on the most affordable and among the highest quality defense materiel.  Thailand, for instance, has bought submarines from China worth $1 billion.  These submarines, arguably, should fulfill more effectively the overall need of the Philippines for external defense--to stop arms smuggling in the South that supplies the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, BangsaMoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, Abu Sayyaf, and others, as well as to interdict shipments that result in both economic, political, and military sabotage or to resupply Philippine-controlled islands in the South China Sea.

 

But I am being waylaid to military purchases issues when the real need of the country is economic development in order to afford bigger and more legitimate defense budgets in the future.  The Philippines is the "kulelat" in trade with China while the most economically advanced in Asean have up to triple that trade volume, with Indonesia having double that of the Philippines with China.

 

The Philippines needs trains and other economic goods--not the US and Japanese military bases nor missiles and gunboats.

 

(Listen to Sulô ng Pilipino, 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN 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.; search Talk News TV and date of showing on YouTube; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)

A nation waylaid by its traitor class

A nation waylaid by its traitor class

(Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 07-15-2015 WED)

 

As if he had a stroke of genius, one columnist at the Malaya wrote: Win first then talk.  He was, of course, referring to winning in The Hague on the South China Sea/West Philippine Sea issue.  The writer apparently thinks the intellectual level of China's leadership is at the same level as his or the present ruling class' in the Philippines.  He forgets the revolutionary tradition from which the present leadership of China springs and its victorious 60-year struggle to achieve its present proud status.  A "victory" by the Philippine junket team at The Hague won't matter an iota.

 

The BS Aquino government obviously expects a victory at The Hague given its estimate of the self-interest of the Tribunal to insist its relevance, which is what some of the pro-litigation proponents have stated.  They have warned the Tribunal in so many statements, which I paraphrase, "The ITLoS will become irrelevant if it does not support Secretary Albert del Rosario's case."  What is also apparent is their notion that the employment of the four foreign, Caucasian lawyers will provide a clear advantage to the Philippines' case.  That is certainly laughable.

 

Regarding this pricey legal team, Ado Paglinawan (formerly with our Washington embassy) emailed us from the US: "The Hague is clearly for optics… the show of force, massive propaganda with a lot emotional sound bites.  All those monkeys spending our tax dollars can now proceed to our rouges' gallery… Ta..g ina, 30 million of our people are below poverty line and they waste our money that easily.  There are two court trials to my best witness where we hired expensive attorneys and not just lost millions of dollars in the litigation but lost the case altogether.

 

"I watched this up close as Philippine press attache--first the Imelda trial in New York, and second the Westinghouse case in New Jersey.  In keeping with the 'Aquino' and 'Liberal Party' hang-up for legalism, this is the third time we will lose millions of dollars and lose… Will the remaining idiots please line up at the left yellow row?"

 

If after the jurisdiction issue is settled in favor of The Tribunal itself then the other issues follow.  With China explicitly not participating, Justice Carpio's three generations of argumentation will still not see China responding to any of this.

 

Ado Paglinawan is our Dialog-with-China advocacy group's first book author to be published through crowd-funding.  It'll be out in a few months and others will follow.  It's surprising how many others are seeing our point of view.  Ado's first hundred-page book will be on "BS Aquino's Toxic Foreign Policy"; another book forming the compendium is entitled "A Problem for Every Solution," on how BS Aquino and the Yellows scuttle every solution to the nation's crisis--including the Mamasapano crime and others that only BS Aquino's ilk can inflict on this nation.

 

The spectacle at The Hague is the ruling class's project to regale the Filipino public with while their half-wit commentators persuade themselves and the nation of their supposed genuine patriotism.

 

Meanwhile, the MRT and LRT operations are deteriorating by the day: After several months laying off the mass transit trains, I took the LRT from Cubao to Doroteo Jose where I and thousands of commuters sweated a torrent of sweat.  Hoping to get to Central station with my stored value card I was told to buy a single trip ticket as the turnstile card reader wasn't working.

 

I climbed down three stories of stairs (ALL escalators not working) to get a taxi; none passed.  As I was already late for my two appointments, I gave up and climbed up those three flights of stairs and took the LRT back to Cubao.  And, yes, all these after they raised fares by a hundred percent or so (I've lost rack), with the Supreme Court still sitting on the TRO (Temporary Restraining Order) for six months now, to stop the fare hikes for commuter protection advocates like Riles Network, which proves the LRT (and MRT) fare hikes are wholly unjustified.

 

Nothing works in this society under the treasonous ruling class and collaborationist intelligentsia, like that economist of the Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEF) who urged his readers to "Connect the Dots" as he and his peers support the same "austerity measures" on the Philippines in the 1980s as the IMF, ECB, and EU now impose on Greece.

 

With the Philippines' de-industrialization, it suffered 50-percent unemployment (and underemployment), forced millions to migrate for jobs, and countless Filipinos were locked in impoverishment while foreign and local oligarchs became ever more enriched.

 

This is a nation waylaid by its traitor class from its promising and prosperous future that its natural wealth was meant for.

 

(Tune to: Sulô ng Pilipino, 1098 AM, dwAD, Tues. to Fri., 5-6 p.m.; GNN Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 21, Sat., 8 p.m. and replay Sun., 8 a.m.; search Talk News TV and Saturday date on YouTube; text reactions to 0917-8658664)