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)