Can they sail on to Pugad and Sabah?

Can they sail  on to Pugad and Sabah?

December 29, 2015 Blog; Tuesday.

                Are those Faeldon’s little boys and girls on the excursion to one of the islands of the Spratley’s or the Kalayaan Islands Group? Marine Capt. Faeldon is the self-styled “patriot” who wanted to sail on his own small dinghy to some of the Kalayaan Islands to confront China’s force present there.

Hypocrisy

Hypocrisy.
(Blog December 27, 2015; Sunday)

              This is a true story if simple story of Philippine media hypocrisy and corruption that represents the general media environment, narrated many years ago by Linggoy Alcuaz to me personally.

              The story concerns Linggoy Alcuaz’s attempt to expose the corruption at the PCSO (Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office) under the sister of the icon of Edsa Dos Chavit Singson, Honeygirl Singson who was named chairman of the PCSO after Edsa Dos (clearly as part of the many rewards to Chavit Singson for helping bring down President Estada).

              LInggoy Alcuaz, also an idol of Edsa Dos due to his initiative with the “Exclamation Point” sticker campaign that was made a focal symbol of the anti-Estrada movement by the true forces behind the systematic coup effort against the president elected in 1998 which we will have a paragraph on later. Alcuaz also got rewarded with a position, as director, of the PCSO.

              Whatever Linggoy Alcuaz’s motivation for attempting to expose Honeygirl Singson’s “railroading of a P 60-Million instant sweepstakes ticket printing” contract is anybody’s guess, but try he did. One of the first effort Alcuaz, a keen political and propaganda player, was to talk to Letty Jimenez Magsanoc of the Philippine Daily Inquirer about his expose and obtained a promise for it to be published.

              Alcuaz dutifully furnished documents as proof and evidence of the scam and followed up patiently for weeks. Each time Magsanoc promised its publication. Alcuaz waited, and waited. During that period of waiting Alcuaz noticed a series of PCSO full page ads in the Inquirer. Eventually, Alcuaz gave up following up Magsanoc and accepted the oblivion that his expose found itself in.

              I watched the saga of Alcuaz’s effort to expose Honeygirl Singson’s  corruption at the PCSO, this was in the early 2000’s when the euphoria of Edsa Dos was already wearing off and the clean image of the Edsa Dos  “Yellow” gang was being eaten up by internal rivalries for power and loot. For a long time the Inquirer and its editor-in-chief continued to protect the Arroyo administration until the signal from the U.S. State Dept. as reflected also in the Hyatt 10’s sudden turnaround against Arroyo.

              This is just one small story in the compendium of corruption cover up cases ranging from the acquisition of the Mile Long property that the Inquirer’s owners finagled from the Philippine government with the help of then Executive Secretary Joker Arroyo to the cover up of tax cases of a subsidiary company amounting to billions which its media clout muffles the good commissioners of the COA and the BIR as a former BIR tax examiner has exposed. ###

Warning: shallow, do not dive!

Warning: shallow, do not dive!

(Beauty and boxing bouts, and intellectual poverty; December 22, 2015)

                Somebody texted me from out of the blue, “Miss Philippines is Miss Universe!” The text came from a colleague whom I would consider very much brighter the average Juan de la Cruz. He writes, and has a book to his name. No average Joe can do that. So I found it ironic that he would enthuse over something I consider shallow – beauty pageants.

                Ms.Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach won the Miss Universe title at the pageant held the entertainment capital of the U.S.A. Las Vegas, Nevada. I was at my business office when I received the text and to test the reaction of some of the staff I walked over as asked the accounting department, “What would you prefer to our country to be, rich but never getting such Miss Universe awards or poor with awards for beauty.”

                Out of seven ladies only one said she preferred we be a rich Japan than a poor but beauties laden Philippines. One explained, “The Miss Universe title puts us on the map again! At least we are recognized for something.” One said, “Our country gains from the recognition!”

I wondered what we would gain, and what we already had lost, like in boxing bouts in Las Vegas where Pacquiao wins tens of millions of dollars but Filipinos paid hundreds of millions of dollars to the Las Vegas entertainment and gambling lords, and to foreign satellite broadcast companies to watch the matches.

                What is clear profit in the case of the Miss Universe pageant from the broadcast and advertising rights goes to the capitalist organizers (still Mr. Donald Trump behind dummies?) and owners of the Miss Universe pageant franchise, and the state of Nevada where taxes for the staging of the event is paid. Will Ms.Wurtzbach’s win promote tourism to the Philippines? Maybe yes, but maybe tourism would be aided by better governance in the Philippines that don’t project news such as the “laglag-bala” and the Hong Kong Tourist massacre to the World.

                Don’t get me wrong. I love to watch the beautiful in everyday setting. Natural, not contrived. Genuine, not plastic. They are focal points of aesthetic relief in whatever setting one is, but especially in this urban jungle where the majority of us live today. I find them especially uplifting when their beauty also exudes the fragrance of high intelligence and character.

                I am not at all trying to demean Ms.Wurtzbach and her ilk, they have to do what they do to achieve high social goals they set for themselves. It’s the capitalist entertainment and marketing Establishment that make them become these cheap ala vaudeville and burlesque shows with glittering, garish, outlandish, opulent (reminds one of Liberace) and then skimpy costumes to enrapture TV audiences all over the world to take their fees paid to broadcast companies.

                Ms.Wurtzbach is, no doubt, a beautiful and intelligent lady. The latter quality is confirmed by her very intelligent, conformist and safe answer to the question about U.S. military bases in the Philippines which, of course, she does not explain would be like all the military bases the U.S. has set up around the world – intentional magnets for insurgency, terrorism and regional war the U.S. covertly nurture to launch campaigns of tension and terror from.

                The Wurtzbach answer to the U.S. bases question has brought in a national debate, but with a character like that comedienne and porn actress (as I learned from researching on the Internet) Ethel Booba commenting and supporting the Wurtzbach view against the advice of Teddy Casiño to balance the view with some caveats about the problems the U.S. military presence creates – it should be obvious whom Wurtzbach should take advice from if the really s concerned about the Filipino nation’s welfare.

               

(Ethel Booba with her fellow intellectuals)

                Senator and  presidential candidate Miriam Defensor Santiago had a tweet or text to Ms.Wurtzbach apparently in connection with the view on U.S. military presence, “Congratulations, @piawurtzbach! You are regal. But from what I’ve heard, we need to talk. See you! #MissUniverse2015,” which may give credence to a colleagues impression that Miriam Santiago may be the truly anti-U.S. imperialist presidential candidate now (because of the U.S. obstruction of Santiago’s ICC nomination, they say).

                         

                                      

                In the end, Ms.Wurtzbach’s answer to the pageant question reflects a very dangerous proposition that is being fed into the minds of the mass Filipino audience enthused by the Ms. Universe win of their “beauty champion”. It was a shallow answer that may have deeper motives behind the question being brought up and abysmal consequences for the future of this nation. Shallow waters can be very dangerous realms.  ###

Overpriced power trillions and a charity farce

Overpriced power trillions and a charity farce.

December 20, 2015 blog, Herman Tiu Laurel

                Below is a photo from the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s November 20, 2015 report headlined “Energy Tycoons team up for disaster ops center” with Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, Manny Pangilinan of the Ayala group which is racing to catch up in the game of power plunder with market leader Manny Pangilinan of Meralco, and this cardinal Talgo look alike in this picture cited by PDI as Edgar O. Chua of the Shell company of the Philippines.

                The tycoons or representatives of tycoons (as Pangilinan and Chua are mere overpaid factotums to real oligarchs behind them) fleece the Filipino nation of a hundred million people to the tune of trillions of pesos the past decades in Asia’s highest power cost, and the PDI acclaim this measly crumb of a P 48-Million Disaster Operation Center as a “contribution” the PDI audience should be thankful for and join PDI in singing paeans to!

                Below is a smaple of the poowerprices of Asean, other Asian  countries like China are only a third of Philippine electricity prices:

                Let’s stop believing the PDI and the tycoons or oligarchs of this country, they are all actually sociopaths and racists seeing Filipinos as mere objects for exploitation and targets of suppression and oppression.

*                                     *                             *

                Because of the trillions over the past decade and a half that these power tycoons have been raking in from the highest power cost in Asia the result is a depressed economy unable to generate jobs. Below are some statistics showing the Philippines’ highest unemployment rate in Asean and Asia despite th much ballyhooed GDP or “growth” rate --- actually in the Philippines GDP means Gross Dometic Pain and when that grows such an in electricity harges that goes into the GDP too the poain for Filipinos increases while the GDP or Gross Domestic Profit of Pangilinan, Zobel de Ayala, Aboitiz, Alacantaras et al grows…

So, NO THANKS TO THE POWER OLIGARCHS!!! LET’S HOPE WE CAN IMPRISON THESE UNSAVORY CHARACTER SOMEDAY SOON! ###

My response to Homobono Adaza’s column on Grace Poe’s citizenship

my response to bono adaza’s column on poe’s citizenehsip

December 17, 2015 at 8:17 am
Bono has been a long time ally in many legal battles against the corrupt Establishment, long with the late Atty. Alan Paguia and others, but in Poe’s case we believe Bono clearly diverges from the Law.
I was born in the Philippines while my parents were in the process of naturalizing their citizen, according to mainstream low interpretation I became thus a “natural born” citizen by virtue of that process although a few like Sen. Miriam Santiago argued that a case cn be made of my status as “natural born”. This became an issue when I ran for the Senate as the only co-candidate of Miriam in the 1995 senatorial elections – the Comelec chiarman then whom I mercilessly lampooned in the columns after the 1995 elections due to the blatant dagdag-bawas of that election filed five cases against me for alleged falsifying my citizenship status and eventually got me in jail for five days (but that’s another long story).

In defending Poe’s claim that she is a natural born Filipino Bono raises the point of “legal fiction” versus “an “issue of fact”; that is, of being born in the Philippines. I believe there is definition of legal fiction that is being used too loosely here, and the thought process that allowed Bono to conclude this is the legal fiction itself. All laws may be said to be “fiction”, that is, human invention; but laws once invented, established in a community or society or State, becomes the accepted “fact” with structure and physical consequences – facts that emanate from words written as laws.

The Philippines has a Constitution, I dislike it it in most aspect but it had the physical consequence of putting me in jail for five days on account of my challenge to a particular provision of the Constitution. But there is room for interpretation still there. I argued using a part of that provision that I also “did not have to perform any act to perfect” my Filipino citizenship (my parents did it for me, should I be responsible for that?)

In Poe’s case she cannot even establish that she is born of any Filipino parent, and worse she later renounced what regular citizenship she acquired by just being born in the Philippines – that is, her naturalized status – when she became an American citizen consciously and willingly, and maybe wholeheartedly, and then again “performed an act” to reacquire a Filipino citizenship for herself – clearly intending to joni politics and use whatever political capital gained from have a popular adoptive father who died and created a massive outpouring of sympathy (by the way I campaigned for FPJ wholeheartedly).

Poe’s lawyers and the other like Saguisag, Panganiban, et al, are creating fictitious ideas about the international conventions on th issue of “foundlings”, about the “right of the people to decide” the issue regardless of what the Law that 100 million ohter people are expected follow says. Since that 995 controversy over my citizenship I decided never to run again but continue the course of serving public interest without political position… In 2007 President Estrada while in detention offered me a senate slot in an election year that would have given me all the chances to win. I declined and suggested Trillanes to be given that slot. I don’t regret it, I serve the nation bettr than most ofhte legislators in Congress and the Seante as a militant citizen. Poe should do the same and after some years skepticism over her motives may change and she’ll be respected as a Filipino citizen then – natural born or not.

But to end this in a light note, I asked Teddy Boy Locsion what he thought of Poe’s citizneship status and he said, “Of course she is natural born, any one that comes outof the womb of a mother is natural born” Certainly, not Ceasarian. Chow.

Hector is also an onion.

Hector is also an onion.
Reaction to Yen Makabenta’s Manila Times December 13, 2015 column

              In this column of Yen Makabenta an apparent regular letter writer to his column named Hector quite impressed him with a piece entitled “The Philippines is an onion” because the writer says analysing it is like peeling an onion that makes one cry.

              Yen gives his impression of Hector, “Hector, as I disclosed earlier, is a management executive by training and has spent some time in top-level consultancy work I think he is an expatriate working and living in our midst. But he also shows such an intimacy with and keen interest in Philippine business and economic affairs, that it is easy to imagine him a Filipino (with no need to prove that he is natural-born).”

              Indeed, a standard management type with the same stock or even canned solutions to the Philippines’ problems and crises offered by the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) type or the Makati Business Club and the PCCI (Philippine Chamber of Commerce) or the American Chamber of Commerce, and the prescriptions of “civil society”, that is:

              Remove the 60/40 nationalist provision of the Constitution protecting Filipino rights in businesses, the anti-dynasty “cure all” law for political corruption, the Freedom of Information bill, and a nebulous “integrated entrepreneurship” idea that I doubt the economic successes he cited such as Vietnam and Asean ever practiced or even ever conceived.

              The removal of the 60/40 national protection provision is the battle cry of the foreign chambers of commerce and their puppet economists in this country will simply transfer control of predatory business tie-ups between Filipino oligarchs and foreign financial predators to larger transnational predatory companies accelerating the extraction and repatriation of this country’s wealth.

              What Hector does not propose is the real reason why Vietnam and many Asean countries, and the star performer of the 21^st Century – China, has been doing a whole quantum level than the Philippines is State-owned, dominated and directed economies and enterprises. That many Filipinos swallow Hector’s prescriptions so harmful to Filipinos understanding of the correct development path is the syn-propanethial-S-oxide, the element in onions that cause the tears in onions.

              The “civil society” clack and its Big Business allies raise the red herring of “anti-dynasty” without explaining that these political dynasties are  precisely the social support structures of Big Business in the country for such even larger dynasties likes the Ayalas, the Aboitizes, the Lopezes et al who also serve the global dynasties under the aegis of the old global private banking families. Hector cannot conceive of “national banking”  or “people’s banking” with which China and Vietnam have financially supported growth and development of their nations with such dizzying success.

              The FOI provisions attack government information opacity but omits to “trade secrets” and “investor confidentiality”  of transnational business enforcing privatization of State assets and funcitons under PPP (Public Private Partnerships) and Build-Operate-and Transfer projects to keep corrupt deals and abusive rate setting mechanism under wraps in such privatization contracts as the North and South expressways with the Metro-Pacific group, water privatization with Ayalas and Pangilinan, the MRT/LRT privatization shenanigans ad nausea.

              Filipino politicians have a for pulling the wool over half-baked Filipino middle class and Intelligentsia brains like this FOI or Bam Aquino’s “Philippine Competition Act”  which, when one reads closely is obviously an anti-State monopoly law and protects disguised private monopolies and oligopolies. When the60/40 Constitutional provision is removed then wholesale monopolization by foreign transnationals. Again, China and Vietnam’s success, as well as many other Asian and Asean states’ success is due to State monopolies in energy, heavy industries among other commanding economic assets..

              It is not surprising that Hector’s view invited a certain chauvinist American named Robert Wagner’s praise saying, “Well done, Yen. Hector is, most probably – like me – an American who has decided to make the Philippines his home, and – like me – is pained to see what has become of the place over the years.

It is obvious that many of your fellow MT columnists are staunch and curmudgeonly Anti-US, the bases for which are rooted in grade school history lessons that were never properly written by folks who were more interested in pushing pointed agendas of their own. Your “daring” (if I may say) to break ranks and invoke the hard-yet-necessary envoy of a “Kano” says quite a lot about your integrity as a Journalist.

Speaking the truth in and/or about this country is, as we all know, very much fraught with real danger. There can be no real solutions, however, without it.”

Hector and this Robert Wagner do not speak the truth, they speak lies which grievously some Filipinos still swallow hook-line and sinker. The basic truth about the roots of the Philippine crisis is the abortion of its industrialization program and sovereign economic development program as soon as the U.S. and its Makati Business Club succeeded in its coup and installed Cory Aquino who posthaste started dismantling the economic foundations set up then – the State corporations in energy and oil, steel and engineering, etc.

Herman Tiu Laurel
Hermantiulaurel2015.blogspot.com

Slapstick comedy or soap opera drama – Philippine politics at its worst

After almost two weeks of absence I have managed to come back to blog again. I’ll explain part of the reason in my commentary on health which readers can access on left column on the list of general topics.

Slapstick comedy or soap opera drama – Philippine politics at its worst.

              The latest headlines of the major dailies focus on the slapping challenge between two candidates the EM (Establishment Media. a.k.a. mainstream media) is highlighting these days – Rodrigo  Duterte and Mar Roxas – to face each other in a slapping match. How inane and meaningless cnthis campaign still get!

The EM seems to be dis-Gracing the 2016 presidential elections by dismounting her name which it propped up with soap –opera drama since September 2014 when the Little Ms. Poe-ppet of the U.S. through Uncle (Washington) Sycip (see the November 15, 2015 blog) was foisted upon the Filipino electorate despite her blatant and deliberate flaunting of the provisions of the Constitution on citizenship requirement for candidacy to elective national office.

                                           Fake Opposition to BS Aquino’s Liberal Party?

One of our colleagues Ferdie Pasion believes, as he texted to us today: “Si Duterte and bagong kandidato ng Inquirer, Star, ABS-CBN and other Aquino-owned media. Obvious na pinalalabas nilang ONLY opposition si Duterte when he is just a fade opposition and a YELLOW just like Mr and Binay who are also Yellows.” Indeed, the hated Yellows have to try to monopolize the elections by owning all the candidates or else their 1986 counter-revolution may finally end.

              Some of our close friends and long-time fellow travellers in the struggle for Filipino national emancipation from poverty are with Duterte. One of them is Dave Diwa, tireless labor union activist. Another with a more politically varied past is Lito Banayo. Dave is a classic “true  believer” and behaves as such when jumping early onto push Duterte, while Lito is a Mindanaoeño and political savvy player joining what seems to be a winning horse. But I get feedback from other fellow social advocates not so admiring of Duterte.

                                                                               Dud-terte?

              Electricity Consumer protection advocate and anti-power oligarchy crusader Jojo Borja called us with fire in his breath raging against the apparent rising popularity of Duterte and all the “populist” attributes credited him. Borja denounced Duterete as “tuta” or puppet of the power oligarchs of Mindanao,  particularly the likes of Alcantara and Aboitiz who’re complicit in creating the power shortages in Mindanao and exploiting these to corner IPP contracts, pus coal fired power plants and creep towards destroying the hydroelectric power and potential of Mindanao to privatize them later.

              When one looks just a centimeter below the tough guy façade of Duterte one immediately sees a dud, actually an effeminate character capable of exterminating only the small roaches, and legally as in the killing of the three kidnap-rapists he boasts of since those three were caught holding firearms. Dud-terte’s legendary peace with the NPA is reportedly bought with revenues from gold trading hence also the special relations Dutete enjoys with Jose Ma. Sison. This man is no nationalist as he is supporting the Americans’ yen for the BBL and federalism to weaken any potential nationalist central government. ###



My presidential candidate?

              In the course of this presidential election campaign I am invariably asked who my candidate. When I answer that I have none, no one, I am given that incredulous or that “spoil sport” look. Maybe some also think I am arrogant elevating my self above their little game and fun. I look at the presidential elections in this country as merely an opportunity to expose the inanity of it all and hope that will bring  some future social revolution closer to being realized.

              Lately I found a way to highlight the quality of a presidential candidate that I would take seriously, i.e. that of having an organized social movement with an ideology guiding it and the potential of mobilizing military forces behind its assumption of government. Any candidate without these would just be a puppet, just as all the major  presidential candidates today in the Philippines are. But I say, my presidential candidate are all vice-presidential candidates.

                                                          Leaders that are leaders, not oligarchs’ puppets.

              Trillanes has the 500,000 strong Magdalo and the military links to be a true president, as does Neri Colminares who can count on the movement behind the Makabayan Coalition that elects up to seven party-list representatives to Congress and the you-know-what as military arm, and finally Bongbong Marcos who counts on the Solid North and half of the South, and military still loyal to the memory and ideals of Apo Ferdie who brought glory to the military establishment once. Anyone of these three gets the Ayalas and Aboitizes shaking in their ranchero boots.


Climate change summit moro-moro.

              I classify the AGM (Anthropogenic Global Warming) that metamorphosed into the Climate Change alarmism movement as a globalists’ fraud on a much higher level than the 2009 Swine Flu scare to sell useless vaccine drugs. Ever since climate scare businessman (carbon trade consultant) Al Gore came up with his “An Inconvenient Truth” to exploit the U.N.’s IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) career bureaucrats, academic “experts” and environmentalist NGOs to keeping their employment and UN mandated government funding going, Climate as global and cottage industry has been thriving.

              But the inconvenient truth for them is the “global warming hiatus” or halt for almost two decades of increase in global temperature since January 1997 (see http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/10/29/noaa-attempts-hide-pause-global-warming-disgraceful-cover-since-climategate/) that the global warming alarmists have been attempting to hide and then to re-interpret to continueiwth the global warming hoax. The latest Climate Change Paris summit in a very melo-dramatized ending agreed to keep temperature increase below 2 degrees C through the middle of the century, but another warming pause can come naturally again and spoil their scare mongering.

                                                          It’s the carbon tax after all.

              Climate Change guru James Hansen lashed out at the Paris Summit for failing to impose the “carbon tax” which is indeed the true motive of this whole climate change scare movement. A carbon tax would increase costs and stunt the emerging economies’ industrial efforts and their populations’ use of modern conveniences from air conditioning to electric or gas cooking, make transport more expensive.

Already Filipinos are already paying higher power prices over the highest power cost in Asia due to impositions of the Renewable Energy (RE) Act that allows solar, wind and other REs to charge even more.

                                                          It’s the Solar Cycle, stupid.

              The emissions of 7 billion people of earth that can all fit into the State of Texas cannot surpass the impact of the other real factors such as the Solar Cycle, water vapour, natural carbon emissions, the tilt of the Earth, etc. The Solar Cycle and the Earth’s climate will change in many major ways over the centuries and millennia as it has always done when the once lush Sahara became desert tens of thousands of years ago, as Greenland was once green but now is white with ice and snow, or the land bridges to the Philippines were submerged after the last Ice Age.

Man must adapt to the powerful changes brought about by universal shifts and industrial development provides him tools to adapt faster and effectively.

FOREIGN POLICY –

WISE COUNSEL FROM FILIPINO  SCHOLAR PROF. LUCIO PITLO III:

“Very well put! How to advance to a next strategy that leads to a negotiated outcome, with the best possible terms for our nation, is a timely topic given our political transition.  Thanks! – ERICSON BACULINAO”

Moving Beyond the Jurisdiction Victory in the West Philippine Sea
Lucio Blanco Pitlo III, 09 December 2015

In doing so, the Philippines should bear in mind some key considerations: 1) it should not confuse the means with the ends; 2) it should observe the evolving regional environment and see how its actors, including fellow South China Sea claimants, respond to China's behavior and; 3) it should take a page from the experience and practice of its neighbors, like Vietnam, in dealing with China.

Means are not ends
The work does not end with the tribunal's decision as this body has no enforcement mechanism. Rather, the third party arbitration decision should be seen more as an enabler. A favorable judgment for the Philippines will undeniably confer on it higher ground in succeeding dialogues with China. A legal victory can help address the power assymetry in the negotiation table between the two states that has long been the source of anxiety and uneasiness on the part of smaller states when discussing territorial and maritime disputes with a bigger neighbor (and this unbalanced power relations is also driving smaller states to engage extra-regional powers as a mitigating measure). International reputational costs may encourage China to be more accommodating to legitimate Philippine demands, particularly in relation to access over marine resources, security assurance, and ensuring freedom of navigation and overflight in the WPS. China may choose to behave like other hegemons counting on past precedents like the 1986 US vs Nicaragua International Court of Justice case to justify its recalcitrance – that big powers cannot be compelled into submission by the international legal system and they can get away with it. But doing so would run contrary to the peaceful rise mantra that it espouses. It will also run counter to China's aspirations of cultivating harmonious relations with its neighbors, invite interference of other parties and contribute to regional instability which does not in any way work towards Beijing's favor. Hence, with an appreciation of the aforementioned, whatever benefit the Philippines can obtain from the arbitration ruling should better be used as a leverage in negotiating with China.

No friends, just interests
The Philippine legal challenge against China had been likened to an epic battle between might vs right, Goliath vs David , the giant or major world power vs the underdog and even more interestingly between dark vs light, among others. But, in real life, international relations, its actors and their motivations are hardly black and white. Former French general, leader and statesman President Charles de Gaulle said that “France has no friends, only interests”. Similarly, British leader Lord Palmerston also remarked that “nations have no permanent friends or allies, only permanent interests” and the pursuit of such interests may be driving recent British policy to closely engage China even at the risk of jeopardizing its longstanding special trans-Atlantic ties with the US. How will the  international community behave when a final favorable ruling is awarded to the Philippines? Will they apply pressure on China to encourage its compliance knowing the same may antagonize their burgeoning interdependent economic relations and further push China against the wall and give credence to hardliners in Beijing who view the international system as being manipulated to contain and prevent China's rise? Much expectation had been accorded to strong backing from the international community once a decision comes out despite little appreciation of emerging realities.

Every challenge – like the WPS disputes - can also be seen as an opportunity and the flurry of wheeling and dealing among littoral states in the region in recent years demonstrates attempts to compromise and trade concessions from one another. And in most of these actions, the Philippines is being left out. Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Japan (and recently Australia), did send observers to the Hague proceedings but their preoccupation is arguably more towards assessing the implications of the case towards their own claims and less of a show of support to the Philippine position. In fact, other littoral states are free riding at Manila's back, expressing various degrees of support, albeit token, to the case while still engaging with China and other disputants. As a result, they had exacted considerable concessions from the competition of great powers without getting entangled in their geopolitical and geoeconomic rivalry. The partial jurisdiction victory may convince adherents, as well as critics alike, that the Philippine administration is on the right track, but the road is still long and the destination still remains uncertain. For the time being, other interested parties to the case, including other claimant states, are obtaining insurance and not putting all their eggs in one basket.

Taking a page from Vietnam's book
If there is any claimant state that has the most axe to grind against China in the South China Sea (SCS), it can only be Vietnam – losing control of the Paracels and losing 64 soldiers in the skirmish over Johnson South Reef in the Spratlys in 1988. But Vietnam's position in dealing with China,   especially over SCS, is not solely confrontational but rather includes a strong engagement element as well. Deep familiarity with the Chinese engendered by centuries of living under Chinese rule and shared political and economic systems made Vietnam very adept in dealing with China.

After the May 2014 oil rig incident where China and Vietnam traded accusations of ship ramming and which also precipitated a series of anti-Chinese demonstrations across Vietnam, Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi visited Hanoi to mend frayed ties and in July of the following year Vietnamese Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong visited Washington, culminating a series of high level US-Vietnamese exchanges and visits that began in 2013. The Chinese oil rig was removed from Vietnam's EEZ and Vietnam gained a partial lifting of the US-imposed arms embargo against it, not to mention obtaining US support for its maritime security. During the oil rig standoff, the initiation of legal challenge against China was  put on the table but whatever mutual concessions both sides traded, it was enough to prevent Vietnam from taking legal action.

The November 7, 2015 visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Hanoi was widely seen as a step to repair relations damaged by the oil rig row. President Xi Jinping was given a  rare opportunity to address Congress. Both sides issued a Joint Statement saying that the visit was a success in terms of “contributing greatly to cementing the traditional friendship, deepening the Viet Nam-China comprehensive strategic co-operative partnership, and promoting peace, stability and development in the region and the world.”  (Interestingly, the purported visit of US President Obama to Vietnam did not push through). However, while continuing its engagement with China, Vietnam,  at the same time,  has also invited  Japan to participate in a humanitarian exercise and for a Japanese warship to call at strategic Cam Ranh Bay. In addition, at the sidelines of APEC 2015 held in Manila, Philippines and Vietnam, two vocal critics of China's assertive actions in SCS, elevated their bilateral relationship to a strategic partnership. All these demonstrate Vietnam's effective nuanced approach in balancing its relations with great powers to advance its own comprehensive national interests – security, economic and political. These experience and practices can serve valuable lessons to the Philippine leadership as it continues to develop its China policy in the years to come, regardless of the outcome of the arbitration case.

Never too soon or too late to talk
It is neither too soon nor too late for the Philippines and China to find ways to resume high-level and meaningful engagements, as well as explore alternative ways of managing the disputes. All states would say that they have indisputable sovereignty or sovereign rights over territories or waters they claim which are contested and this is to be expected. But the fact that they are willing to discuss the issue, through bilateral dialogues or gradually through regional mechanisms, suggests a veiled acknowledgment of the existence of the dispute. Boundary negotiations require sustained political will and commitment and have long time horizons – Philippines and Indonesia recently settled their maritime boundary after 20 years of negotiations,  China and Vietnam settled their maritime boundary in the Beibu (Tonkin) Gulf after 27 years and the Sino-Russian land and riverine (including islands in the river) boundary took 40 years of hard work from both sides. China made it clear that thewithdrawal of the case is not a precondition for such talks and that the Philippines is not being excluded from its recent trade, connectivity and financial initiatives such as the One Belt, One Road and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. That bilateral trade continues and even had some modest growth  despite of the tensions demonstrating that doors remain open and that such openings can be further expanded. After a brief halt, Philippine agricultural exports to China resumed and the easing of restrictions on direct chartered flights from selected Chinese points of origin to various Philippine destinations boosted Philippine tourism.

Philippines should engage China not on the basis of fear or misperception but rather out of conviction and confidence, especially coming after the partial jurisdiction triumph, knowing that it is in China's best interests to showcase its good neighborhood policy by respecting and reassuring legitimate Philippine national security needs and maritime economic interests. China cannot be a respected world leader if it cannot be even acknowledged as a responsible neighbor in its immediate backyard. Engaging or talking with China does not mean that the Philippines is backing down or showing less nationalism in the same way as it cannot be said for the Vietnamese, Indonesians (and the rest of ASEAN states) and even for the Koreans, Japanese and Americans. The WPS disputes had been there since the 1940s and even early on by some accounts, and the end of such disputes is nowhere in sight. However, despite the persistence of the disputes and occasional outbursts, successions of leaderships among coastal states had shown a commitment to handle the disputes without infringing on the fundamentals of regional security and stability. As it continues to challenge longstanding US primacy  in the region, much will be expected from China – the brand of leadership it wants to showcase and the kind of attitude it will display in handling disputes, especially with its immediate neighbors. 
In sum, given the character and nature of the WPS dispute, it is less likely that an enduring solution will be anchored on a legal one where the possibility of a clear winner and a clear loser will be produced and where interests of other relevant parties may not be taken into full consideration. Rather, the solution may be more political and diplomatic, something that can be drawn from confidence-building and negotiations where attempts to balance interests and exchange concessions may make for a more durable peace.

Lucio Blanco Pitlo III is a Project Consultant to the Asia-Pacific Pathways to Progress Foundation Inc. He is also an Assistant Professorial Lecturer for International Studies at De La Salle University and Contributing Editor (Reviews) of the journal Asian Politics & Policy.

Dis-Gracing the country’s politics

Blog December 2, 2015
6:25 a.m.
Commentaries to the News

Dis-Gracing the country’s politics

I didn’t think it could happen when I wrote over a year ago my Tribune article “Who will stop the U.S. Poe-ppet?” In it I raised is great problem facing Philippine politics of blatant U.S. manipulation of the country’s elections with Washington Sycip and the Philippine Daily Inquirer launching Grace Poe’s presidential candidacy in headlining Sycip’s question, “When will Grace Poe consider running for higher office?”

At that time I was already extremely disgusted by the Grace Poe that I saw and observed since the 2004 presidential elections when I campaigned for FPJ, and the years thereafter when I observed Poe regularly visiting Makati Mayor Jojo Binay and the latter giving the young lady so much of his special time. Then I had several occasions to meet the young lady myself in a few parties and meetings of the FPJPM (FPJ for Preisdent Movement) hosted by Linggoy Alcuaz and Rez Cortez.

In one of those FPJPM meetings Rex Cortez requested me to provide a NatSit, National Situationer or political-economic backgrounder to what is happening in the country, a practice that was standard for our meetings. When my name was announced I noted a smirk on the face of the young lady that smacked of arrogance and condescension, a frown, a “something so haughty” I so thought. Obviously she already formed an impression of me from my past with the FPJPM activities.

Reflecting on that experience with that face I saw on the young lady and thinking back on things I realized that this young lady really disdained the many things I have positively written about FPJ himself, and subsequent observations made it clear. To me FPJ represented an anti-Yellow and anti-globalist personality symbol, he being a Marcos admirer, a very close Estrada buddy, having launched his candidacy by attending the KMP (Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas) anti-globalization congress in U.P. sometime late 2003 or early 2004.

After that initial meeting of FPJPM where I observed the Grace Poe haughtiness hidden behind her little sweet face and physical frame I studied her more closely. The real Grace Poe started really emerging from behind the façade in the run up to the 2010 elections when she started showing her true colors against Estrada and Binay, and the seeming (at that time, but now its very clear) opportunism of her every action – from sucking up to the Yellows, to BS Aquino (PeNoy). When Aquino appointed her to the MTRCB and some FPJPM members were recruited to join her they gave feedback about her true character.

I started getting stories of how this little lady really is so “Yellow”, an admirer of Cory Aquino through and through, and the Yellows. I, of course, consider the Yellows the ultimate neo-colonial prostitutes of this country and mercenaries to the U.S., and Cory Aquino the icon of the oligarchy that has exploited, oppressed and been the instrument of Western hegemony victimizing this nation. Then the little lady’s lies and opportunism surfaced – sucking up to the Yellows that character-assassinated and tried to destroy FPJ - in order to get that MTRCB position, then the senatorial nomination lying about her citizenship, and the finally the blatant Comelec-Brillantes and Smartmatic manipulation in the 60-30-10 manipulation of the 2013 elections to make Poe number 1 senator.

In early 2015 I has started mulling with our colleagues in our group Sulo ng Pilipino the filing of a citizenship case against Poe. I had met at least once with our Atty. Raffy Tuvera at Market Market in BGC, Taguig, as he lives in Paranaque, to discuss this. I was also consulting the late Atty. Alan Paguia who was on board the project but I later reduced his involvement as he was severely inconvenience by his regular dialysis session (which eventually claimed his life). I consulted Bono Adaza, but he later became erratic about the issue due to apparent personal competitiveness against Justice Carpio when the latter was manipulatively projected by the Phiiippine Daily Inquirer as anti-Poe.

As it turned out other parties were also studying the filing of a case against Poe’s claim of being natural born, and Lito David actually filed. We shelved our project in favour of supporting Lito David. Behind Lito David are the Church religious leaders and the Kapatiran Party stalwarts, and the unsung hero of the project Ado Paglinawan (the 60-40-30 discoverer and now is on DZRJ 810AM morning radio 5-7am) who donated his return trip to Manila from the U.S. plane fare of P 60,000.00 to David’s filing fee. Our group in turn raised from 6 individuals P 45,000.00 to partly reimburse Paglinawan who managed to return to the country.

But thus far it is not Lito David’s case at the Supreme Court that has stopped Grace Poe, it is the case on the residency of Poe that the Comelec considered and stops her momentarily from the presidential campaign. Poe’s camp will appeal, but the case does not remove her from the Senate from which she should be removed because she violates the Constitution’s requirement of being Natural Born citizen. The case at the Comelec was filed by lawyer Estrella Elamparo who’s identified with Arroyo’s appointee to the GSIS Winston Garcia as chief legal counsel during his scandalous term, but we surmise that Elamparo may have been mobilized by the Roxas camp in this case.

What we look forward to is the Lito David case as it will complete the process of ending the disgraceful ascension of a liar, a hypocrite, a pretender, a fraud disguised as a sweet little innocent “foundling” who has becoming the epitome of the charlatan that our political system is teeming with. Lito David case would reaffirm to some extent the capacity of this nation to understand and live by the Rule of Law, to affirm its ability to still perceive the fraudulent when it is paraded right in front of them, and thereby confirm that there is still hope to restore a politics of truth, reason and intelligence in this country.

We have to Dis-Grace our Senate in order to restore a modicum of grace to it and our national politics. Its greatest service would be to show the U.S. (Uncle San and Uncle Sycip of the Yellows) that this country cannot be fooled and manipulated by their scum kind anymore.

This is our link to our partly discussion with Lito David on our GNN show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtEC1BLYeuk

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