Beijing’s new South China Sea law

It’s encouraging to know that the Philippines has filed a diplomatic protest against the Chinese government after Beijing passed a new law giving its coast guard authority to fire upon foreign vessels in the contested South China Sea (SCS).

The law that will take effect on February 1, 2021, after having been approved by the National People’s Congress, also places the China Coast Guard under military command guard to “take all necessary measures, including the use of weapons when national sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction are being illegally infringed upon by foreign organizations or individuals at sea.” 

If the SCS is not getting to be a flash point, I do not know how else to describe it when the following day the U.S. Navy announced that the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group had entered the South China Sea “to conduct routine operations” including maritime strike exercises and coordinated tactical training between surface and air units.

Ironically, China’s new law came a day after local broadcast network GMA Television reported that China Coast Guard ships had recently blocked Filipino fishermen from Pag-asa Island as they tried to enter fishing grounds in the disputed area.

Pag-asa Island is a 37-hectare island, the largest of the Kalayaan Island Group territories claimed by the Philippines and is part of the municipality of Palawan. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 184 people. Aside from an airstrip, it has a commercial communications tower, power generators, a 5-bed lying-in clinic and a small elementary school.

This menacing event by China prompted one Philippine senator to criticize Beijing’s move and call on President Rodrigo Duterte to “denounce China’s bullying immediately.”

This is of course for a reason because it is well known that the commanding presence of Chinese flotilla in the area is not only to monitor what is being done in the island, but its show of intimidating force is simply sending an explicit message and warning that it is the Filipinos that are the intruders in what is now their exclusive maritime territory according to their own historical facts, which for all intents and purposes have been debunked by The Hague tribunal.

The Philippine senator also called on fellow member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) “to reach a consensus and to take multilateral action to stop China’s incessant adventurism.”

“China should stop its bullying tactics. ASEAN member-states should band together and show China that we will not be bullied into deference,” she said. Well said, indeed!

With China having militarized the area already, I hope it is not too late to prevent it from flaring up in the very near future after fueling it with its bogus historical claim that the whole of SCS is theirs.

‘Duterte death squad’

 

Pres. Rodrigo Duterte

The infamous Davao Death Squad, a vigilante group accused by Amnesty International and local human rights advocate for widespread summary executions in Davao City, must have been in the mind of President Rodrigo Duterte when he announced that he would create his own hit squad, if that is what it takes to counter the Sparrow Units employed by the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

Naming it the ‘Duterte Death Squad’, the president said it will try to match the communist rebel’s “talent in assassinating people.” An eye for an eye, as the saying goes. As if this is what is legally meant by extracting justice from the rebels.

Perhaps tired and exasperated that to this day government soldiers and policemen continue to be sitting ducks of the NPA’s hit men and hopeless that there will ever be peace while Duterte and exiled-CPP head Joma Sison continue to bicker, the former could not help but express his frustrations this way in his speech during the turnover of housing units for the military and police at Camp Rajah Sikatuna in Carmen, Bohol recently. The reality is that the plan is better said than done.

It is bad enough that to this day also there has not been any let up pertaining to killings in the government’s fight against drugs and if we have to believe that the formation of the ‘Duterte Death Squad’ is bound to happen then we simply have to admit that the country will no longer be govern by the rule of law.

But the presidency is so powerful, what with all the intelligence and resources the occupant has at the tip of his fingers that resorting to this foolish plan of creating a death squad is nothing short of being irresponsible.

Besides, Duterte as an astute lawyer and as the president of the country knows what is good for him and what is best for the country, but above all what weighs more for consideration is the legacy he wants to leave behind and how history would judge him.

Suffice to say Duterte’s announcement was just a metaphor and should not be taken seriously.

 

The continuing Duterte-Sison feud

Pres. Rodrigo Duterte and CPP’s Jose Maria Sison.

The off and on relationship between President Rodrigo Duterte and Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founding chair Jose Maria Sison is, to many, making a mockery of the peace process.

I say this because there are times when they laud and fatten each other’s ego, having experienced a teacher-student relationship, but most of the time they indulge in name calling and going after each other’s neck.

This time it is even worst because Sison is belittling and discrediting Duterte’s earnest and resolute war against illegal drugs that was engulfing the whole country already by calling the latter a “protector” of the drug trade.

What is even more despicable is that Sison also accused Duterte’s son, Paolo, as also being involved in the drug trade.

While it is true that Paolo and his brother-in-law, lawyer Manases Carpio, the husband of Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte, were both accused of being involved in the smuggling of P6.4-billion worth of illegal drug (shabu) in the country, a fact-finding panel of the Office of the Ombudsman later cleared them of involvement.

So why say something offensive when it is water under the bridge already?

The question is, how serious really is Sison and his elk in establishing peace with the Duterte government?

Describing Duterte also as ‘the most effective ‘destabilizer of his own administration’ is ill-advised and idiotic thing to say knowing very well that the president not only has the backing of the people, including the police and military forces, but is dead serious in talking and settling peacefully with all the rebel groups in the country, the CPP included.

I understand that the formal resumption of peace talks was scheduled to proceed on June 28 in Norway, but it did not push through as Duterte said he wants more public consultations before returning to the negotiating table.

The postponement did not sit well, however, with Sison.

Perhaps Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana was right in saying that Sison is “doomed to irrelevance” whether or not the latter decides to return to the Philippines.

“Whatever you do Mr. Sison you are doomed to irrelevance. You remain in the Netherlands and you will be forgotten because the President has decided with finality that the talks would be held in our country. You come back and you will end up in jail,” he said.

Indeed, what an opportunity lost.

Lorenzana pointed out that Philippines has progressed a lot despite Sison’s destabilization efforts in the past few decades. He also said that the CPP’s army, the New People’s Army (NPA), is surrendering in droves.

Sison seems to be reaping now the ignominious price of being old and petulant for staying too long in a foreign land and not facing the reality in his own land.

Ivanka’s non-Chinese proverb

Ivanka Trump

Just ahead of her father’s historic meeting with North Korean despot Kim Jong Un in Singapore, Ivanka Trump tweeted a saying that she labeled a “Chinese proverb”: “Those who say it can not be done, should not interrupt those doing it.”

Ivanka was of course referring to the skeptics, but more, perhaps, to the anti-Trump folks who did not want the pugnacious American president to succeed.

There was nothing wrong with the “Chinese proverb”, but only if it existed as, indeed, a Chinese proverb.

There could not have been an opportune time such as this historic event unfolding before the eyes of the whole world, after decades of distrust and animosities between the two countries, to put in their proper places the doubting Thomases of this world by chiding them, but, alas, it boomeranged on Ivanka.

How could it not when even China’s internet was abuzz and discombobulated wondering about the mysterious proverb or what and which proverb could even come close to it.

Thus, instead of being flattered by its reference, Chinese social media users pilloried Ivanka with unsavory comment like:

“She saw it in a fortune cookie at Panda Express.”

Some said it could have been, “Don’t give advice while watching others playing a chess game.”

Another suggestion was, “Don’t force others to do things you don’t want to do yourself.”

Still one commented, saying, “One proverb from Ivanka has exhausted the brain cells of all Chinese internet users.”

It is just very ironic that while the Trumps are known to belie as fake, news adversely attributed to them, this time they are caught faking even a proverb.

Sad!

The Mindanao martial law brouhaha – Part II

 

Senators Drilon, Pangilinan, Hontiveros and Aquino.

I need to have a sequel of the subject as it continues to boggle my mind why the idea of extending martial law for another year in Mindanao bothers some senators, the likes of Franklin Drilon, Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan, Risa Hontiveros, and Paolo “Bam” Aquino IV.

Though I did not mention their names as critics when I wrote Part I, for the simple reason that nothing much was said yet, I find it necessary to name them in Part II as I find their argument against the extension shallow, if not melodramatic.

Practically all of them were justifying their objection based on the legalistic side of the issue, like there must be and actual rebellion and not just a mere threat to overthrow the government, before effecting a longer extension of martial law in Mindanao.

Above all there was this collective fear that because the CPP-NPA has been declared by President Duterte as terrorist group, that martial law could expand beyond Mindanao and swamp over the whole country since the rebels are all over.

“If we were to believe that the government is intent on ending the war against the NPA, which operates not only in Mindanao but all over the country, then it is entirely possible that their operations would have to be extended beyond Mindanao to meet that objective,” Drilon said.

What I find equally exaggerated is the statement coming from a group of human rights lawyers, saying, that “extending martial law in Mindanao for another year seems to be part of a grand design or intent to eventually place the entire country under virtual military rule and completely transform the nation into a police state.”

In the same manner that, in the first part, I called baloney the CHR and the political critics of President Duterte who said that the one year extension asked is a prelude to a “strongman rule”, I am also calling the same the opinion of the human rights lawyers.

What I am just saying here is that after what we saw happened to Marawi City, do we still have to doubt the motives behind the Islamic extremists causing havoc in the country and trying to occupy a territory to be called their own, especially if foreign funds are being funneled for them?

Can we not just be realistic and pragmatic, like the approach taken by the Duterte administration, that what happened in Marawi could happen again because killing leaders does not necessarily mean that the hard-core organization they are espousing will cease operating.

Why should they be allowed to grow roots and influence others to join them and become larger and formidable before going against them?

The spirit of martial law is to fight lawlessness before wide conflagration of terror could exist and because President Duterte, a no-nonsense leader, knows what he wants for the country, I don’t think the rule of martial law will be abused either by the military or the police, the way it was abused during the regime of the dictator Marcos.

The Mindanao martial law brouhaha

 

It simply boggles my mind why critics of the administration, specifically the Commission on Human rights (CHR), are making a big brouhaha of the one year martial law extension in Mindanao being asked by President Rodrigo Duterte.

Note that Duterte, on May 23, placed the entire island of Mindanao under martial law after the ISIS-inspired Maute group attacked Marawi City.

The initial declaration was supposed to end after 60 days, but Congress, in joint session, approved Duterte’s request to extend it until December 31.

In October, Duterte declared Marawi City free from terrorists following the killings of terror leaders Isnilon Hapilon, Omar Maute and a bunch of other Mautes and their followers.

But, does this mean that the same rebellion will not happen again, or that can it be safely said that we have seen the last of it – an ISIS-inspired insurgency that has practically left Marawi City in ruins?

Lest we forget, we are talking about Mindanao, the second largest island in the country, where it also has the largest concentration of ethnic minorities in the Philippines. Although Muslims are no longer a majority, still the Islamic culture is very evident with the presence of many mosques.

Thus, the elusive peace that government has been trying to establish with the radical Muslims in some parts of Mindanao continues to beacon Islamic extremists that want a land of their own or a caliphate, as they wanted to establish in Marawi City.

If Duterte critics have only the information or intelligence reports that the president has in his hand relative to peace and order and security matters of the nation, I don’t think they will be making a lot of noise about the one year extension of martial law the president is asking Congress to approve.

After Marawi, other places in Mindanao is still vulnerable to extremist attacks as the killing of leaders does not necessarily extinguish the life of their fanatical organization that wants nothing but to dismember a country searching for lasting peace in Mindanao.

Besides this is not an independent decision made by the Duterte alone. The latter had to act on the recommendation of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP).

The AFP had information about an ongoing recruitment by terror groups and an increasing violence from the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA), which has been tagged as a terror organization.

The PNP’s recommendation, meanwhile, is based on two factors: the need to address continuing threats from terrorist groups and to facilitate the rehabilitation of Marawi City.

Thus, for CHR and other political critics of President Duterte to say, therefore, that the one year extension asked is a prelude to a “strongman rule” nationwide is baloney.

Unlike the dictator Marcos, Duterte has selfless, and not selfish, interest for the country.

Government to continue fight against communist insurgents – Part II

 

President Rodrigo Duterte and Netherland-based CPP founder Joma Sison.

When I wrote the first part of this article I was anticipating a sequel to it if only to confirm my foreboding statement of a long, merciless war after President Rodrigo Duterte signed Proclamation 360 discontinuing peace talks with the self-exiled Maoist-led rebels in the Netherlands led by Communist Party founder Joma Sison.

True enough what followed next was Duterte calling Sison and his ilk criminals or terrorists.

“You are terrorists or criminals,” Duterte said. I will treat you and I will not charge you for rebellion because I am saying to you now, I will brand you as terrorists, plain criminal.”

On Sison, specifically, this is what he said: “If Joma Sison comes here, I will arrest him, or if I were him, ‘wag na siyang bumalik dito (he should not return anymore).”

“Better still, I will not allow him to enter his native land, and that is a very painful experience especially if you’re dying and you think that you should be buried in your own cemetery, in your own town,” he added.

Indeed a very strong warning signaling no turning back until Duterte’s term in office expires. And to think that Duterte was the best chance for a lasting peace with the communist insurgents.

But, an astute lawyer, a no-nonsense politician and a competent leader, Duterte was able to aptly read between the lines what the Netherland-based communist leaders wanted and how they were manipulating the peace talks to go.

“As it was shaping up during our talks, I already noticed the trend of the thoughts of the other side and when I summed it all, reading from all previous working papers, it would sound like a coalition government,” Duterte said.

“That is why I said in the previous days, I cannot give you what I don’t own and certainly a coalition with the Republic of the Philippines is pure nonsense,” he added.

This is how manipulative, devious and self-serving these people supposedly orchestrating the communist insurgency in the country from a foreign soil are, and thank goodness we have a president who puts the welfare of the country and the interests of the Filipino populace first and foremost over political and personal gratification.

Talking about wanting to have the best of both worlds for themselves alone!

Screw you!

 

Government to continue fight against communist insurgents

 

President Rodrigo Duterte and CPP founder Joma Sison: Student and teacher.

With the signing of Proclamation 360 terminating the on and off peace talks with the communist insurgents  in the country, President Rodrigo Duterte is once more declaring war and perhaps a long, merciless war this time.

It must be remembered that making peace with the National Democratic Front (NDF)-Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) – The New People’s Army (NPA) was among Duterte’s priorities since he became president in June last year, and for good reasons.

Not only are Filipinos fighting one another, but this internal conflict has been going on for 50 years now with over 40,000 people killed already, not to mention the expenses incurred when an entourage of peace negotiators flies to the Netherlands where the suppose Maoist leaders of the NDF-CPP-NPA live.

But what really has been angering Duterte is the fact that even during a declared truce still the NPA, the armed wing of the rebels, stages an ambush that sometimes kill innocent civilians, thus, prompting Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque to say this time: “We find it unfortunate that their members have failed to show their sincerity and commitment in pursuing genuine and meaningful peaceful negotiations.”

I don’t think there has ever been a president in the past who has earnestly pursued peace with the Maoist-led rebels in the Netherlands the way Duterte has.

Not only has Duterte been a student of Jose Maria “Joma” Sison, the exiled founder of the CPP, at the Lyceum University, but Duterte himself has admitted being a leftist and therefore has often said that he understood the plight of the rebels, but his presidency, however, is now about uniting the people and not the dismembering of the republic.

Unfortunately the good intentions of Duterte for peace is not being earnestly reciprocated the same way by Sison and cohorts for reasons only they know, even issuing a defiant statement after Proclamation 360, saying, that the revolutionary forces now have no choice but to intensify guerrilla warfare in rural areas.

Indeed, what a pity and what a forsaken chance that peace has been made even more unreachable now.

 

Duterte and martial law

 

President Rodrigo Duterte

For the life of me, I cannot understand why some people are resorting to evil machinations against President Rodrigo Duterte purporting that, because of what is going on relative to the latter’s continuing bloody war on drugs, bomb threats from extremists and the recent military offensive undertaken by the government against the Maute group in Lanao del Sur, who are trying to impress the leaders of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) by terrorizing residents and flying  its most recognizable black and white flag adorned with Arabic lettering, he will declare martial law.

I presume the opposition, the opportunists and the unscrupulous simply does not want Duterte to succeed.

Why would Duterte do it when everything is under control and he gets things done accordingly and the way he sees fit with the support not only of majority of Filipinos , but most specifically by the business sector and by the  members of Congress?

By support I mean that most Filipinos trust him and his courage and political will simply stands out for he is seen to be doing the things he wants done because it is for the good of every Filipino, regardless of belief and ideology, and for the interest of the country.

Actually one cannot separate Duterte from martial law or to distinguish Duterte apart from martial law for what he is doing in this country today, imposing his will, is a moderate or a measured martial law.

The iron-fist rule and the no-nonsense governance Duterte was practicing in Davao, that turned the big city into a safe and livable place, is simply being replicated in a much bigger scale now and if he is succeeding, where no other past presidents achieved in less than a year of his assumption to office, one can only give credit to the person for who he is and his conviction of what and how a president should serve the Filipino people.

The good thing is that Duterte knows his law and the prohibitions and consequences of declaring martial law, though I seriously believed that he erred in his indifference and not giving a damn to the feelings and sentiments of the martial law victims still crying for justice to this day when he granted the Marcoses permission to have the dictator buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNMB).

Thus, Duterte was right when he chided the scaremongers, saying, he did not need martial law despite ongoing security threats in Mindanao.

“Martial law for what? Killing people? I would rather empower every mayor,” said Duterte, adding that it would work as long as local executives didn’t abuse their power.

That is leadership and his faith in the Filipino people that things can be done lawfully when everyone is incorruptible.

 

Time to rally behind Duterte

 

President Rodrigo Duterte

At no other time, since Cory Aquino’s presidency, are we seeing once again the need for trust, confidence and total support of the Filipino people for a president.

Never had this country experienced electing a president with overwhelming votes against his opponents and in so short a time of his presidency has done so much for so many.

And to think that we chose a man coming from far flung Mindanao, which is about time for one coming from that place, but most importantly one who is a darn good lawyer who made a name with his fearless, unconventional and unorthodox manner in making untamed Davao City into a safe and livable place which has become the envy of most cities in the country.

But what makes President Rodrigo Duterte head and shoulders above the rest of past leaders is his uncompromising love for his country, his strong faith in the Filipino people and his resoluteness to do everything in his power to move the country forward and improve the lives of its citizens.

Thus, Duterte’s mission and vision for the country entails that, if necessary, he has to wage a bloody war against illegal drugs, criminality and corruption which are the scourges ever present in our society and which have grown to monstrous proportions.

It was providential for the nation that Duterte won the presidency because the magnitude and extent of these problems, especially the one on drugs, are simply mind boggling and the only person competent and capable of battling it head on is Duterte.

Likewise, it is only Duterte who has the fortitude to initiate peace with the communists and the Moro rebels in Mindanao.

I could not imagine a Roxas, a Poe or a Binay leading the kind of fight Duterte is doing for the country and its people. With them we would surely have awaken one day with nothing more to hope for the best as the country will be overrun by evil people.

Duterte may be described as shooting his mouth often or as loose cannon only to retract and make amends but that does not make him less of leader.

For what he has said and done, either controversial or unquestionable, Duterte has become a fodder for news here and abroad.

He may have ruffled the feathers of some politicians here for declaring a ‘state of lawlessness’ in the whole country but it is an act that is not politically motivated, as to put the country under martial law, but rather a move that will hasten the restoration of peace, order and security of the country following the recent terrorist act by the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in Davao City.

Duterte may have also disconcerted the feelings of some noted international officials or head of state and organizations but this is for all and sundry to know that the Philippines is a sovereign country and that he as leader will no longer tolerate any foreign leader to meddle and bully his way into the internal affairs of the country and/or infringe into what rightfully belongs to the state.

For all these and for the hope and expectations that Duterte is projecting for the country and its people to attain, it is only fitting that Filipinos should rally behind him now.