China, PH assess ties as sea row deepens

the Departments of Education, Environment and Natural Resources, Interior and Local Government, Science and Technology, Labor and Employment, and Information and Technology.

“Our country is no stranger to climate change being one of the most highly vulnerable countries, rise of sea levels, increase in frequency of extreme weather events, rise in temperature and extreme rainfall due to high exposure to natural hazards, dependence on climate-sensitive natural resources, and vast coastlines where cities and population reside, name it, our country has been through it.” Ejercito said in his explanatory note.

Ejercito pointed out that the country lies in the world's most cyclone-prone region, averaging 19 to 20 cyclones each year, of which seven to nine make landfall.

Based on a report by the United States Agency for International Development, the Philippines’ urban poor are most at risk since they are lacking the resources to prevent or mitigate the threat of coastal inundation and storm surge. (PNA)

SENIOR Chinese and Filipino diplomats met in Manila on Thursday, March 23 to review their relations amid thorny issues, including Beijing's alarm over a Philippine decision to allow the United States military to expand its presence to a northern region facing the Taiwan Strait and escalating spats in the disputed South China Sea.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Sun Weidong and Philippine Foreign Undersecretary Theresa Lazaro led the talks aimed at assessing overall relations on Thursday, March 23.

The discussions would focus on the long-seething territorial spats in the disputed waterway on Friday, the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila said.

But even as the talks opened in Manila, the Chinese military said it warned a U.S. warship to "leave" waters in the China Sea on Thursday, claims swiftly denied as "false" by American forces.

The 23rd China-Philippines Foreign Ministry Consultation started with diplomatic pleasantries and handshakes in front of the media without any mention of the sensitive issue.

But during the closed-door meeting, the Chinese delegation expressed their strong opposition to the U.S. military presence in the Philippines, a Filipino official told The Associated Press without elaborating.

The official, who attended the meeting, spoke on condition of anonymity for lack of authority to discuss what transpired in the talks.

Sun and Lazaro will meet again on Friday for the 7th Bilateral Consultation Meeting on the South China Sea.

In his opening statement, Lazaro said the "Philippines attaches so much importance to this mechanism as our discussion here allows us to cover the overall relations between our two countries and as compared to the bilateral consultation mechanism in the South China Sea which truly covers the maritime issues."

Sun stressed the need to follow up on the "important consensus" reached between Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. during the latter's visit to China in January.

"We need to deepen our comprehensive strategic cooperation and enhance our cooperation in various practical areas and properly deal with our differences into friendly consultation," Sun said.

"In light with this fast-changing

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ASIAN JOURNAL (L.A.)

Waiting for bivalent jabs

AS of March 23, according to the official tracker of the Department of Health, there were still 8,414 active COVID-19 cases nationwide, with 66,304 deaths. The 137 new cases recorded on Thursday brought total infections in the country to 4,032,822 since Patient No. 1 from China’s Wuhan City was recorded on Jan. 30, 2020.

The coronavirus still lurks despite life around the planet easing to a post-pandemic normal. New variants of SARS-CoV-2 – more resistant to the original vaccines, and capable of penetrating even natural immunity acquired through a previous bout with COVID –continue to infect people. And while most of the new infections are mild, especially among the vaccinated, the subvariants are unpredictable and can still debilitate and kill.

Editorial

Some sectors are more vulnerable to breakthrough and repeat infections: health frontliners, the ailing elderly and people with comorbidities and weakened immune systems. Many of these vulnerable sectors are waiting to get the next-generation bivalent vaccines before fully resuming normal activities such as travel and attending large gatherings.

The bivalent vaccines, which will be administered to those who have received a second booster, are designed specifically against the heavily mutated strains of the Omicron subvariant. The government had hoped to receive a donation of bivalent boosters through the COVAX Facility. The donation, however, can be availed of only by states that are still grappling with a serious COVID problem.

In the case of the Philippines, the “state of calamity” declared in March 2020 by then president Rodrigo Duterte allowed the country to tap the COVAX Facility for millions of free primary COVID vaccines and boosters. The COVAX Facility has also expressed readiness to replace millions of vaccine doses that are expiring this month. The state of calamity was extended by President Marcos until the end of 2022. After the period lapsed, however, the President said he no longer saw the need for another extension of the calamity state, despite suggestions to do so by health officials. Recently, he said the country had hurdled the pandemic. Now the DOH is hard-pressed to come up with a legal framework that will allow the country to obtain the bivalent vaccines through the COVAX Facility even without restoring the state of COVID calamity. The government must intensify this effort if it stands firm on its refusal to give the state of calamity another extension.

Millions of Filipinos need and want those bivalent vaccines. The shots will bolster the defenses of the population, particularly the vulnerable sectors, against a virus that continues to infect, sicken and claim lives. The bivalent jabs will complete the path to pandemic recovery. Normalcy cannot be attained simply by refusing to acknowledge that the health situation is in a state of calamity. (Philstar.com)

FERDINAND Marcos was a product and survivor of, and implicated in, the brutality lurking just under the surface in our national politics and institutions— ranging from his nearly dying in his fraternity initiation to being tried for murder in the famous Nalundasan case in his home province of Ilocos Norte featuring spectacular political murders—but his son was shielded from it, and quite obviously has no taste for it.

Asked about the assassination of Negros Oriental Gov. Roel Degamo, President Marcos said in a news conference that “This one is particularly terrifying and it’s really … I don’t know. This does not belong in our society.” Degamo’s killing, he added, “is entirely unacceptable and it will not stand. This cannot go unpunished.” What followed was a kind of political dragnet in slow motion, as Negros Oriental Rep. Arnolfo Teves Jr. was mentioned as the potential mastermind of the rubout, and the House of Representatives then engaged in a kind of zarzuela in slow motion, with the speaker and various representatives issuing statements and counterstatements, with the whereabouts of Teves himself being murky for quite a time. There are two faces of Teves: the polished one of Margarito and the mercurial one of Arnolfo Jr. Their family having married into that of Hermenegildo Villanueva, the prewar kingpin of Negros Oriental politics, a Teves has featured in the roster of provincial officials since the Commonwealth, increasingly becoming dominant from the Third Republic to martial law, including dominating the first district for most of the postwar to martial law era, and nimbly transitioning the replacement of one, Marcos-affiliated family member, Lorenzo G. Teves, with another, Herminio G. Teves, more acceptable to the post-Edsa democratic government. They established a lock on the newly created third district, holding it exclusively from the time it was established in 1987 to the present. They were less successful when it came to the governorship: Since 1987, only Pryde Henry Teves made it—and briefly, at that, having to relinquish office to Roel Degamo who was proclaimed winner of the 2022 polls by the Comelec.

For the postwar generation, the face of political murder was that of

Moises Padilla, for whom defeat wasn’t enough: He was taken from town to town, and beaten in public, as a demonstration of what happens to those who challenge the powers that be. He was supposedly shot while trying to escape, though the autopsy revealed his legs had been broken before he was shot; his grisly murder helped propel Ramon Magsaysay, who’d promised him protection, then vowed to seek justice, to the presidency. In the twilight of the Marcos dictatorship, the 1985 Escalante massacre claimed the lives of 20 peasants. For us, today, there are many faces of political murder in adjoining Negros Oriental, where Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla says there “is a pattern, a pattern of impunity that we did not sense before. It’s something that is so new to us.” He added that “it’s very hard to imagine this happening before. But now that this happened, the stories are beginning to make sense that there was a pattern of impunity within the area.” A quick scan instantly reveals what has so recently dawned on him: The list of murders there includes activists in 2017; peasants in 2018; 14 in a “lawless violence suppression” campaign in 2019; radio broadcaster Renato Blanco in

2022; in Bayawan City, in October 2022, councilors Cenon Cardona and Diosdado Gemina; a defeated candidate in November; and earlier this year, as a commentary in the Bohol Chronicle notes, the “interesting tale” of the murder of a Dutch national and his Filipino wife by motorcycle-riding gunmen early in February, followed two days later by the murder of a friend of the couple who “was allegedly suspected of having a hand in the murder of Don Paolo Teves (42) younger brother of Valencia town mayor Edgar Teves Jr. on Feb. 3.”; then came the liquidation of Degamo and others earlier this month. That scholar of political murder, Peter Kreuzer, whose work I’ve mentioned before in this space, published a paper on ”Killing Politicians in the Philippines: Who, Where, When, and Why” in 2022 where he summarizes his findings as follows: “For the Philippines, all available evidence suggests that organized crime does not play a role and is not instigating the killing of politicians. However, the communist New People’s Army, which is still active in a number of rural regions of the Philippines, can be identified as an actor that commissions and carries out targeted killings of politicians.

Since Duterte’s campaign against drug-related crime, a number of politicians have been killed by police. These killings were consistently underpinned by the narrative that these politicians were drug criminals who violently resisted arrest. Although these actors outside mainstream politics play some role, they are likely to be collectively responsible for no more than 10 percent of the killings. By reconstructing several local dynamics of violence, some of which span several decades and resulted in casualties among several groupings, this report advances the argument that politicians from the establishment are responsible for the vast majority of targeted killings of politicians.” In other words, the killers of politicians are other politicians, though recently some instances might have been disguised as being casualties in the so-called “war on drugs.”

That being the case, we can read between the lines of the President and secretary of justice’s statements. The missing context is one laid out in the Bohol Chronicle commentary I quoted above: in a span of 18 days, four government officials were targeted—the governor of Negros Oriental was killed, while that of Lanao del Sur survived; a Cagayan characteristic sarcasm: vice mayor was killed in Nueva Vizcaya while a Maguindanao mayor was slain in Pasay City. According to the commentary, “two of the assassinations involved camouflaged militarygarbed personnel and three of the four incidents were stagemanaged in areas outside the political jurisdiction of the victimpoliticians.”

If the previous dispensation had been marked by bringing to the national what had long been a feature of the local—liquidations, whether of officials or the poor, so that it was only relatively sheltered urban civil society that was shocked—the problem now is that no one can keep thinking it was only a six-year aberration. The past six years show no signs of ending in this, the first year of the Restoration. Even as police commands are reshuffled, the national leadership also has to confront the troubling possibility the lower ranks of the military have discovered the allure of being guns for hire. (Inquirer.net)

* * * The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the Asian Journal, its management, editorial board and staff.

* * * Email: mlquezon3@gmail.com; Twitter: @

THIS week, the United States and the Philippine militaries –with enthusiastic support from Ferdinand Marcos Jr. – kickstarted the implementation of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), the 2014 bilateral executive accord which had been delayed for eight years. The EDCA enables the US to reestablish its strong military presence in the country – after being barred in 1991, when the Senate voted to end the almost 50-year stay of American military bases here.

Instead of the full-scale air and naval bases before, the EDCA allows the US to construct “military facilities” for their exclusive use inside those Philippine military bases they can choose. The Benigno Aquino III administration initially approved five bases – in Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao – wherein the full construction of US military facilities, tagged as EDCA sites, is now being accelerated.

Last Feb. 4, during the visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd

Austin, Marcos Jr. approved four additional sites. Their locations will be formally announced soon, he said on Wednesday, March 22, adding that two of the four sites will be in the northern part of Luzon to “defend our eastern coast.” His pronouncement incurred a heated reaction from China’s foreign ministry, which warned of escalating tensions in the AsiaPacific region. Specifically, China accused the U.S. of doing this by bolstering its military deployment in the region.

Last Monday, the U.S. sent its Air Force Secretary, Frank Kendall III, to jumpstart the “repairs and updating” on the runway of Basa Air Base in Floridablanca, Pampanga. Kendall and acting Defense Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. officiated at the groundbreaking rites.

Funded by the US at $25 million, the project’s aim is to make Basa “ideal for the efficient conduct of [US-Philippine] joint task force exercises and a natural hub for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations.”

Basa is one of the five bases earlier chosen by the US and approved by the Philippine government. Galvez remarked at this week’s event: “After almost eight years of delay and legal challenge, the EDCA implementation is now in full swing… We hope the (US) would consider more EDCA projects.”

Kendall said the strategic allies would “announce as soon as they can” the location of the four additional EDCA sites that Marcos Jr. had approved. Marcos Jr. reiterated Kendall’s statement, but deferred to the US as to the exact date for issuing a joint announcement.

Austin lost no time in calling Galvez, and the two defense chiefs spoke on the phone for “several hours,” noted one news report. After condemning China’s incursions on Pagasa Island in Palawan early this month, with Austin expressing particular concern over China’s swarming of more than 40 vessels around Pagasa, the duo discussed plans to conduct joint maritime activities in the South China Sea. They agreed to review the full range of maritime cooperation in their scheduled meetings, along with their foreign affairs counterparts, in Washington next month.

They also looked forward to holding the largest Balikatan joint military exercises from April 11 to

28, wherein 17,000-plus soldiers (12, 000 Americans and 5,000 Filipinos) will participate in livefiring drills. Besides the live-firing for the first time in the country of a Patriot missile, the US Army has announced the launching of Javelin missiles during the exercises. Both weapons systems have been provided to the Ukrainian military, which they used as defense against Russian air and ground attacks.

After Marcos Jr. confirmed that he had approved four new EDCA sites, including two in northern Luzon, China’s foreign ministry issued statements of opposition via their embassy in Manila.

“If the new sites are located in Cagayan and Isabela, which are close to Taiwan, does the US really intend to help the Philippines in disaster relief with these EDCA sites? And is it really in the national interest of the Philippines to get dragged by the US to interfere in the Taiwan question?” asked the Chinese statement.

And on the US claim – which the Marcos Jr. administration has readily echoed – that the USfunded EDCA site facilities would generate much-needed local jobs and boost the economy – another Chinese statement said with

“Creating economic opportunities and jobs through military cooperation is tantamount to quenching thirst with poison and gouging flesh to heal wounds. Such cooperation will seriously endanger regional peace and stability and drag the Philippines into the abyss of geopolitical strife and damage its economic development at the end of the day.”

As was his wont, Marcos Jr. seemed to let go unanswered the Chinese foreign ministry statements. When asked by a reporter about the previously expressed opposition by the governors of Cagayan and Isabela to US military presence in their provinces, he replied:

“We explained to them why it was important that we have that and why it will actually be good for their provinces.” He didn’t provide any details of the supposed benefits. He simply repeated what Galvez had claimed – that those who expressed objections had acceded “to support the idea of an EDCA site in their province.”

Now comes Cagayan Governor Manuel Mamba, saying it’s Marcos Jr.’s prerogative to decide where the EDCA sites should be allowed. However, he made clear, in an interview with the Associated Press, that he remained opposed to allowing the Americans to set up their military facilities in his province.

Why? Because Cagayan geographically sits across a sea border from southern China and Taiwan. Such a situation, he feared, could make his province a key target of China’s military should an armed conflict over Taiwan break out, which would involve US forces. (President Biden has repeatedly vowed to protect Taiwan if that happens.) Mamba told AP: “It is the President’s call, not mine. But I maintain my stand against any foreign forces stationed in my province. Still, I am against EDCA sites in my province.”

Expanding the EDCA sites is an issue that continues to unfold. Moreover, we need to be vigilant about how the first five facilities would be used. (Philstar.com)

* * * The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the Asian Journal, its management, editorial board and staff.

* * * Email: satur.ocampo@gmail.com