A APRIL 7-13, 2017 • NEW YORK AND NEW JERSEY ASIAN JOURNAL
http://www.asianjournal.com • (212) 655-5426
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Features
Airport woes
FOR a country that has been branded with the “worst airport in the world” tag in 2011 and 2013, the last thing it needs is another reason to inconvenience its travelers. Last year, a survey released by “The Guide to Sleeping in Airports” ranked the Philippines’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) in fifth place. Complaints included the prevalence of the tanim bala (bullet planting) scheme that victimized NAIA passengers, frequent power outages, poor air-conditioning, lack of seats and complicated terminal transfers. NAIA was not included in the world’s list of worst airports in 2014 and 2015 after major renovations were implemented at the country’s main international gateway. “Some travelers noted improvements in the airport structure and facilities such as cleaner bathrooms, more chairs and some general organization of taxis in front of the terminal,” the travel website noted. Travelers rate their airport experience on factors such as comfort (rest zones and gate seating), facilities and things to do, food options, immigration or security, customer service and cleanliness. On Tuesday, April 4, cutout photos of Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno were seen in place of immigration officers at the counters of NAIA. Many immigration windows were vacant as a result of the looming crisis as more Bureau of Immigration officers (IOs) assigned at NAIA terminals
have already left their posts—while more are expected to quit—after a recent order was issued to stop the overtime pay of IOs at the airports. Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II reported that 32 IOs had left since January. Fifty more IOs had informed the bureau that they would go on leave for six months in preparation for their resignations and to look for new jobs. At least 17 to 18 IOs are absent almost daily at the four NAIA terminals. “Many of them have stopped going to work or have gone on leave because their overtime will not be paid anyway,” Aguirre said. “The economy will be affected by this. Hopefully, we could find a temporary remedy to this situation.” Aguirre is referring for a compromise to President Rodrigo Duterte’s order to bar the bureau from using the funds collected from airport express lanes for overtime pay. Express lane funds are generated charges are additional costs being paid by a foreigner who wants to fast track processing of permits and documents. Duterte vetoed the use of express lane charges collected by the BI for payment of salaries of casual and contractual personnel, confidential agents and job order employees, augmentation of salaries and the health insurance premium of personnel
Editorial
who render services beyond office hours. Records showed that immigration personnel were paid P784 million in overtime pay last year, which was five times bigger than their basic salaries. Under R.A. 10924, the said funds collected from use of express lanes will now go to the national treasury and will be allocated to other government agencies.
If this problem continues, expect to see longer lines of domestic and foreign travelers at the country’s international gateways. Until a solution becomes available, this will have significant effects on the economy and security, and will be a great concern for travelers who will now think twice before making the Philippines their next destination. (AJPress)
Trump smoke and fire: Spies, lies, and the Russian ties “SOME people in the Trump campaign may end up in jail,” revealed Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro in a CNN interview on Tuesday, April 4. The congressman’s declaration comes after more classified information was presented to the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into the allegations that the Trump campaign and Russia conspired to meddle in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. With probes also being performed by the Department of Justice, FBI, the National Security Agency and the Senate Intelligence Committee to get to the bottom of the assault of Russia on U.S. democracy, new deep connections between members of the Trump campaign and transition team and Russian officials have been coming to light. The Trump camp had initially denied the numerous secret meetings that various members had with Russian officials here in the United States, in Russia and other parts of the world. Some even lied under oath and recently, evidence has revealed that those meetings actually occurred. These Trump associates included, among others: National Security adviser Michael Flynn who lied about meeting with Russian officials and failed to disclose payments from Russian companies; Attorney General Jeff Sessions who lied under oath that he met with the Russian ambassador to the United States twice; Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort was found to have worked to help Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government push its interests around the world; Former campaign associate Carter Page was targeted for recruitment by Russian spies; Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared
Kushner met with the Russian ambassador during transition and met with a Russian bank The Fil-Am chairman with ties to Putin; Perspective Major campaign donor, Erik Prince — founder of government service and security company Blackwater and brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos Gel SantoS-ReloS — reportedly had a secret meeting arranged by the United Arab Emirates at the Seychelles islands, just nine days before Trump’s inauguration. U.S., European and Arab officials revealed that the meeting was with a Russian close to Putin as part of an apparent effort to establish a back-channel line of communication between Moscow and President-elect Donald Trump. The questions that need to be answered: Why did the Trump campaign have to make these meetings “secret”? Why did they have to lie about these, with Sessions even being not forthcoming under oath? Was there coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia in hacking and leaking damaging information about the Democratic National Committee and nominee Hillary Clinton to help Trump win? Were there talks between the Trump campaign and Russia about easing sanctions imposed by President Barack Obama against Russia for interference in the 2016 election? What did Trump know? When did he know them? What did he do when he knew about any of the talks? On March 4, as the Russian probe went deeper, Trump shocked the world with his early morning tweets accusing Obama of wiretapping him without offering any evidence to support his allegations. This accusation was debunked by the U.S. intelligence community to be unfounded.
And then Trump dropped another smoke screen: that British spies did it for Obama. This was an allegation that was vehemently denied by America’s closest ally and the U.S. intelligence community. And then this past week, another smoke screen — allegations that Obama’s former National Security Adviser Susan Rice illegally unmasked names of Trump’s associates in surveillance against him and leaked information for political expediency. This accusation against Rice was debunked by members of the intelligence community who said that as an adviser, she was just doing her job in requesting to unmask (get to know) the identities of individuals who arose to be in communication with foreign entities believed to be a threat to U.S. national security. Unmasking was legal and was necessary to know the context of the communications between the U.S. person and the foreign entity. Rice never leaked the information to anybody, disproving accusations she and the Obama administration had used it for political reasons. The Bloomberg story by Eli Lake that broke the news implicating name of Susan Rice in this development concluded: “Rice’s requests to unmask the names of Trump transition officials do not vindicate Trump’s own tweets from March 4 in which he accused Obama of illegally tapping Trump Tower. There remains no evidence to support that claim. But Rice’s multiple requests to learn the identities of Trump officials discussed in intelligence reports during the transition period does highlight a
longstanding concern for civil liberties advocates about U.S. surveillance programs. The standard for senior officials to learn the names of U.S. persons incidentally collected is that it must have some foreign intelligence value, a standard that can apply to almost anything. This suggests Rice’s unmasking requests were likely within the law. The news about Rice also sheds light on the strange behavior of Nunes [Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, also part of Trump’s transition team] in the last two weeks. It emerged last week that he traveled to the White House last month, the night before he made an explosive allegation about Trump transition officials caught up in incidental surveillance. At the time he said he needed to go to the White House because the reports were only on a database for the executive branch. It now appears that he needed to view computer systems within the National Security Council that would include the logs of Rice’s requests to unmask U.S. persons. The ranking Democrat on the committee Nunes chairs, Representative Adam Schiff, viewed these reports on Friday. In comments to the press over the weekend he declined to discuss the contents of these reports, but also said it was highly unusual for the reports to be shown only to Nunes and not himself and other members of the committee. Indeed, much about this is highly unusual: if not how the surveillance was collected, then certainly how and why it was disseminated.” *** Gel Santos Relos is the anchor of TFC’s “Balitang America.” Views and opinions expressed by the author in this column are solely those of the author and not of Asian Journal and ABS-CBN-TFC. For comments, go to www.TheFil-AmPerspective.com, https://www.facebook.com/Gel. Santos.Relos
Leni Robredo’s sins against the overseas Filipinos
Analysis
antonio P. ContReRaS INDAY (not her real name) has been living in Trinidad and Tobago for the past 10 years with her foreigner husband and their four children. There are about 500 Filipinos living in the Caribbean nation in various sectors, in construction, hospitality, healthcare and domestic work. She was living a peaceful and ordinary life, until Leni Robredo delivered that six-minute message painting the Philippines as a dark place where people are mired in helplessness and hopelessness. Radio stations began to speak harshly about the Philippines, even painting our country as if we have become a war zone where just anyone can be killed in the streets. Commentaries in the media and even from her friends were so insulting, and have caused her much stress. Many of her friends have messaged her, concerned about the safety of her family still living here, something that she is not sure if she should appreciate. And the stories keep coming,
from nurses, domestic helpers, immigrants, engineers, Filipinos all. They have to endure being objects of misplaced concern over how we cope with the horror of being under a tyrannical despot, or of downright condemnation of how we can allow a President who targets the poor and has ordered the execution of more than 7,000 drug users. Even Filipinos who are supposed to be on vacation have to suffer the effects of the disinformation, like Melanie (not her real name) who was on vacation in Ecuador had to bear. Instead of pleasantly engaging her tour group colleague, she had to spend time debunking accusations that we are some backward country whose President is a crazy, maniacal murderer who loves to kill at will. And the most painful story is that of Elaine (not her real name), who is married to an Italian but lives in Thailand with their child. Elaine is dying of cancer, and she wants to come home to spend the rest of her life with her parents and family in her hometown. After being exposed to the unfavorable images painted by the international media, and further
affirmed by the speech of Mrs. Robredo, her husband refuses to come with her. He believes that the Philippines is not a safe place under President Duterte. Elaine begged him to allow even just their child to come with her, but her husband refused to grant her request. He told her that she can go home by herself, or just remain in Thailand to die there, and he will just send her ashes or remains to her parents here. There are millions of overseas Filipinos in the global diaspora. We may not be the only nationality that is scattered all over the world, but we are surely the most diasporic, in the sense that regardless of our circumstances, whether we are just temporary migrant workers, or permanent residents or even citizens of our adoptive countries, we remain attached to the Filipino homeland. The circumstances that drive us to leave can be to seek greener pastures abroad, or simply to earn more by sacrificing so much. There are Filipinos who have to leave their children, barely old enough to take care of themselves, to take care of other countries’ children. We leave our parents and elderly, in order to serve the needs
of the aged and the infirm in other countries. We leave jobs here that pay less to go to jobs abroad that pay more even if it means selling everything that we have earned. There are also many of us who migrate and take up citizenship abroad, but the taking of an oath of loyalty to other countries, and marrying their citizens and starting families there, can never extinguish our bond with the Philippines. And these are the millions of Filipinos in the diaspora that have now been offended by Robredo’s six-minute speech that slandered the President, but in the end also slandered our country and people. As one overseas Filipino lamented, embodying a widely held sentiment, Leni Robredo spoke with the Philippine flag behind her, and the seal of her office prominently displayed. She inflicted the authority of her office to become a burden for the overseas Filipinos to bear. Her unverified accusations took the mantle of an official declaration, and acquired the character of authoritative truth, for it came from the second highest official of the land. It is, however, heartwarming to see overseas Filipino workers as-
Vice Pres. Leni Robredo
sertively standing up to dispel the lies and the half-truths. It is simply amazing how ordinary people in the Filipino diaspora rose to defend not only the President but their homeland. We owe it to every mother who left her children, every husband who left his wife and family, and every Filipino who left us but remains with us, to rise up too in
solidarity and defend if not the President, then our country. We who are left behind have to be at the forefront in unmasking the lies of Leni Robredo and her allies. Leni apologists will dismiss this as obsession, or misplaced loyalty. We have to tell them this is our duty. (ManilaTimes.net)
The views expressed by our Op-Ed contributors are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the predilection of the editorial board and staff of Asian Journal.
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