Determination of asylum seekers

THE request made by the US for the Philippines to accept Afghan refugees constitutes a violation of the country’s sovereignty.

The Philippines, as a sovereign and independent state, has the exclusive right whom to accept its would-be citizens.

No state has the right to tell us whom we are going to accept as our citizens whether as refugees or asylum seekers.

What happened to these people is not of our own making.

If some turned out to become terrorists or religious bigots, it was the US that waged a cruel and nasty war against them only to mold bitterness against countries that unknowingly adopted them.

The acceptance of people classified as refugees is solely for the state to determine.

It is equivalent to self-determination and independence.

To pass on to other states the responsibility of who should be its citizens is to escape the duty of sustaining its own people their basic necessities of life.

The Philippines cannot just lease to Taiwan, Japan or South Korea any of those bases designated under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement

In which case, the primary responsibility of the US is to accept those Afghan refugees irrespective of the circumstances why they were stranded or politically disenfranchised in their own county.

The country that sponsored their terroristic ideology in exchange for the alleged promise of liberation and freedom should stand responsible for the consequences for its action.

The US alone should take the responsibility in absorbing those displaced people now seeking employment and better opportunities abroad.

For the US to arbitrarily allocate 50,000 Afghan refugees for each of its allies that supported the war of aggression as its quota to accepting these asylum seekers, many of whom are of dubious background, is constitutionally untenable.

Principally, the Philippines never supported that US imperialist war in Central Asia.

Logically, the US cannot now collect from us as payment for our support more that it resulted in a shameful debacle.

The President and his favorite lapdog should bear in mind that the country never voted to support American intervention in Afghanistan like voting for the approval of a UN resolution to intervene.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo even sought the immediate pullout of our military contingent then headed by General Palparan with most US embassy personnel seeing the decision distasteful.

As said, the acceptance of people classified as refugees is solely for the state to determine.

To pass on to other states that responsibility is to avoid the requirement that goes with the duty of sustaining the life of its own people.

To demand from a country to impose

PARIS—The Wagner mercenary group’s mutiny has weakened President Vladimir Putin and could affect the course of the war in Ukraine, analysts say.

The aborted weekend revolt led by Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin—who declared a sudden pull-back after marching towards Moscow—has damaged Putin’s image, boosted morale among Ukrainian troops, and generated confusion.

It marked the biggest challenge yet to Putin’s long rule and Russia’s most serious security crisis since he came to power in 1999. But it’s not clear if it will translate directly onto the battlefield—as Rob Lee of the Foreign Policy Research Institute points out, Wagner no longer had a key role in the Ukrainian theater.

“Wagner forces were replaced in Bakhmut (in eastern Ukraine, the site of the war’s longest and bloodiest battle) at the end of May-early June,” Lee wrote on Twitter.

“I don’t think any Wagner troops are