Tag: philippines

What’s Really Going On In the South China Sea Between the Philippines and China

Maritime clashes between the Philippines and China had been mostly over the Philippines’ military outpost, BRP (BRP – Barko ng Republika ng Pilipinas, which translates to “Ship of the Republic of the Philippines” – the ship prefix for the Philippines) Sierra Madre, in the Spratly Islands, which is disputed by Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan (a province of China, as recognized by the United Nations’ Resolution No. 2758), and Vietnam. The BRP Sierra Madre was intentionally run aground on a reef near the Second Thomas Shoal in the disputed Spratly Islands, in 1997, so that the Philippines could stake their territorial claim.

The WWII-era ship is rusted out and on its way to disintegrating.  In December 2023, the Philippines allocated funds to replace the ship with a permanent structure. Coincidentally, in September 2023, Blake Herzinger, a research fellow at the United States Studies Centre of the University of Sydney, penned an article titled, “It’s Time to Build Combined Forward Operating Base Sierra Madre.” This outpost would be “manned by combined rotational forces from both the Philippines and the U.S. Marine Corps,” according to Herzinger.  In it, he admits that doing so, “would be a provocative move, and it would not be without significant risk.”

In October 2023, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFU) admitted that their resupply missions to the BRP Sierra Madre were carrying materials that were used in the maintenance and repair of the ship. China had been accusing the Philippines of using its resupply missions to send “illegal building materials” to reinforce the dilapidated ship on several occasions.  In June of this year, The Financial Times revealed that the Philippines had “secretly” reinforced the BRP Sierra Madre at the Second Thomas Shoal.

On March 5, 2024, in response to an incident at the Second Thomas Shoal, U.S. State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller stated that “Article IV of the 1951 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty extends to armed attacks on Philippine armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft, including those of its coast guard, anywhere in the South China Sea.”  At the time, the crash was “not the time or reason to invoke a Mutual Defense Treaty with the United States,” according to Philippine President Bongbong Marcos. Invoking the Mutual Defense Treaty by the Philippines could lead to an armed conflict between China and the U.S. Military.

Recently, these clashes have been occurring at the Sabina Shoal, another disputed atoll in the Spratly Islands. In May, the Philippines claimed that China was carrying out “small-scale reclamation” and anchored the BRP Teresa Magbanua at Sabina Shoal to “catch and document the dumping of crushed corals over the sandbars” (China denied this).  The Philippines had been using the BRP Teresa Magbanua as a staging area for their resupply missions to the BRP Sierra Madre at Second Thomas Shoal. A new Philippine Coast Guard vessel was sent to Sabina Shoal, according to Jonathan Malaya, the spokesperson for the National Security Council of the Philippines, on September 26. However, he declined to comment on the specifics of their intentions or plans, citing operational security concerns.

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Philippines police say ‘alarming details’ uncovered in new allegations against celebrity preacher

Police in the Philippines said on Wednesday more people had come forward alleging sexual abuse by celebrity pastor Apollo Quiboloy, pointing to what they called an alarming pattern of crimes by the wealthy, self-proclaimed “Appointed Son of God”.

Quiboloy, who is facing a raft of charges in the Philippines and the United States including sex trafficking, money laundering and child abuse, was arrested on Sunday after a weeks-long search of his church’s sprawling 30-hectare (74-acre) compound by more than 2,000 security personnel.

Quiboloy for years cultivated an image as a charismatic spiritual leader with divine powers, earning him millions of followers, a lavish lifestyle and powerful friends in the country’s political elite.

“These courageous victims have spoken up, revealing their harrowing experiences. The abuse they endured shows an alarming pattern of manipulation and exploitation,” Philippine police chief General Francisco Marbil said in a statement.

Those included girls as young as 12 and were part of a group of what police called “inner-circle pastorals” who have been crucial in uncovering the full extent of Quiboloy’s alleged crimes, Marbil added.

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The Japanese-Philippine Military Logistics Pact Raises The Risk Of War With China

It’s no secret that the US is preparing to “Pivot (back) to Asia” in order to more muscularly contain China, but few have paid attention to the form in which this is expected to take in the coming future. Instead of the US doing so on its own or through the previously assembled Quad of itself, Australia, India, and Japan, it’s increasingly relying on the Squad. This framework swaps India out for the Philippines, and its latest relevant development was the clinching of a Japanese-Philippine military logistics pact.

That agreement follows April’s first-ever trilateral US-Japanese-Philippine summit, which tightened the US’ containment noose around China, and came approximately nine months after those three’s National Security Advisors met for the first time ever in June 2023. In practice, Japan will likely ramp up its military exercises with the Philippines and explore more arms deals, with those two possibly also roping Taiwan into their activities to an uncertain extent in the future given that it’s roughly equidistant between them.

This will increase the chances of a conflict by miscalculation since China has already recently shown that it has the political will to respond to violations of the maritime territory that it claims as its own as proven by its latest low-intensify clashes with the Philippines. Even though the US has mutual defense obligations to the Philippines and has recently reminded China of them, it’s been reluctant to meaningfully act on its commitments for de-escalation reasons, but that could easily change.

After all, the US would be pressured to respond if China clashes with both its Japanese and Philippine allies in the event that they jointly violate the maritime territory that Beijing claims as its own, though they might of course abstain from such a provocation for the time being for whatever reason. In any case, it can’t be ruled out that something of the sort might eventually transpire, which could prompt a dangerous brinksmanship crisis that risks spiraling out of control if cooler heads on all sides don’t prevail.

Southeast Asia isn’t the only battleground in the Sino-US dimension of the New Cold War since Northeast Asia is rapidly shaping up to be a complementary one as well. North Korea recently accused the US, South Korea, and Japan of conspiring to create an “Asian NATO” after their latest trilateral drills. South Korea is a prime candidate for joining the Squad, which can also be described as AUKUS+, with Japan playing the senior partner role in that scenario exactly as it now plays with the Philippines.

That likely won’t happen anytime soon though since the South Koreans remain resentful of Japan’s World War II-era occupation that Tokyo hasn’t ever taken full responsibility for in their view. Trilateral drills under America’s aegis are one thing, but entering into a military-logistics pact with their former colonizer is an altogether different matter, especially if it leads to the latter gaining the upper hand. Nevertheless, South Korea is expected to scale up its role in AUKUS+, with Japan as its top Asian partner.

The grand strategic trend is that the US is forming two Asian trilaterals with itself and Japan that are centered on the Philippines in Southeast Asia and South Korea in Northeast Asia.

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Pacific on the Edge of War as Chinese Naval Forces Board and Seize Military Boats of Philippine Navy

The Pacific appears increasingly nearer to war as Chinese vessels encircled and boarded military resupply boats belonging to a key American ally.

Tensions erupted as the Chinese Coast Guard seized ships of a Philippine Navy resupply mission that was underway near the Second Thomas Shoal. The Armed Forces of the Philippines revealed pictures of the Monday confrontation in a social media post, calling the attack “coercive, aggressive, and barbaric.”

The shallow reef, also known as Ayungin Shoal, is part of the South China Sea’s Spratly Islands, one of the many areas in the region claimed by Beijing.

The Philippine military was resupplying a tank landing ship, the BRP Sierra Madre, which was intentionally run aground on a reef just off the disputed shoal in 1999 to bolster the country’s claim on the island.

Although likely not even remotely seaworthy at this point, the Sierra Madre remains an actively crewed commissioned vessel of the Philippine Navy.

China has similarly fortified its claims on the area, deploying missiles to some of the islands in 2018.

Videos show the resupply mission turning to blows as China became involved. In one clip, Chinese sailors could be seen waving and swinging axes, machetes and other melee weapons as the boats closed in to become a chaotic mass.

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Logic of a Forgotten American Atrocity Is Alive Today

In March 1906, U.S. forces attacked a group of Moros and killed more than 900 men, women, and children at the top of Mt. Dajo on the island of Jolo in the southern Philippines.

Even though the death toll was higher than at well-known massacres committed by American soldiers at Wounded Knee and My Lai, the massacre at Bud Dajo has been all but forgotten outside the Philippines.

Recovering the history of this event is the subject of an important new book by historian Kim Wagner, Massacre in the Clouds: An American Atrocity and the Erasure of History. The book is a masterful reconstruction of the events leading up to the lopsided slaughter on the mountain, and Wagner sets the massacre in its proper historical context during the age of American overseas colonialism at the start of the 20th century. It also offers important lessons about how the dehumanization of other people leads to terrible atrocities and how imperial policies rely on the use of brutal violence.

In the years leading up to the massacre, the U.S. had been extending its control over the southern Philippines after it had annexed the northern islands and defeated local pro-independence forces in the Philippine-American War (1899-1902). U.S. relations with the Sultanate of Sulu were initially regulated by the Bates Treaty of 1899, but within a few years the U.S. abrogated that treaty and sought to impose direct rule. The U.S. tossed the treaty aside on the recommendation of Gen. Leonard Wood, who was the local military governor based on Mindanao at the time.

The massacre was part of a larger history of violent American expansionism, and it was the result of an imperial policy that sought to impose colonial rule on the Philippines. The U.S. effort to collect the cedula tax provoked significant resentment and opposition among the Moros. (The Moro name was the one given to the Muslim Tausugs of the Sulu archipelago by the earlier Spanish colonizers, and it was the one that the Americans continued to use.)

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Greenpeace Crusade Will Blind and Kill Children

Greenpeace and other anti-biotech activist groups have logged a win in a crusade that could ultimately blind and kill thousands of children annually. How? By persuading the Court of Appeals of the Philippines to issue a scientifically ignorant and morally hideous decision to ban the planting of vitamin A–enriched golden rice. The objective result will be more children blinded and killed by vitamin A deficiency.

The World Health Organization estimates that 250,000–500,000 children who are vitamin A–deficient become blind every year, and half of them die within 12 months of losing their sight. In addition, children with immune systems weakened by vitamin A deficiency have an increased risk of illness and death from infectious diseases.

The court also banned the planting of an eggplant variety that has been biotech-enhanced to resist insect pests. The same variety approved by Bangladeshi regulators has reduced pesticide usage and improved farmers’ yields by more than 50 percent.

In their press release, Greenpeace activists crowed, “The Court of Appeals has essentially put a moratorium on these genetically modified crops.”

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Bipartisan Bill Would Give the Philippines $2.5 Billion in Military Aid

On Wednesday, Senators Bill Hagerty (R-TN) and Tim Kaine (D-VA) introduced a bill that would give the Philippines $5 billion in military aid over five years as the US is boosting military ties with Manila as part of its strategy against China in the region.

The legislation would give Manila $500 million over five years through to the 2029 fiscal year. The aid would be in the form of Foreign Military Financing (FMF), a State Department program that gives foreign governments money to purchase US weapons.

The Philippines is already the largest recipient of US military aid in the Asia Pacific. From 2015 to the end of 2021, Manila received $1.14 billion in military assistance from the US, including $475 million in FMF.

Hagery and Kaine introduced the bill on the eve of the first-ever trilateral summit between the leaders of the US, Japan, and the Philippines, which President Biden is hosting in Washington. The three nations are expected to announce new forms of cooperation, including joint patrols in the South China Sea, where tensions are soaring between the Philippines and China.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has taken a much harder line against China’s claims to the South China Sea than his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, who was much more friendly and diplomatic toward Beijing. The US has emboldened Marcos with new military support, and there has been a spike in confrontations between Chinese and Philippine vessels near disputed rocks and reefs.

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Doomsday cult leader who says he is reincarnation of Jesus is turning 1,500 children into sex slaves on remote Philippines island, lawmakers say

Clad in a white suit with gold watch and aviator sunglasses, the leader of quasi-religious cult Omega de Salonera looks more pop star than a Messiah.

But Jey Rence B Quilario was this week accused of heading a doomsday cult where ‘rape, sexual violence, child abuse, forced marriage was perpetrated on minors’.

Quilario, who claims to be a reincarnation of Jesus, was named using congressional privilege as well as his group in connection to ‘widespread exploitation’.

And Save the Children has urged the Filipino government to take immediate action to free the estimated 1,500 children held by the cult on a remote island.

On Monday the chairman of the senate committee on women and children senator Risa Hontiveros said: ‘This is a harrowing story of rape, sexual violence, child abuse, forced marriage perpetrated on minors by a cult in the municipality of Socorro, Surigao del Norte.

‘We are talking about over a thousand young people in the hands of a deceitful, cruel, and abusive cult… real children are in danger, and time is of the essence. We cannot, we must not, look away.’

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Early Humans Were Weaving Baskets in the Philippines 40,000 Years Ago!

Recent examination of ancient stone tools reveals that as early as 40,000 years ago, the early inhabitants of the Philippines were crafting ropes and baskets from plant fibers. This discovery pushes back the timeline for plant-based artifacts in the region by an astounding 31,000 years, as previously the oldest such artifacts were fragments of mats from southern China, estimated to be about 8,000 years old.

Mastering Fibre Technology

According to the study, which was published in the journal PLOS One , researchers analyzed stone tools found in Tabon Caves , situated in the Palawan Province of the western Philippines. Dubbed as the country’s “cradle of civilization”, Tabon Caves is a site of archaeological importance due to the number of prehistoric human remains found there.

The tools showed microscopic evidence of wear and tear associated with using plant fibers for purposes such as for rope-making and basket weaving. These signs included a brush stroke-type pattern of striations, micro-polish and micro-scars on the surface of the tools, according to a report by Cosmos Magazine .

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