Category: china

Maliwanag, hindi “misunderstanding”…

Finally, a call for government to take the bull by the horns, deal boldly and decisively with China’s unprovoked attacks on our supply and repair missions to BSP Sierra Madre, among their other disgraceful depredations in our EEZ. It’s worth noting that FVR’s DILG Sec Raffy Alunan does not mention America at all, as if to say, let’s not count on them. The odds are against us, yes, but it’s about self-respect and national dignity.

The Philippines is under attack

By Rafael Alunan III

THE China Coast Guard mauled our Navy SEALs last week, who were sent in harm’s way with their hands tied. That prevented them from retaliating to “avoid escalation.” Salamabit, elite operators who are taught to fight and win, were humiliated in the process! It will embolden China all the more to escalate its attacks that have already injured our personnel and damaged our assets in our EEZ since last year. That happened alongside the BRP Sierra Madre at Ayungin Shoal. It had no protective cordon. What’s to prevent China from seizing the ship the next time around? It can be easily overpowered.

Will new rules of engagement be issued? Will a joint force be dispatched to protect our ship and shoal? Will our boys be able to defend themselves when attacked again by life-threatening weapons? Will we call for continuous maritime exercises in the area with allied forces? Will we replace the Sierra Madre, preferably with a larger one in good shape, and declare it as an EDCA base? Will we move forcefully to neutralize its POGOs, criminal syndicates, pre-positioned fifth columns and local collaborators? When will its maritime forces illegally occupying our EEZ and territorial waters be finally ejected?

The ROE should be crystal clear: Defend when attacked. Declare a 12-mile exclusion zone. If the Chinese breach it, fire warning shots to deter it. If they come closer, disable the threatening vessels. If they return fire, destroy the targets. But I worry about the fundamentals like OPSEC, strategy, doctrines, plans, communication, coordination, real-time situational awareness, decisiveness, intestinal fortitude, and crisis management. I hope this is taken constructively — our most potent weapon, the brain, is underused. We’re outthought, which is why we’re easily outmaneuvered and outfought. Our soldiers and the nation don’t deserve this.

The Chinese are gloating on their social media. “The conflict at Ren’ai Reef (Ayungin Shoal) on June 17 was a humiliation for the Philippine monkeys. The monkeys are a regular army belonging to the Philippine Navy Special Operations Group, NAVSOG. Their Instagram account calls themselves the Philippine Navy SEALs. This time, facing the Chinese Coast Guard, that is, the Chinese police force, they actually had their boats breached, their guns confiscated, and their boats seized. And seals? They are not even sea dogs.”

Let’s be clear. It’s the Chinese alone who are escalating the creeping invasion of our homeland, the occupation of our EEZ, and its attacks on our men and vessels with impunity because we choose to just stand by and show restraint. The world already knows who the aggressor is but is wondering why we haven’t moved to stop China’s humiliating abuses. We occupy the moral high ground to defend ourselves. Enough is enough. And, by the way, there’s no point in sticking to a “one China” policy when it doesn’t respect our sovereignty and sovereign rights. Bilateral relations are reciprocal, not a one-way street.

In August 2016, Chito Sta. Romana and I joined former President V. Fidel Ramos to help “break the ice” with China shortly after the favorable arbitral ruling was handed down. As the years passed, China’s treatment of the Philippines went downhill, from feigned friendship to patronizing to condescending to coercing to harming. It’s been dribbling the ball on the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea because it’s seen as running counter to its “core interest” to be the next superpower. It demands from us subservience and foolish restraint while it keeps tightening its grip. It’s time to show some teeth.

Two days after China’s law to confront and arrest trespassers came into effect on June 15, our Navy SEALs were mauled right beside the Sierra Madre. Our naïve attempts to demonstrate peaceful intentions have had no effect on China. It has successfully blurred red lines and gray zones that we’ve been slow to comprehend. The gray zone in the West Philippine Sea, especially around Ayungin, Sabina and Panatag Shoals, now has a much darker hue. China appears intent on maintaining an escalatory path because it believes that we’re likely to just gawk and protest like monkeys, nothing more.

Apart from dispatching a joint force to protect the Sierra Madre, the president should order the immediate upgrading of all existing military infrastructure and war-fighting assets. Cybersecurity and anti-espionage must ramp up. We’re badly infiltrated and compromised. China knows what we’re thinking, saying and planning. Hot transfers of vital networks, systems and equipment should be obtained from friendly countries. The National Security Council (NSC) and Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council (Ledac) must be commanded to sustain legal and funding support. We’ve run out of time. We’re at the fail-safe point, and we must get ready to defend even if the odds are against us. It’s about self-respect and national dignity.

Here are other inputs for consideration:
1. Sanitize our communities, agencies and institutions of enemy agents.
2. Upgrade the Human Security Act and all laws linked to it to global standards.
3. Legislate a War Powers Act to enable the chief executive to fully protect the country.
4. Set up an Emergency Broadcasting System.
5. Stockpile essential commodities like food, medicines, tools, spare parts, etc.
6. Firm up civil defense for the safety, security and survival of our communities.
7. Redeploy OFWs from China, Hong Kong and Macau to other countries and here at home.
8. Downgrade diplomatic relations.
9. Ban tourist travel to Chinese territories.
10. Expand local defense-related manufacturing and services.

China has triggered so much anger and distrust that there’s no hope for normalization at this point. It’s been waging war for years that has reshaped the nature of warfare to gain a strategic advantage over the West. In our case, it’s because we occupy strategic real estate and refuse to bow to its ill will. It’s time to grab the bull by the horns. Politics must take a back seat to national security and defense. Our national interest must come first. Countries whose interests converge with ours are allies. However, allies should be seen as force multipliers, not as the country’s main defenders. That responsibility is ours. [Emphasis mine]

Rafael M. Alunan III served in President Fidel V. Ramos’ Cabinet as Secretary of the Interior and Local Government. He is a trustee of the Philippine Council for Foreign Relations.

Alice in POGOland

It bears pointing out that (1) there were no POGOs before Duterte’s term, and (2) there seem to be no POGOs in Mindanao, bakit kaya.

The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR) started processing licenses for POGOs to shore up its revenue stream in September 2016. Philippine offshore gaming operators began their operations in November 2016.

NCR hosts a large number of POGOs in cities such as Makati, Pasay, Manila, Las Piñas, Mandaluyong, Parañaque, and Quezon City.

Also, regions outside Metro Manila cater to POGOs, including Regions III, IV-A, and VII.

FAST FORWARD to 2020. At a Senate hearing, the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) bared its records of POGO transactions from 2017 to 2019.

… based on our records, the total flow of funds is approximately PhP54 billion only, combining inflows and outflows. If we deduct outflows from inflows, the net inflow is only approximately PhP7 billion. Comparing this to our PhP18.6 trillion economy, the PhP54 billion represents only 0.29%, and if we use the net inflow of PhP7 billion, this represents only 0.04% of the economy.

Also, that P14 billion of the P54 billion was linked to “suspicious activities”:

…about P138 million in Pogo transactions were linked to drug trafficking.

The other “suspicious” amounts were related to violations of the electronic commerce law (P4.9 billion), lack of legal or trade obligations (P4 billion), deviations from clients’ profiles (P2.4 billion), funds not commensurate to the business or personal capacity of a client (P2.2 billion), lack of proper identification of a client (P231 million), and fraud (P121 million).

FAST FORWARD to 2024 and the very curious case of Alice Guo, a very wealthy smalltown mayor with direct links to China and suspected of involvement in money laundering and other criminal POGO operations. She denies it all, of course, and insists she’s legit, a Filipino citizen who grew up on a farm altho she doesn’t remember or know much of her family or childhood or schooling, leading many to think her documents are fake and she’s an illegal Chinese migrant if not a spy.

Read “Bamban’s Mysterious Mayor” by John Berthelsen of Asia Sentinel.

… the reason for the mystery may lie in a raid by authorities on property that she was linked to – Hongsheng Gaming Technology Incorporated and Zun Yuan Technology Incorporated. Hongsheng was raided in February 2023 and was replaced by Zun Yuan in the same location. It was then again raided in March 2024 for charges of alleged human trafficking and serious illegal detention. In them, police found a vast online casino, called a Philippine Offshore Gambling Operator, or POGO, which catered to online gamblers in China, and rescued nearly 700 workers, including 202 Chinese nationals and 73 other foreigners who were forced to pose as online lovers.

Similar facilities have been found in Cambodia and Myanmar, estimated to employ as many as 75,000 to 250,000 people, many against their will, and run by organized crime figures, mostly Chinese. They have increasingly been chased out of Cambodia and the border regions between China and Myanmar as Chinese Supreme Leader Xi Jinping, angered by the lawlessness, exploitation, and damage to China’s reputation, has ordered them closed.

In Alice Guo’s case, there is a more disturbing concern. Two of the incorporators of Guo’s company Baofu Land Development, the compound where the Pogo firms were located, are Chinese national Zhang Ruijin, who was convicted in April for money laundering in Singapore, and Lin Baoying, who carries a Dominican passport and is also facing charges in Singapore. Guo is also listed as an incorporator in the company, along with Filipino national Rachel Joan Malonzo Carreon and Cypriot national Zhiyang Huang.

… Guo denied knowing about her partners’ background, telling lawmakers today (May 22) that she had only learned about their criminal records through social media posts by a lawmaker the day before by checking them out on the Internet.

Although Guo was found to have owned half of the land under the POGO, housed in long rows of buildings just behind her office, she told lawmakers she sold the property, which according to videos on local TV contained a grocery, warehouse, swimming pool, and even a wine cellar. As with the property, Guo says she sold her helicopter and Ford Expedition registered under her name long ago. She told lawmakers that she was “not a coddler, not a protector of POGOs.” She hasn’t commented on the spying allegations and has largely avoided media interviews since her appearance at the Senate last week and this week.

Read too Manolo Quezon‘s “What’s Guo-ing on”. 

For years now I’ve been suggesting that the political interests and thus, activities, of the People’s Republic of China should not be confused with the political and social clout of Pogos who exist in defiance of the Chinese government. The Pogos are, arguably, stronger: Beijing’s requests verging on orders, to Manila, for a crackdown on Pogos never resulted in anything more than cosmetic “busy-busihan” as money talks and Pogos have lavished funds on our upper, middle, and political classes; and since all politics is local, the easygoing spending of Pogos makes them more valuable than presidential patronage or foreign affairs. Investigations so far have been racist in their lazy assumptions and breezy unwillingness to take into account the messy state of the documentation of many Filipinos, the different subgroups among Chinese Filipinos, and differences between Pogos’ and Beijing’s efforts to influence officialdom.

Then again, knowing that China can be quite “devious” (ika nga ni Defense Sec Gibo), it wouldn’t surprise if POGOs turned out to be of a piece with the would-be superpower’s long-term master plan. About time we shut them down.

*

Read also
Aside from Bamban mayor, indict bribes of China spies by Jarius Bondoc
Mayor Alice Guo POGO controversy exposes need for electoral reform by CMFR

Kaabang-abang ang next episodes… kuwentong Tsina at kuwentong kokeyn

KUWENTONG TSINA

May 7 Tuesday, China released an audio recording of a Jan 2024 phone conversation between some Chinese official and Vice Admiral Alberto Carlos (AFP Western Command) where Carlos is supposed to have agreed on a new way of managing tensions over Ayungin Shoal.  Also, China was supposedly assured that Defense Sec Gibo Teodoro, National Security Adviser Eduardo Año, and AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Romeo Brawner “all concurred with the plan”.

Say pa ng China, they released the video not to embarrass the Philippines but to prove that they were not lying about a recent agreement. One that China alleges was unilaterally abandoned by the Philippines “for no good reason.” 

May 8 Wednesday, Defense Sec. Gibo Teodoro response was to cast doubt on the recording, citing the Chinese government’s “propensity for misinformation.” And surprise surprise, Vice Admiral Carlos has gone on “personal leave” and cannot be reached for confirmation. And we are all supposed to just be upset, like Sec Gibo, that the Chinese have apparently violated our Anti-Wire Tapping Law?

It would be good to know if there was such a conversation or not.  If there was not, why was Vice Admiral Carlos allowed (made?) to go on leave instead of being ordered to tell the truth and assisted in disputing the authenticity of the audio recording?  Is it possible that there was such a conversation and Gibo et al knew about it but are resolved to deny it because at the time they were hedging their bets in case the US-Japan-Ph alliance didn’t pull through?  Could this be our version of gray tactics?  Sino ba talaga ang na-embarrass?  Meron bang na-embarrass?  All is fair in love and war? Kaabang-abang.

KUWENTONG KOKEYN

Circa 2012 pa ang dokumentong nakahain — authentic nga ba, tulad ng say ni Sen. Bato?  Mapapa-appear kaya niya sa senate hearing si dating executive secretary Paquito Ochoa na sinasabing siyang nagpahinto ng napipintong PDEA investigation of BBM noong 2012 dahil law partners sila ni Liza Marcos once upon a time? Meron bang basis ang proposed investigation other than info from the two maids whom Maricel Soriano dismissed for theft in 2011?

Pero sabihin pa natin, for the sake of argument, na totoo lahat iyon 12 years ago. What makes DDS vloggers think that it is reasonable to conclude without evidence that BBM is presently a drug addict and therefore not competent to run government?  Doesn’t it remind of Duterte times when he seemed really slow and stumbling and ill or on fentanyl, but when we asked to be assured about his health and whether he was still up to the job, we were ignored? Kesyo confidential daw ang medical records ng presidente, or something like that? Nothing has changed, guys. Tiis muna. Hysterics don’t work.

Pero kaabang-abang pa rin kung totoong ire-reveal na ng hitad na vlogger ang source(s?) niya of leaked documents and phone conversations. Wire-tapping, anyone?

DDS vloggers on oust-BBM mode

Duterte Diehard Supporters have been on oust-BBM mode for a while now. As far as I can tell, their grievances boil down to three issues:  BBM’s chacha project, the economic crunch, and BBM’s pivot away from China.

Of the three, I agree only with the chacha assessment. Malamang nga that the long-term goal is political change, from bicam to uni-parliamentary system, no VP needed, in aid of the Marcos dynasty reigning forever and ever. #NO to chacha indeed.

The economic crunch, however, is something else, and not one that can be credibly thrown at BBM alone. Last year pa lang, there was already this Reddit community saying that the “Living crisis is not just BBM’s fault,” reminding that Duterte was an epic fail, too.

mattventurer: People only blame duterte for red-tagging and human rights violations, pero not many have mentioned that Duterte failed to prepare our country for the future.

Walang ginawa si Duterte to improve agriculture sector. Walang ginawa si Duterte to improve education sector. Walang ginawa si Duterte to improve industries and manufacturing. Walang ginawa si Duterte to protect the environment. He failed his drug war! He failed to end contractualization. Philippines still flooded by corruption. https://www.reddit.com/r/Philippines/comments/

To be fair, I would edit that to “Walang nagawâ”…. he may have tried, or his people surely tried, to make a difference, but like the presidents before him, found the corrupt System practically impregnable to Change.  No quick fixes here.  Even before the pandemic.

Read also Boo Chanco’s “Energy policy failure.”

By the time Duterte came into power, new power plants were urgently needed to provide the baseload for the power grid. It was obvious only coal and natural gas can provide the dependable output to feed our growing demand for electricity. But on Oct. 27, 2020, Alfonso Cusi, Duterte’s energy secretary, declared a moratorium on the construction of coal power plants.

Most likely, the technocrats at DOE convinced Cusi that a coal moratorium will endear him to the noisy climate change people. Embracing renewable energy, or RE, is trendy.

… So, no new power plants went on line during Duterte’s time in office. We are now harvesting the bitter fruits of that incompetence in policy formulation. https://www.philstar.com/business/2024/04/24/2349921/energy-policy-failure

As for the allegation that it’s Atty. Liza the Fierce Lady and not PBBM who’s running government, parang eksaherado naman. I don’t doubt that she has some influence on her husband’s thinking, especially on legal matters, but not to the point of BBM being under-the-saya — the prez knows what he’s doing, whether we like it or don’t.  And really, I think she’s an improvement on Imelda whose “hole in the sky” and “true good beautiful” rhetoric drove me nuts. I don’t mind the fierce one’s candor, drawing the line at “bangag” and without whitewashing the “badshot”.

Which brings us to the China issue. Galit na galit ang mga DDS kay BBM for rescinding that “status quo” agreement with China and pivoting to the U.S. and Japan for help in stopping the bully from aggressively encroaching on our territorial waters and resources. They warn of war,  and insist on Duterte-like diplomacy as the only way to deal with China.  But that only means more of the same gray, if not grayer, tactics to drive us away from our own waters for good.

Read Rafael Alunan III‘s “Countering China’s modus operandi”.

ALUNAN.  In 1988, then Foreign Affairs Secretary Raul Manglapus sent me to Washington, D.C., to attend a conference on technology. I was impressed by the Chinese delegation. It boasted that China had a master plan to become a superpower in 50 years through technology and that it was underway. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese were sent yearly to the US and Europe for post-graduate studies to transform their country. So far, so good.

Superpowerdom was China’s goal; technology would be the means. Sun Tzu emphasized the importance of strategy and deception in warfare. China’s approach to exerting influence and gaining control of other countries often involves a combination of economic, political and cultural means, rather than overt military action. Through the years, the US was subjected to unrestricted warfare in the gray zone to weaken it from within and without.

… For a time, China lured us to its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), offering opportunities for economic cooperation and integration principally to buy influence and capitalize on potential debt traps. Fortunately, we saw through it and decided to drop out of the BRI last year. The pullout came amid tensions in the West Philippines Sea and China’s delaying tactics to conclude the long-delayed Code of Conduct in the South China Sea.

Freeing ourselves from China’s strategic influence and control requires a multifaceted approach, including but not limited to 1) strengthening institutional integrity, 2) reinforcing legal safeguards, 3) diversifying infrastructure partnerships, 4) promoting civil society engagement, 5) enhancing cybersecurity measures, 6) fortifying intelligence capabilities, 7) upscaling civic education and awareness, and 8) forging strong international partnerships.

The imperative here is to sanitize our ranks now with no time to lose, observe operational security (opsec) to keep secret what is secret, and engage those lurking in the shadows who are out to harm us with extraordinary measures before it’s too late. https://www.manilatimes.net/2024/04/23/opinion/columns/countering-chinas-modus-operandi/1942790

And this from Jose Ma. Montelibano, “China defies Deng Xiaoping warning”

“If one day China should change her color and turn into a superpower, if she too should play the tyrant in the world, and everywhere subject others to her bullying, aggression and exploitation, the people of the world should identify her … social-imperialism, expose it, oppose it and work together with the Chinese people to overthrow it.” ~ Deng Xiaoping speech at the United Nations, April 10, 1974

MONTELIBANO. Deng Xiaoping was a political survivor, a visionary, a street-wise leader, and obviously was profound. He could not have led China out of the dark ages into the irreversible journey towards superpower status by simple brute force (he used that, too). He had power and he knew how to wield it, but he had shrewdness, precision, and wisdom, too. He knew China would be a superpower, and he tried to warn those who would succeed him, and the world at large, that China could get drunk with power.

Instead of internal propaganda that would have restrained China’s rapid transition from vassal to world leader, Deng simply pushed the transition even faster. But he took the stage in the United Nations, as if to allay fears that China would one day go haywire, and delivered a prophecy hidden … in a warning, “If one day China should … play the tyrant … the people of the world should identify her social-imperialism, expose it, oppose it and work together with the Chinese people to overthrow it.”  https://opinion.inquirer.net/73236/china-defies-deng-xiaoping-warning