Category: rodrigo duterte

IMEEproblema, IMEEsolusyon

When PBBM announced that Senator Imee was one of the 12 senatorial candidates of his Alyansa 2025, it wasn’t totally unexpected, kahit pa panay ang patutsada ng senadora sa maraming policies of the kapatid’s admin. Blood is thicker than water, after all?  Except that Imee was a no-show at the convention, and the very next day, death anniv of Ferdinand Sr., she released a video thanking her bro, sabay announce that she chooses to run as an Independent.

35 na taon ng nakalipas ngayong araw mula nung pumanaw ang ama ko, ngunit buhay na buhay ang mga aral nya sa aking puso. Kaya’t bilang panganay niya, pinipili kong manindigan nang malaya’t matatag, tulad niya; na wala na dapat kampihan kundi ang Sambayanang Pilipino.”
https://www.facebook.com/ImeeMarcos/videos/523695270524068 

Umm… Marcos was with the Liberal Party until 1964, with the Nacionalista Party during his presidencies 1965 – ’72, “independent” only during the dictatorship 1972 – ’86. But whatever. I imagine that Imee is playing to Marcos loyalists, even as Duterte’s Diehard Supporters (DDS) are demanding na ilaglag niya unequivocally si BBM. Otherwise daw it’s like she’s just namamangka sa dalawang ilog, which she denied in a press briefing with Senate reporters today. https://www.facebook.com/

I’m not sure  that it’s not just more of the sibs playing good-cop-bad-cop to disarm us, even as their kids quietly follow in their footsteps. Lalo na’t hindi naman daw na-offend si BBM: welcome pa rin daw si Imee in case she wants to join the Alyansa’s sorties. https://www.tiktok.com/@newswatchplusph/video

Likewise this from Philstar‘s Cito Beltran gives Imee the benefit of the doubt.

Blood is thicker but venom is a killer
https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2024/09/30/2388918/blood-thicker-venom-killer

At face value, the inclusion of Senator Imee Marcos in the administration’s list of candidates may have seemed like a conciliatory gesture. It was certainly a surprise to people who have followed the political K-drama in Malacañang, where Senator Imee has been treated more as an outsider than presidential relative for at least a year if not more.

It’s tempting to call her inclusion as political window dressing to show that the Marcos Unity Team stands strong against all foes. To take it a step further, it was obviously an attempt to break the Imee-Sara alliance or friendship forged during Imee’s period of “destierro” and paint Imee as a “compromising politician” if she abandoned Sara Duterte.

But to her credit and lessons learned, Senator Imee stood her ground, politely thanked the administration for the inclusion and in the same breath declared her independence. That was a very polite “Thanks, but no thanks.”

It is often said that when it comes to family, “blood is thicker than water.” But judging from the many hits and hurts that Imee Marcos suffered from relatives and ex-friends, I surmise that Imee’s version is now: “Blood is thicker, but venom is more poisonous.”

With all her political experience and wisdom, Imee knows a possible set-up or booby trap come campaign and election time. If Senator Imee relies on her being a presidential sister and administration candidate, she could be left hanging in terms of funds and political support. Imee knows that more than anything, she is window dressing for the administration for many reasons.

But when the campaign and elections get really tough and close, favor will go to the candidates who bring something to the table apart from family ties and an independent mind. Many of those in the administration’s senatorial line-up represent a political party, a bailiwick, interest groups, funds or star power. With PBBM already President, Imee brings nothing else. The chances of her being dropped or “malaglag” are high and inevitable.

She has no guarantee that she will have the full support of the administration, particularly a Congress headed by Speaker Romualdez. Deny it as much as they want, but even their own friends and relatives swear that there is no love lost between them. Instead, it’s all distrust and distaste.

Declaring herself to be an “independent candidate” allows Imee to have her cake and eat it too. She can thumb her nose at those who cancelled her politically, show Filipinos the value of loyalty to those who stood by her during her political “exclusion” and prove to the Duterte supporters that she has courage as much as her friend Sara Duterte.

There is a popular post on social media that says: “Don’t stay where you are disrespected. Go where you are recognized.” If Senator Imee lives up to her independence, loyalty to friends and cause and continues to be tactical and strategic in her narrative and objectives, she may have more to offer to voters than the troublemakers or “Gawa Gulo” inside the administration.

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.

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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

for the record: duterte dilly-dallied #veerus

RIGHTEOUS RAGE
Antonio Contreras

…  the timeline of events is a clear indictment of government’s culpability. As early as February 1, the Philippines saw the first death because of Covid-19, which was also the very first death recorded outside mainland China. Calls were made for a travel ban to and from the Chinese mainland, but President Rodrigo Duterte belittled the threat and his hesitation was mainly due to the belief that such a move might anger Beijing. It is on record that the Chinese Embassy here was at the time busy protesting against any form of travel ban.

It was only on February 14, two weeks after the first death was recorded, that the President reluctantly declared a travel ban. There is evidence, however, that that directive was not enforced completely, as flights from mainland China continued. On February 21, the Department of Health recommended the declaration of a public health emergency. It is, however, notable that the recommendation was dated February 16. Such declaration was only publicly promulgated and entered into force on March 6, 19 days after it was recommended. And it was only on March 12, a full month and 12 days after the first death, that President Duterte declared the total lockdown of Metro Manila, effective March 15.

In short, we practically wasted at least a full month to adequately and meaningfully respond. Some defenders of the government take pride in the fact that we are the first developing country to have issued a total lockdown, as if that should be a source of comfort. But clearly sidelined is the glaring fact that much time had been wasted in not being able to prepare a comprehensive plan. What we heard were the constant warnings that our medical system was not ready without taking the necessary steps to make it ready, procure the testing kits and personal protective equipment, and ready a deployment plan of medical personnel, both active and volunteers. It is unconscionable that it is only now that sports arenas and convention halls are being readied to become mass quarantine areas.

Apologists of the government deflect criticisms by arguing that even other countries like the United States were caught flat-footed. It is ironic that these people fail to cite the experience of South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore that showed adequate preparedness, while they cite the US, a country that they love to trash. These are the people who cheered wildly as our President wasted much precious time attacking oligarchs and ABS-CBN Corp., and gave priority to the cancellation of the Visiting Forces Agreement simply because the US canceled the visa of a political ally.

No, this is not the time to forget this dereliction of duty, the sheer myopic blunders. We need to constantly remind those in government of their failures to make them aware of the enormous debt they owe the people. They ask us for sacrifices. Our convenience and comforts are put on hold. Some of us have even lost our livelihoods. They cannot ask us to just move on and heal as one without making them suffer the constant reminders of what their foot dragging, lack of foresight and subservience to China have caused.

And if there is one thing that we should never forget, it should be the culpability of the government of the People’s Republic of China, particularly its leader Xi Jinping and the propaganda machinery of the Chinese Communist Party. We should not allow them to get away with what has become a passive kind of unintended genocide. They may not have planned it, but their sheer fixation on their party’s interest above anything else is now poised to kill hundreds of thousands if not millions. We should not allow them to inflict on us what they inflicted on their own citizens. We should not allow them to distort, massage and manipulate information and the truth. We should not allow them to buy their redemption and our silence through their donations and help. We should seek for reparations, not aid.

SONA 2019 message: he ain’t no lame duck, not yet anyway

Ambition’s back, big-time
Manolo Quezon

Alan Peter Cayetano’s zombie speakership began, not with a bang, but with a whimper. The breakfast he threw for legislators didn’t seem to be well attended based on a tweeted photo. But his smooth election accomplished demonstrating that the President is well and truly back in the saddle. It marks the end of two years of his public standing having to claw its way back to where it stood during his first and second State of the Nation Address (Sona).  Read on….