IN order to prevent the rise of China as the hegemonic power in Asia, the US has been maneuvering to make the Philippines its “Asian Ukraine” — that is, its proxy to provoke the Asian superpower to undertake aggressive actions against us or even the US Navy, in order to demonize it as the Evil Empire of the region.

Make no mistake about it: I condemn Russia’s near-genocidal war against Ukraine, a country poorer than us, killing tens of thousands of civilians and destroying Ukrainian homes and infrastructure that would take them as least half a century to rebuild. There is just no excuse for such horror inflicted on a country.

However there is consensus among Western scholars and observers that the US had provoked Russia, which calculated that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s moves to make his country a member of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) represented the last stages of its encirclement by the West.

I CERTAINLY hope it is just coincidental, but a Chinese coast guard’s recent blocking of a Philippine Coast Guard ship delivering supplies to a platoon of Marines stationed at the Ayungin Shoal (Second Thomas Shoal) could be China’s first response to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s recent moves to place the country in alliance with the United States.

Marcos on February 2 agreed to allow the US to use as it pleases four more of our military camps (on top of the five that President Benigno Aquino 3rd gave it in 2014) under the 2014 Enhanced Cooperation Defense Agreement. The Ayungin incident occurred on February 6.

The Chinese move was quite serious. The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) in a statement said that a Chinese Coast Guard vessel shone a “military-grade” green laser light twice at the Philippine ship, “causing temporary blindness to her crew at the bridge.” This is the first time the Chinese have done this.

“Temporary blindness” would be the least of the PCG’s worries.

Last of 3 parts

AND the boon is this: a media sympathetic to President Ferdinand Marcos, strengthening his hold on the Philippine press.

Marcos and the US defense secretary jointly announced last February 2 that the Americans would have four more of our military camps that they can use under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA).

So telling that in their first columns after this announcement, rabid Yellow anti-Marcos columnists praised him to high heavens.

One Philippine Daily Inquirer columnist, who had been vociferously against the elder Marcos as well, titled his piece “EDCA: Marcos, Jr.’s bold move.” He couldn’t contain himself lauding Marcos for his “decisiveness to raise and enhance the profile of the Philippines.” Another columnist in the same newspaper, a certified Yellow ideologue, on the same day titled his, “EDCA: Marcos Jr.’s game-changer move,” practically saying that Marcos’ big move will be the key in giving the Philippines the leverage to “confront China.”

PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s stunning announcement last week that four more of our military camps may be used by the US armed forces in case of and a US war with China — this time directed to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion — endangers both our national security and our economy.

I discussed last Monday the rather obvious risk that the new agreement puts us in the Chinese line of fire in case of a war with the US. No other Southeast Asian country or territory has such US or any foreign military bases.

Congress in 1991 expressed the national consensus that Filipinos don’t want foreign arms and troops on our soil. The late President Benigno Aquino 3rd disregarded this consensus and agreed to allow the US to transform five military camps into theirs under the so-called 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). President Duterte in practice shelved it. Marcos has not only revived it, he has expanded it.

First of 3 parts

PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s move to give the US four additional military camps that it can use to station its troops and stockpile war materiel for a war in the region has placed the country further in harm’s way. As a result, there are now nine camps from Cagayan in the north to Palawan in the south that are now in the cross-hairs of China’s People’s Liberation Army, if ever the two superpowers’ rivalry in the region turns into war, or even just a limited conflict.

In our relationship with the US, Bongbong is Noynoy 2.0, adding four more camps to the five that the late President Benigno Aquino 3rd gave the US military full access to under the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). The members of our Congress should find deep in their hearts some ember of patriotism and call Marcos to its halls to publicly explain why, with totally no consultations at all with them, he gave the US practically all they wanted.

China immediately angrily reacted to this news. Its spokesman in Beijing described Marcos’ deal as leading to “the strengthening of the US deployment in the Asia-Pacific.”

THE broadsheet Philippine Star has fired Ramon Tulfo, its most widely read and most hard-hitting columnist, allegedly at the Palace’s behest. First lady Liza Araneta reportedly blew her top because of a post in Tulfo’s Facebook page that alleged that her brother, Martin Araneta, is “involved in smuggling in the piers,” particularly of onions, the price of which has made it the most expensive in the world last month.

Philstar CEO Miguel Belmonte, however, told Tulfo that it was the paper’s top management, and not Malacañang, that had found his columns to be a liability for them, and that his columns would no longer be published in the paper. (The daily is owned and controlled through thick corporate layers by the Indonesian-owned First Pacific conglomerate.)

Who is this joker fooling? Why on earth would Philstar fire its main asset that attracts readers and therefore ads, and therefore revenues, if not to follow the instructions of the Palace, the sole power that could hurt the conglomerate it serves? Or are the Belmontes still of the Yellow persuasion and have hatched a plot to anger Tulfo and his many readers against the Marcos government?

THE Presidential Communications Office (PCO) press statement last week read:

“President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s good economic stewardship resulted in the Philippines posting 7.6 percent full-year growth in 2022, the highest in 46 years since the country recorded 8.8 percent growth in 1976.”

Every single element in the statement is so misleading, even bordering on being fake news, especially the part about “good economic stewardship.”

The 7.6 percent growth rate is a bounce-back mirage, a misleading arithmetic due to the steep decline in our GDP (the sum of goods and services produced) in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and its crawling out of that last year.

That 7.6 percent growth refers to the increase in our 2022 GDP (in constant 2018 pesos) of P19.9 trillion from P18.5 trillion in 2021. This 2021 figure is small due to the fact that GDP in 2020 was only P17.5 trillion, the result of a steep 9.5 percent contraction from the P19.5 trillion GDP in 2019, because of the Covid-19 pandemic that ground the economy to a halt as companies’ staff were ordered to stay home at least for year (see table).

Third of a series

ILLEGAL nickel-ore miner Yinglong Steel’s lies in its full-page ads in this newspaper and The Philippine Star last week are as stunning as its brazen disregard for the Constitution itself, as well as for our country’s laws on mining and those governing business contracts.

My interest in this controversy that I’ve written three previous pieces on, was ironically piqued by a Yinglong PR operator who tried to sell me a story that the company was the victimized party, that its experience if not corrected will portray the country as a bad site for foreign investments. However, because of my SOP of always getting “the other side,” the more accurate picture that emerged was the opposite. I also hate it when people think they can easily fool me.

This episode is a case study of the characteristic situation in our country, that instead of the rule of law, it is the rule of the corrupt, from the local levels of government and possibly even to the highest, coddling unscrupulous businessmen bold enough to bribe officials to get what they want. It’s been years since documented details of a controversy that reveals the corruption involved has been made available — ironically thanks to the legal documents filed by the protagonists themselves.

PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. in his arrival remarks from Davos boasted that participants there – without naming even one – saw the Philippines as a member of the “VIP Club which is Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines.” “Yun daw ang pinakamagandang ekonomiya sa Asya,” the president said. (They say those have the best economies in Asia.)

That’s so embarrassingly false. He should fire the adviser who whispered that line to him – I don’t think any Davos attendee is as stupid as to have told him that. If there were, that joker was pulling his leg, and laughing as he left Marcos.

Marcos in his jet-lagged mind probably thought that the “VI” in that term stands for “very important.” Not in any sense. VIP is simply an acronym that some analysts in the last decade used to shorten their text when referring to the three countries that are in the second-to-the lowest tier in economic rankings in Southeast Asia: Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines. The lowest-tier level are basket cases not fit to be considered as investment sites, except for the bold, such as Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar. Using VIP was also a bit of sarcasm since these three countries were the last to be recommended for investments, direct or portfolio, in those years.

Not in any sense did that term for the three countries imply an admiration for them, nor to mean “very important’ countries for investors to watch. The term is more like the “ABC” acronym used in the early 1980s, to mean Argentina, Brazil and Chile – which were the first to collapse economically because of their huge debt burden.