We’re now the US’ unsinkable aircraft carrier

THE Americans asked the Philippine government to designate the Cagayan North International Airport in the north to be one of the additional four sites they could use as their forward operating sites (FOS) in war mobilization under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) between the two countries. President Aquino 3rd first agreed to the pact in 2014, with President Marcos Jr. expanding the number of FOS that the US could use.

Two government confidential documents provided me with such a plan. First was a late 2022 letter addressed to Jose Chan-Gonzaga, the assistant secretary for American affairs at the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), that was sent by Pablo Lorenzo, assistant secretary for strategic assessments and international affairs at the Department of National Defense (DND).

The letter asserted: “This pertains to the inclusion of the Basa Air Base (BAB) Runway Repair Project and the Cagayan North International Airport (CNIA) as additional project and additional location, respectively, under the EDCA. As recommended by the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the department shares the view that developing the CNIA as an additional proposed location as well as the inclusion of the BAB runway project as an additional project under EDCA may be favorably considered given its strategic value of constructing facilities and pre-positioning defense assets in these areas.” (emphasis mine)

TREMENDOUS pressure was put on President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. to implement quickly and expand the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), sources in the Foreign affairs department disclosed.

They pointed out that the US ambassador to Manila, MaryKay Loss Carlson, even inadvertently revealed such pressure when she said in a recent TV interview: “Never in my 38 years as a diplomat have I seen so many of our top officials talk to a head of state in such a short span of time.”

She said: “Three of what we call the ‘big four’ have been here to talk to Marcos: Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. And not only that, you have had visit here the secretary of the Navy, the commandant of the US Marine Corps, the undersecretary of state for political affairs Victoria Nuland, and in the coming week the secretary of the Air Force.”

Indeed as the US ambassador pointed out, that number and quality of US leaders talking to Marcos in such a short time — when the US has been busy with the Russian war to take over Ukraine — is unprecedented. And I certainly don’t think all those high-ranking US officials were here for just getting-to-know-you chit-chats or without any agenda in their talks with Marcos.

TO be honest, I am in awe of the United States, its strategic thinking and moves to maintain its hegemony over the globe forever. In 2005 and 2006, it struck so-called defense agreements with Romania and Bulgaria, respectively, which allows US military forces to use military camps to stockpile their war material and station its troops for an emerging war.

Sixteen to 17 years later, these camps are proving to be of great strategic value if Russia’s war against Ukraine spills over to Eastern Europe: the US forces will be using those bases against the Russians. They will also be used if Bulgaria and Romania agree to allow these camps to serve as a staging ground for the delivery of weapons from the US and NATO to Ukraine.

Of course these defense agreements — that would allow the US to use Bulgarian and Romanian camps — were among the US and its allies’ moves (the most important of which is the prodding of Ukrainian leaders to get their country to become a NATO member) that convinced Putin that Russia was being encircled. In Putin’s mind, he had to stop that and invade Ukraine. He fell though into the US’ hands, and is now demonized as a ruthless killer of Ukrainian civilians.

First of 3 parts

IN recent days, this paper has been the venue for the dominant American propaganda line against China’s alleged expansionism in the South China Sea. Not coincidentally this line, a lie, was put into high gear after President Obama launched his so-called Pivot to Asia policy, a thinly disguised program to contain the rise of China as the Asian superpower.

That line goes like this: China on its own drew a nine-dash line around most of the South China Sea on its map of its territory, and then claims everything within it as its own, demanding that the world, especially the nations bordering that sea, to recognize its sovereignty over the features and waters inside the line. China bashers here and abroad have claimed that the line is “the main driver of the South China dispute.”

Recently, a columnist cut-and-pasted reviews (not even the publication itself) of a book he raved over as explaining definitely, what the nine-dash line is and that it has no basis in international law. The book’s cleverness — and that of American propagandists — is that it exploits people’s fondness for fairy tales, with heroes or villains. In that particular book, it claims that “a singular cartographic combatant” in 1936 created that nine-dash line that the author asserts “is at the heart of today’s struggle over the South China Sea.” The heights of imagination indeed; “A cartographic combatant!”

PHILIPPINE National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Rodolfo Azurin Jr.’s announcement that the so-called lifestyle checks will also be undertaken on the organization’s over 600 generals and colonels has worsened the demoralization of the country’s police force.

The disaffection with the PNP’s leadership and its official supervisor Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos was triggered last week by the latter’s order for the top PNP officers to submit “courtesy resignations” to make the task of “cleansing the police” of its scalawags easier.

FIFTY-THREE years since the Communist Party launched a conspiracy to topple our democratic government through force, killing over 14,000 of the Republic’s soldiers and police, I find it scandalous for a senator of the Republic to claim that this scourge of this land is merely fighting for social justice.

I am referring to Sen. Loren Legarda, who in a speech the other day in Congress, a prime symbol of democracy, also said, referring to the Reds: “Believing in policies and philosophies that may be left of center, so to speak, does not make anyone subversive.”