WATCH: China Coast Guard gunboat water cannons Philippine Coast Guard vessel half its size at Ayungin Dec. 10 – PCG video

The best defense is offense. China schemes to steal oil and gas in Recto Bank within Philippine exclusive economic zone. To avert that, the Philippines must extract the fuel for itself.

It can be done; it has been done. Up to two years ago China coveted Malaysia’s offshore petroleum. The latter held naval patrols with America and Australia while drilling for oil. Indonesia requested a US aircraft carrier sail-by as it drilled as well in Natuna Isles that China was grabbing.

Beijing shrieked. Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta coolly recited portions of Manila’s 2016 arbitral victory at The Hague against Beijing’s illegal claim over the entire South China Sea.

“Now China is quiet, while Malaysia and Indonesia enjoy their oil,” notes former Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio. “We should also invite naval allies to joint exercises while we drill in Recto.”

Recto has proven reserves. In 2013, the US Energy Information Administration estimated it at 5.4 billion barrels of oil and 55.1 trillion cubic feet of gas. That’s 63.5 times more oil and 20.5 times more gas than Malampaya, which will run out between 2024 and 2027.

National existence hangs on Recto replacing Malampaya. The latter fuels 40 percent of Luzon electricity. With no alternative, Luzon and parts of the Visayas will plunge into darkness.

Imagine the disaster. Water service, factories, offices, shops, telecoms, trains, schools, hospitals, hotels, diners, cinemas, churches will close. No work or classes from home either. Foreign investors will leave. Jobs will vanish.

Recto is a hundred miles from Palawan, within the Philippines’ 200-mile EEZ. It’s 650 miles from China’s southernmost province Hainan, thus outside its EEZ. The Hague arbitral court affirmed. China can’t claim it by imagined “nine-, ten- or 11-dash line.”

Although China snubbed the hearings, it’s bound by The Hague verdict under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Its state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp. has no right to drill there.

CNOOC cannot subcontract to private exploration firms, says Carpio. Shell, Occidental, Exxon, among others, are bound by international law, so will shun CNOOC.

Manila discovered gas in Recto’s Sampaguita fields in 1976. Three wells at 250 feet proved productive. The government awarded Service Contract-72 in 2002. Britain’s Forum Energy took interest in 2005. China repeatedly menaced its survey vessels.

Filipino magnate Manuel V. Pangilinan bought Forum to extract petroleum once and for all. Twice the Duterte admin delayed him to let CNOOC in, only to realize that the Chinese-state firm was only dribbling the ball. The Philippines also ran out of time.

Recto petroleum is why China is striving to dislodge BRP Sierra Madre from Ayungin Shoal. Ayungin (international name: Second Thomas) is at the entrance of Recto (Reed). The Philippine Navy beached its vessel there in 1999 to counter China’s 1995 occupation of nearby Panganiban (Mischief) Reef.

China’s Communist Party has long been craving Recto. Despite bannering China as an ancient civilization, CCP acts uncivilized.

Sierra Madre’s dozen or so Marines need regular supply and rotation. China Coast Guard gunboats ram and water cannon Filipino wooden civilian bancas ferrying food and other basic needs. Latest barbarism was on Dec. 10, the 75th anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

China’s coast guards report to CCP’s military commission. They shouldn’t be in Panganiban or anywhere in or near Ayungin, or Rozul (Iroquois) and Escoda (Sabina) Shoals in Recto’s west and eastsides.

“We should repair Sierra Madre,” says international maritime lawyer Jay Batongbacal, PhD. But China bars it, so the World War II-vintage ship and Filipino defenders would crash into the sea.

CCP mobilizes jingoist Chinese for aggression. Among the blockers of last Sunday’s Ayungin resupply were a Chinese cargo ship and two maritime militia trawlers.

The previous day, other militia trawlers assisted Chinese coast guards in water cannoning two Philippine government vessels near Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal. The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources was only bringing fuel and food to Filipino catchers outside the shoal, which China grabbed in 2012.

On Tuesday, Dec. 5, Chinese cargo steel ship M/V Tai Hang rammed a Filipino wooden boat. The sun was bright at 4 p.m. and the sea calm when – Huang! One of the five Filipinos thrown overboard was able to video two Chinese crewmen on deck ascertaining the hit-and-run.

At Recto in June 2019, a Chinese militia trawler switched off its light then rammed an anchored Filipino boat at midnight. It switched its light back on momentarily to check if the 26 Filipinos had fallen into the sea, then fled.

It’s time Filipinos took the offensive.

* * *

Catch “Sapol” radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., dwIZ (882-AM)

            “Gotcha: An Exposé on the Philippine Government” is available as e-book and paperback. Get a free copy of “Chapter 1: Beijing’s Bullying and Duplicity”. Simply subscribe to my newsletter HERE. Book orders also accepted there.

TikTok went global in 2018. At once, security experts suspected it of being a Chinese cyber-espionage tool. Reasons against the micro-vlogging and e-commerce platform:

• It collects, uses and discloses users’ personal information. Substantial data are gathered without permission from other apps in the device. It draws sensitive data even when users don’t save or share content.

• TikTok developer ByteDance and founder Zhang Yiming are Chinese. In 2017 the China Communist Party enacted a National Intelligence Law. It compels Chinese companies and citizens to support domestic and overseas espionage and keep secret their participation.

Due to TikTok’s cyber-sabotage potential, several governments banned it from their devices. Foremost were China’s security disputants America, Canada, Britain, European Union, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. India forbade TikTok even in private mobiles and tablets.

ByteDance protested, citing company changes. It had opened to foreign shareholders. CEO Zhang had acquired US citizenship and emigrated to California’s Silicon Valley.

Its engineers were cooperating with concerned states to resolve security and privacy issues.

China’s foes were unconvinced. ByteDance and most overseas employees remain Chinese, all subject to CCP’s intelligence apparatus.

Tiktok’s overseas servers interconnect with those in China. Backdoors may exist surreptitiously to access unauthorized data, and malware planted to subvert.

The Philippines disagreed with security allies then. President Rodrigo Duterte professed love for Chinese President Xi Jinping. He allowed a new telco to set up cell sites inside military camps – a potential eavesdropping risk.

TikTok became a sensation not only among civilian government employees. Uniformed, intelligence and foreign affairs personnel also installed it in state-issued gadgets. Short videos were entertaining.

The National Security Agency now wants to prohibit TikTok from official devices due to disinformation capability. Reuters reports that Filipinos are among the top ten nationals who imbibe news mostly from TikTok.

NSA notices pro-China news and views – as China escalates aggression in the West Philippine Sea. “Disinformation operations, psychological warfare and other stuff are being done,” NSA Assistant Director Jonathan Malaya says.

He adds: “Banning wouldn’t be for those in the civilian sector, but for security, armed forces, uniformed personnel, intelligence.”

China is becoming more and more a surveillance state. It spies on its own citizens via millions of CCTVs in street corners. With artificial intelligence, each camera can detect 60 faces simultaneously, analyze up to 100 faces per second and store 1.8 billion images.

Abroad, CCP’s International Department has “influence fronts.” These are spying units disguised as Chinese citizens’ help centers or embedded in academe, industry, political and civic groups.

The US suffered 224 Chinese spying from 2001 to 2022. Forty-nine percent directly involved Chinese military or government employees, 41 percent were private Chinese citizens and ten percent were compromised US citizens.

Purposes overlapped: 46 percent of incidents were cyber espionage, 29 percent military technology theft, 54 percent commercial technology theft and 17 percent on politicians. That’s despite a 2015 deal by president Barack Obama with Xi to lessen snooping.

Europe detected six Chinese military fronts for cyber spying and hacking. The “advanced persistent threats” were seen “conducting malicious cyber activities against business and governments in the Union,” said the EU Agency for Cybersecurity and the Computer Emergency Response Team.

Upon special extension as CCP chairman in October 2022, Xi imposed a new rule. All Chinese companies are to have “party cells.” To avoid conflict, CEOs and proprietors swear allegiance to and parrot Xi’s quotations.

Within weeks, Nikkei Asia reported, more than two-thirds of Chinese firms traded in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange had articles of association with CCP.

TikTok’s parent firm cannot escape CCP assumption. But NSA must take care to speak of banning not for content but technological security. NSA can acquire info from intelligence partners Five Eyes and EU.

Information-Communication Technology Sec. Ivan Uy resists banning for content: “There has to be basis. [NSA] can have TikTok explain to us their technology … Not only [TikTok but] all social media are abused for disinformation and fake news.”

TikTok Philippines disavows CCP ties. “Shareholders own private companies like ByteDance,” Policy Officer Toff Rada asserts. “Who are they? Sixty percent are foreign global institutions like General Atlantic, Softbank, KKR; private investment companies, some Americans. Companies are run by boards of directors.

“None of ByteDance’s directors are with the Chinese government. Three are American. We have said again and again that TikTok is not in China. Parent company ByteDance has only one subsidiary operating there …  In all these years, no one has produced even a shred of evidence that we have leaked data to the Chinese government.”

But that’s precisely because of the secrecy requirement of China’s intelligence law, a defense official counters: “Admit your cyber-snooping participation, and you and your family will go to prison.”

* * *

Catch “Sapol” radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., dwIZ (882-AM)

            “Gotcha: An Exposé on the Philippine Government” is available as e-book and paperback. Get a free copy of “Chapter 1: Beijing’s Bullying and Duplicity”. Simply subscribe to my newsletter HERE. Book orders also accepted there.

Photo from website of Amerasia International Terminal Services Inc.

Manuel Urbano Jr. sounded excited as always when he phoned on June 8th, his 84th birthday. I thought he would ask me like before to help tackle a hot issue on his hit YouTube channel “Mr. Shooli.” Then my jaw dropped when he said from out of the blue, “Mr. Shooli is losing steam.”

“It can’t be po,” I replied about his show that metamorphosed from mainstream television’s “Mongolian Barbeque” in the 1980s to “Mr. Shooli” in film and online. “It’s a YouTube sensation. Episodes go viral. Audiences mimic the gags, the intonation, even production styles. And it has many sponsors.”

Manong Jun hushed me: “I don’t mean Mr. Shooli the show, I mean me as Mr. Shooli.”

Fans knew it’s the inimitable Jun Urbano behind the comedic Mr. Shooli. But he always differentiated between himself as creator-director and Mr. Shooli as character. Program guests in the past three decades realized that. He’d tell them for example, “After Mr. Shooli introduces you and the subject matter, go right in as you wish.”

But on that morning he referred to Jun Urbano and Mr. Shooli as one. Odd.

Manong Jun expounded: “Todo ganado pa rin ako. But it’s becoming harder and harder to get up from bed, research the material, write the script, put on costume and make up and set up lights, audio-video and gear.” Naka-alalay pa ng husto niyan si Banot at Morado (two of his four sons.)

He ended the call with a wish, “Panahon na ng mga bata, sana sila naman.”

Manong Jun had undergone quintuple heart bypass in 2012. He was later diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. But that never seemed to bother his hectic work. Before and after his heart surgery, he produced more than a thousand television commercials.

He appeared weekly as Mr. Shooli in the TV satire “Mongolian Barbeque.” Viewers became familiar with his bright red regal attire, fu manchu moustache on the side of his lips and supposedly chinoy accent. They laughed as he told them their faults through comedy.

He also produced and starred in two movies. The titles hinted at the satirical content. “Juan Tamad at Mr. Shooli sa Mongolian Barbeque” was about the fabled indolent Pinoy who lay down under the guava tree and waited for the fruit to ripen and drop by itself into his mouth.

“Ang M.O.N.AY. ni Mr. Shooli” or “Misteyks op da Neysion Adres Yata” parodize politicos. Jun Urbano’s best friend Leo Martinez directed and costarred as Tongressman Manhik-Manaog. They obviously got away with it.

Jun Urbano had other projects in mind, including one on the sad-happy life of overseas Filipino workers. Another is about a US-born millennial balikbayan who learned that the good in the homeland outweighed the bad so decided to stay. Friends were eager to finance him. But in at least two press interviews he said he felt he was about to board his final flight.

He did last Saturday, Dec. 2. But not before two fitting tributes.

On Aug. 13, The Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences honored Jun Urbano with its highest accolade. The Dr. Jose R. Perez Memorial Award was for his “outstanding achievements and lasting impact on the film industry.”

FAMAS recognized Urbano’s dedication to the craft, “cementing his legacy in the annals of Filipino cinema.”

The University of the Philippines-College of Mass Communications revered him too. On Oct. 11 UP-CMC gave him the Gawad Plaridel 2023 for “outstanding accomplishments in the fields of television, advertising and film.”

The citation said it all: “For creating productions in television and film that elevated the substance and form of comedy that future generations of Filipino media practitioners can look up to as models for creating media productions with superior quality and social commitment.”

Gawad Plaridel is granted only to living communication artists and scientists. This is because it has a requirement – for the recipient to lecture on his craft.

Jun Urbano did just that right after accepting the trophy on stage. He was dressed as Mr. Shooli. And since it was in public, he dissociated the awardee Manuel Urbano Jr. from the recipient in bright red.

He said: “I’m sorry po, nahihiya humarap si Jun Urbano sa mga matatalinong propesor at estudyante dito sa UP. Ipinadala niya si Mr. Shooli para tanggapin itong parangal ninyo.” Then Mr. Shooli delivered what is perhaps Jun Urbano’s last way of making us laugh by telling us about our faults.

Read “Wha’ happen to you, Mr. Shooli asks Pinoys,” Gotcha, 1 Nov. 2023: https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2023/11/01/2308013/wha-happen-you-mr-shooli-asks-pinoys.

* * *

Catch “Sapol” radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., dwIZ (882-AM)

            “Gotcha: An Exposé on the Philippine Government” is available as e-book and paperback. Get a free copy of “Chapter 1: Beijing’s Bullying and Duplicity”. Simply subscribe to my newsletter HERE. Book orders also accepted there.

Photo from website of Amerasia International Terminal Services Inc.

What are a freeport locator’s rights? A court answer to that simple question can settle turmoil in the sprawling economic zone. Perhaps assuage restive workers.

Cargo handler Amerasia International Terminal Services is a pioneer at Subic Bay Freeport. It petitions the Olongapo Court for “declaratory relief.” Such plea seeks “an authoritative statement of rights and obligations of parties.”

On a definition of rights depends Amerasia’s operation, capital and workers. Its case “is not to settle issues arising from an alleged breach [of rights and obligations, but] may be entertained before the breach or violation of contracts.”

Dire events prompted the court petition. In 2021 the Supreme Court 3rd Division upheld the Olongapo judge’s kicking Amerasia and fellow pioneers out of Subic. Although the five magistrates were split 3 to 2, the case was not raised to the en banc.

Thus, newcomer Harbour Centre Port Terminal Inc. is set to replace the pioneers, based on issues questioned 13 years ago.

The SC is not a trier of facts; it determines constitutionality, legality and procedural validity. So it’s back to the lower court for a factual declaration.

One of two respondents is Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA). The other naturally is Harbour Centre.

Since June 2023 Amerasia has been asking SBMA about its plans, given that previous chairmen, administrators and board members resisted Harbour Centre’s entry. Present SBMA chairman-administrator Jonathan Tan and director Jose Mari Ponce were mum. SBMA simply issued Harbour Centre notices of award and to proceed.

Foreign and domestic investors are closely monitoring the case outcome. They need proof of sanctity of Philippine contracts.

Other Subic pioneers, high-tech port developers Mega Subic Terminal Services and Subic Seaport Terminals, are watching too. Same with their thousands of employees who fear job losses.

Since 1994 Amerasia, Mega Terminals and Subic Seaport Terminals have contributed P2.7 billion to SBMA revenues. Suppliers who installed P1 billion in machineries and shops added more.

All now worry about being eased out. Unknown is how many of 145-thousand workers and entrepreneurs from surrounding provinces will also be adversely affected.

Harbour Centre in November 2009 unsolicitedly had proposed to operate Subic Freeport for P6.4 billion. By February 2010 the outgoing SBMA administrator signed a joint venture – stating only P200-million Harbour Centre investment over three years.

The three-month “evaluation” surprised locators. The joint venture came ahead of publication and conduct of competitive challenge, a breach of 2008 guidelines. It was also done during the 2010 election ban on government contracting.

Deadline was set on April 22, 2010 for submission of counter-proposals. SBMA received none, precisely because of the prohibition that insulates state projects from political partisanship.

The National Economic and Development Authority hadn’t studied the legal, financial and technical viability. The President as NEDA chairman and Cabinet secretaries in the board did not approve the deal. In July 2011 NEDA invalidated it for procedural breaches.

Still the Olongapo judge affirmed the joint venture. The Court of Appeals in 2013 reversed the lower court, and the Supreme Court 3rd Division in 2021 in turn reversed the CA.

Amerasia’s new case exhibits its 2007 Lease Agreement with SBMA over part of the freeport for 25 years. The cargo handling lease precedes the 2010 SBMA deal with Harbour Centre.

Amerasia further presents SBMA’s 2015 Amendment extending the 25-year lease by eight more. This shows that SBMA recognized Amerasia as cargo handler instead of the 2011 Joint Venture with Harbour Centre.

Another exhibit: SBMA’s issuance to Amerasia of Certificate of Registration and Tax Exemption in December 2021. This upholds Amerasia as a Subic Freeport cargo handler, in conflict with the concession granted to Harbour Centre.

The Olongapo Court must clarify the facts fast. From there Amerasia, Mega Terminals, Subic Seaport Terminals, SBMA and Harbour Centre can plot their next moves. Same with other foreign and domestic investors.

* * *

Catch “Sapol” radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., dwIZ (882-AM)

            “Gotcha: An Exposé on the Philippine Government” is available as e-book and paperback. Get a free copy of “Chapter 1: Beijing’s Bullying and Duplicity”. Simply subscribe to my newsletter HERE. Book orders also accepted there.