Keeping the US Asian pivot off balance

It was headlined only in The Nation page of the Philippine STAR yesterday, which blared, “Malaysian terrorist nabbed in Basilan.” This report of a Malaysian terrorist who was arrested in Maluso, Basilan had no names nor was it reported whether this terrorist had a dollar price on his head. But at least we know from Col. Cirilio Donato, Commander of the 104th Army Brigade that the terrorist groups in Basilan are on the run.

However this brings us back to the issue of the Mamasapano tragedy that resulted in the untimely deaths of 44 members of the Philippine National Police (PNP) elite Special Action Force (SAF) along with 17 members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF) and five civilians that were killed in the dawn PNP operation dubbed “Oplan Exodus” in Barangay Tukanalipao, Maguindanao on Jan. 25, 2015.

That disastrous operation was due to two high-value terrorist targets, the Malaysian terrorist Zulfikir bin Hir a.k.a. Marwan linked to the Jemaah Islamijah and Abdulbasit Usman of the Abu Sayyaf who had a $5 million price. So we ask… was there no price on the head of that still unnamed but recently captured Malaysian terrorist?

The unanswered question … are these terror groups on the run because under the Duterte administration the Army is hell bent on exterminating these vermin out of the forests of Basilan or is it because the US troops stationed in the south have been asked to leave because Pres. Duterte doesn’t believe in the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) and we would no longer have any joint military exercises with the US?

In my book, Pres. Duterte’s “Pivot to China” has diffused the tension in the West Philippine Sea. Sure, it may not have solved the problems of who has sovereignty over those disputed islands, but when Pres. Duterte put a stop to the joint RP-US military exercises, this in effect also eases the tension in this hotly contested area. After all, the object of those joint military exercises is to prepare for war with China as the enemy. So in effect, Duterte’s “Pivot to China” has put off balance US Pres. Barack Obama’s “Asian Pivot.” But with a few months left in the White House, Pres. Obama can’t do much at this point in time. Call it perfect timing for Pres. Duterte.

I was able to read an article from Reuters which was entitled, “The Obama administration has a few good options and limited leverage in the Philippines and I totally agree with that report that Pres. Duterte’s anti-Obama rhetoric and insults have become a major concern by the US State Department that have for the past five decades always played puppeteer to all Philippine Presidents. Indeed what can Pres. Obama do at this point when Pres. Duterte has only shown hostility towards the US?

When he chastised Pres. Duterte for the so-called “Extra Judicial Killings (EJK), Pres. Obama did not realize that Pres. Duterte had ready answers for the US President, especially when he pulled the Bud Dajo or the Balangiga massacre at the turn of the century which I’m sure Pres. Obama did not even know this piece of US history.

But never mind our past history, today the US is performing its own EJK using drones in Afghanistan or in Iraq, where drone operators push a button from thousands of miles away and a hellfire missile kills an Afghan party, killing one high profile target, but the rest of the dead are called collateral damage. That my friends is EJK USA style and Pres. Obama or the United Nations (UN) has no business telling Pres. Duterte that he cannot engage in EJK when America does it with impunity.

* * *

It wasn’t your regular off-the-cuff presscon that Globe Telecom held last Wednesday at the Pino Restaurant. Globe Telecom has apparently partnered with the Molave Development Foundation with an App Challenge Cebu 2016 in order to encourage the creation of educational Android apps that would teach k-3 pupils on how to read and write in Cebuano. Frankly speaking, I was taken aback by this. After all, I have always believed that Cebuano is a separate and distinct language in this country.

What Ms. Michelle Tapia, Head of Education and Digital Learning of Globe Telecom did not know is that I belong to a group dubbed “Defenders of Indigenous Languages throughout the Archipelago (DILA)” whose objective is the preservation of the Cebuano language and the best way that a language can be preserve is by speaking it. DILA is responsible for having Cebuano placed when you open your Google account. That’s because Tim Harvey, whom I interviewed on my TV show last Sept.1, 2014 agreed to have Cebuano placed as one of the languages that Google would use. Tim is a member of DILA. Globe has apparently stumbled to something huge!

* * *

Email: [email protected] or [email protected].