Category: Foreign Affairs

Marcos’ PH roadshow and the ICC probe

Ellen

If you listen closely to Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla’s strident reaction to the decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to resume the investigation into the killings related to Duterte’s war on drugs, he didn’t completely rule out allowing the ICC to come into the country.

“Definitely I do not welcome this move of theirs and I will not welcome them in the Philippines unless they make it clear that they will respect us in this regard,” he said in a press conference.

He added: “I will not stand for any of these antics that will question our status as a sovereign country. We will not accept that.”

Remulla knows his international law. He knows that a state’s sovereignty – the supreme right of the state to command obedience within its territory – allows it to enter into treaties. We exercised our sovereign right when we signed the Rome Statute, which established the ICC, on Dec. 28, 2000 and ratified it by the Senate on Aug. 30, 2011. Our accession to the treaty took effect on Nov. 1, 2011.
We knew the provisions in the treaty.

The Philippines’ withdrawal from the ICC initiated by former president Rodrigo Duterte took effect on March 17, 2019.

We are sure Remulla is aware of Article 127, paragraph 2 of the Rome Statute which states that a country’s withdrawal “”shall not affect any cooperation with the Court in connection with criminal investigations and proceedings in relation to which the withdrawing State had a duty to cooperate and which were commenced prior to the date on which the withdrawal became effective, nor shall it prejudice in any way the continued consideration of any matter which was already under consideration by the Court prior to the date on which the withdrawal became effective.”

Last Jan. 26, ICC’s Pre-trial Chamber I (Court) granted Prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan’s request to resume investigation in connection with the charge of crimes against humanity arising from the killings that happened during a specific period in Duterte’s war on drugs.

It is understandable that Remulla would be offended by the ICC’s decision and the reason that was given: it doesn’t believe the Philippine government is “undertaking relevant investigations that would warrant a deferral of the Court’s investigations on the basis of the complementarity principle.”

It means that the ICC believes that the Philippine government is “unable or unwilling” to prosecute those responsible for the killings, the estimate of which varies from the government’s number of 6,000 to the human rights groups’ more than 20,000.

In their insistence that the country’s judicial system is functioning and ICC’s probe is unwelcome, Remulla’s DOJ as well as during the term of Menardo Guevarra (now solicitor general) points to convictions of policemen involved in the 2017 killings of teenagers Kian de los Santos, Carl Arnaiz and Reynaldo de Guzman.

The ICC, however, is not easily impressed by the “deliberate focus of proceedings on low-level or marginal perpetrators.” It wants to make sure that national investigations or prosecutions focused “on those most responsible for the most serious crimes committed.”

The DOJ never investigated Duterte and the chief implementor of his bloody war-on-drugs, now Sen. Ronald Dela Rosa.

It is noted that Remulla added a conditionality in his public statement on not welcoming the ICC investigators: “… unless they make it clear that they will respect us in this regard.”

There is no reason for Remulla to be worried about it. Since the ICC does not have its own police force, it relies on the cooperation of States and international organizations to arrest and surrender the persons they are investigating.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has not said anything about the latest development from the ICC. During the election campaign, he said that he would only allow ICC probers to come in as tourists.

Many things have changed since then. He is now president, made possible by an alliance with Sarah Duterte, the former president’s daughter.

In the seven months of his presidency, he has been working hard in selling the country as a stable and dynamic investment area. He has impressed the international community as a leader far decent from his predecessor.

In his speech at the 77th United Nations General Assembly last year, he declared: “We need to reaffirm the wisdom of the founders of our United Nations. This means transcending our differences and committing to ending war, upholding justice, respecting human rights, and maintaining international peace and security.”

Surely, he won’t undo all those gains by not allowing the ICC to investigate what has been an extremely traumatic experience for tens and thousands of Filipinos.

No mention of Marcos billions in Swiss bank accounts during 2023 WEF

Ellen
WEF President Børge Brende interviews President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. at the 2023 WEF in Davos, Switzerland.

The attendance of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in the 2023 World Economic Forum (WEF) from Jan. 16 to 20 in Davos, Switzerland was the ultimate redemption for him and his family and a stinging rebuke to the Filipino people.

In answer to the question of WEF President Børge Brende on how has his seven-month presidency been, Marcos replied that it was “pretty much expected” because, he continued: “I have the advantage of having spent years watching my father being president so I had a very good idea of what entailed. Now, of course it’s different from a son watching his dad doing his job than you yourself doing that job. It’s like I’m in the same setting but playing a different role but ,at least, I know what needs to be done. I have a fair idea how it used to be done anyway and so I have models that I can follow, templates that I can follow.”

He was also asked if becoming president was part of the plan when the Marcos family was preparing for their return to the Philippines after they were driven out of power in what is dubbed as a “people power” revolution in February 1986.

Marcos said that when he was still in school, he didn’t want to go into politics. But after the family was allowed to come back in 1991 (Marcos Sr. died in Hawaii on Sept. 28, 1989), they realized that they can best defend themselves by going into politics. “Somebody had to enter politics and to be in the political arena so that at least not only (for) the legacy of my father but even our own survival required that somebody go into politics.”

He described the six years living in exile as a “very trying time.”

“Those were dark days for the family, and I dare say, even for the country,” he said.

Brende lapping up the Marcos narrative is appalling to Filipinos who have not forgotten the discovery of secret accounts holding some $800 million stashed in six Swiss banks from among the documents they left behind in Malacañang.

In a show of support to the Filipino people, the Swiss government did something unprecedented – froze the accounts identified by the Philippine government under then president Cory Aquino as belonging to Marcos and members of his family following attempts to withdraw traced to them while in exile in Hawaii. In justifying the “freeze,” the Swiss bankers association said that “banking secrecy is not absolute and does not protect criminals.”

The accounts frozen were only those identified by the Philippine government. It is believed that there were many more accounts that the Marcoses continued to have access to up to this day.

The Presidential Commission on Good Government, created in 1986 to recover the wealth stolen by the Marcoses from the Filipino people, has placed the amount to over P25 billion.

That’s why we are turned off by the snow job that happened in Davos last week even as we acknowledge the hard work that the president did to attract investments to the country.

But no matter how sophisticated, how extensive the propaganda machinery is, truth will find its way to surface.

“Marcos Lies,” a compilation of 31 essays by researchers from the University of the Philippines Third World Studies – Joel F. Ariate Jr., Miguel Paolo P. Reyes and Larah Vinda Del Mundo – discusses in detail the various lies that the Marcoses have parlayed to the public in pursuit of power and plunder. One of the stories (Ferdie and Meldy’s House of Love, Lies, and Loot) talked about the “other Mrs. Marcos” in what was supposed to be the ideal marriage of Ferdi and Imelda Marcos. There was also about the “Who is Your Hero” survey that angered Imelda Marcos.

Marcos was a master of secrecy. There’s an article on how Marcos was able to keep the declaration of Martial Law a secret, as well as the tricks he had to resort to in order to hide his illness.

The articles in the 1.2 kilogram-tome are supported by documents – news reports and diplomatic cables, transcript of congressional investigations and other materials, various fragments of data that, when put together, offer a clear view of the truth that the Marcoses have either hidden or twisted. Some of those articles have been published in VERA Files.

The request for reservation for a copy of “Marcos Lies” is quite long, indicating the interest by many to bring to light what really happened during the dictatorship – the darkest period in the history Philippine democracy.

When Marcos won the election last May, one of the foremost questions in the minds of many was, “How will the Edsa people power revolution be observed under his presidency?”

His reply to Brende is a hint. Let’s see in three weeks.

Marcos starts foreign trips with Indonesia and US visits in September

Ellen
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said in a tweet he had a fruitful meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken about the importance of developing the agricultural sector last Aug. 6.

It is significant to note that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. chose Indonesia as his first entry to the world stage first week of September.

Indonesia is a member of the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It is a tradition among Philippine presidents to visit a neighboring ASEAN country first before he or she steps to the international stage.

“The Indonesia trip, I think, will be on Sept. 5, “ a source from the DFA said.

After Indonesia, Marcos will be going to New York in the United States to attend the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly. Philippine Ambassador to the U. S. Jose Manuel Romualdez said Marcos is scheduled to address the assembly on Sept. 20.

Marcos’ Jakarta visit will further strengthen the 73-year bilateral relations between the two countries which have been allies in various common causes, notably the peace in Mindanao, and in the fight against terrorism.

The landmark 2014 Philippine-Indonesia maritime border agreement in the overlapping exclusive economic zones of the Mindanao and Celebes Seas in southern Philippines, which was signed after 20 years of negotiations, was hailed by the international community as model for resolving disputes peacefully, not with the use of military might.

During his New York visit, Marcos is expected to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden.

Although Biden has invited Marcos to Washington D.C. in a letter delivered to him by the American delegation to his June 30 inauguration, a DFA source said there is no meeting in the U.S. capital that is being worked out now.

Romualdez said a number of world leaders have requested for a meeting with Marcos while he is New York.

Being welcomed by no less than the U.S. president in American territory despite a standing $353-million contempt order is fraught with significant implications. First and foremost, it’s a psychological triumph for Marcos whose family has blamed the United States for abandoning them in their hour of need in February 1986.

It’s also a rebuke to his political enemies who have raised the contempt order and a possible arrest as signs of U.S. attitude toward his presidency.

China will be watching apprehensively Marcos’ meeting with Biden, which the U.S. officials see as a warming of relations between Washington and Manila after a tumultuous experience with Duterte.

Romualdez is the one coordinating Marcos visit to the U.N. because the designated permanent representative of the Philippines to the United Nations Antonio Manuel Lagdameo has not yet received his proper accreditation to the world organization.

Romualdez continues to be the ambassador to the United States, a position he has held since 2017 under the Duterte administration. A reliable source said he was the first choice to be the foreign secretary in the Marcos administration (The president is his nephew.) but China made known its opposition for him for that position because they (Chinese officials) see him as “pro-U.S.”

The source said former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, now representative of Pampanga’s second district, was also considered for the position of foreign secretary (as a peace offering to her for having been deprived of her much-desired position of speaker of the House of Representatives?) but she did not want any appointed position.

The same source said Arroyo was also considered as ambassador to the United States but it was seen as a move to ‘exile’ her where she would not be a threat to the Marcos presidency. She is known as the political mentor of Vice President Zara Duterte-Carpio.

The political undertows in the search of a foreign secretary led to an enlightened choice: Philippine permanent representative to the UN Enrique Manalo.

Manalo is not exactly new to the job of foreign secretary. In his four decades of foreign service career, he has held several important assignments including that of Foreign Affairs undersecretary for Policy and served as Acting Foreign Affairs Secretary from March 9 to May 17, 2017.

Marcos will have one the best minds to help him chart the country’s role in the global arena.

After the U.S trip, Marcos will link arms with 20 other world leaders when he attends the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Bangkok, Thailand on Nov. 18-19.

Bongbong Marcos enters the world stage

Ellen
Incoming President Ferdinand ” Bongbong” Marcos Jr. meets with UN Resident Coordinator to the Philippines Gustavo Gonzalez June 10, 2022.

The office of incoming President Ferdinand ” Bongbong” Marcos Jr. announced that he is thinking of attending the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly in September in New York.

The announcement came after Marcos met with UN Resident Coordinator to the Philippines Gustavo Gonzalez, who said, “This UN General Assembly meeting will be the first time that the President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will be in front of an important number of heads of state, so this is a great and, I think, a historic opportunity for the president and for the Philippines to share the new vision, the new challenges but, at the same time, the new opportunities.”

This was a day after the meeting of Marcos with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy R. Sherman, who told reporters afterwards that Marcos will not face arrest when he goes on an official visit to the United States, in answer to the question on whether Marcos would be allowed to enter the U.S. despite the contempt order against his family due to their non-compliance with a court order to pay victims of the martial law imposed by his father.

“This is not something that needs to be discussed. The fact is that when you’re head of state, you have immunity in all circumstances and are welcome to the United States in your official role,” Sherman said.

Marcos’ office has also announced that he will be attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Thailand in November. The 21 APEC members include the United States, China, Canada, Russia and the ASEAN countries.

Press Secretary-designate Trixie Cruz-Angeles said, “Marcos was personally invited by Thai Chargé d’ Affaires Thawat Sumitmo to the APEC Summit, in his capacity as representative of Thailand, which is the current APEC Chair.”

Since his overwhelming election win last month, Marcos Jr. and his family are on a roll. Ambassadors are lining up for a courtesy call on him.
After his virtual talks with U.S. President Joe Biden, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and outgoing Prime Minister of Australia Scott John Morrison one after another after the elections, Marcos said, “We’re already being recognized.”
“This new administration is being recognized; mukha namang wala nang problema sa (it looks like there is no problem with) recognition. Maybe the comfortable margin that we enjoy during the election has a part to play with that,” he added.

In what is considered as one of the modern world’s stunningly successful political comeback, Marcos, once a despised name, has now become a much-desired guest. It’s as if his 31 million votes, a majority vote — a rarity in Philippine elections — has erased the issues of human rights violations, massive corruption, and tax evasion that characterized the more than 20-year Marcos regime.
Sen. Imee Marcos, the incoming president’s elder sister, goes further by painting themselves as the victims.

In an interview right after the proclamation of his brother as the winner in the May 9 presidential elections, Imee said they are very grateful for “the second chance” because “medyo mabigat ang pinagdaanan ng aming pamilya, talagang matapos ‘yong 1986 kung anu-anong kaso ang hinarap namin, bukod pa do’n sa pangungutya at pang-aapi, sabihin na natin, eh medyo hirap talaga.”
(Our family went through a lot, after 1986, we were accused with a lot of things, apart from being mocked and oppressed; it was really difficult.)

As Imee was saying that, families and friends of the victims of the Marcos regime and concerned citizens are frantically digitizing the records of the atrocities under the Marcos regime before the incoming administration, with its formidable disinformation machinery, succeeds in imposing social amnesia. The Amnesty International has documented, with the help of local civil society groups, at least 35,000 cases of torture; 70,000 incarcerations; and, 3,257 killings from this era during the Marcos regime.

As Marcos outlines in the world stage his new vision for the country, what comes to mind is Hans Christian Andersen’s story, “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”

The story is about an emperor who was talked into by two swindlers who offered to weave for him a beautiful robe, which is visible only to intelligent people and invisible to all people who are stupid.

When the garment was supposedly finished, the weaver-swindlers made the motion of putting the robe on the monarch. His courtiers, afraid that they would be exposed as stupid, gushed over the garment. The emperor also pretended he was seeing the robe he was wearing and thanked the swindlers for making a beautiful garment for him. He went out proudly to join a parade. Everybody bowed to the monarch, admiring his “beautiful clothes” until he passed by a child who exclaimed, “The emperor wears no clothes!”

This column was carried also by ABS-CBN online, Malaya Business Insight, VERA Files, and Canadian Filipino.net

Duterte hints his best performance in int’l stage is yet to come

Ellen
President Duterte gives a thumbs up for his performance in 2016 Asean.

President Duterte gives a thumbs up for his performance in 2016 Asean.

President Duterte at first played coy when asked about his assessment of his debut in the international stage in the 2016 summit of the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the 18-country East Asia Summit in Laos last week, upon his arrival from Jakarta where he proceeded after the Asean meetings saying it would be “self-serving.” But with little prodding he opened up, “I’m sure that if you’re a Filipino, you’d be proud of me.”

He said the only ones who would not be proud of what he did in Laos and Indonesia (where he proceeded for a state visit from Vientiane) are the “low-life sa press, iyong mga kolumnista, nothing is really too good to be true.”

“Pero hindi kayo napahiya (I did not embarrass you), I assure you, and everybody was clapping except for dalawa (two). But ah, bilib sila sa akin (they admired me),” he enthused. He declined to name who were the two.

Duterte was narrating the plenary session of the East Asia Summit last Thursday, Sep. 8. Participants in the East Asia Summit which follows the ASEAN summit are the 10 members of Asean namely Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam joined by dialogue partners Australia, China, Japan, India, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea, and United States.

Duterte said that he threw away his prepared speech and presented, complete with pictures, the atrocities committed by American soldiers to Filipinos during the Philippine-American war (1899–1902).

“We were warned that we were limited to a prepared speech. But (when) it was handed to me I just threw it away, and I said, ‘I’d like to say something more than myself. Since, we have been talking about human rights, then I pulled out the—look at the pit, look at the bodies crowded there, they could number 200, and one soldier was holding his rifle with his feet on the breast of a Moro. Tell me now, can anybody here in this room… I asked them, can anybody in this room tell me what human rights is all about?”

Duterte said Indonesian President Widodo approved of what he did. He said they made a thumbs up sign to each other. (WE) were shaking with joy that I decided to just talk with sense and the truth.”

Reports said at the end of the EAS session, U.S. President Barack Obama shook hands with each and every leader except Duterte.

President Duterte is welcomed by Laos President Bounnhang Vorachith.

President Duterte is welcomed by Laos President Bounnhang Vorachith.


A gushing Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay, Jr. described the President’s performance in 2016 Asean and EAS as “brilliant.”
This is despite the fact that Duterte and his officials spent a lot of time and efforts doing damage control for the curses he uttered against Obama in his pre-departure for Laos statement.

Even when he was in Jakarta, Duterte was still explaining to the Filipino community that he did not curse Obama. He said his statement,” Putang-ina, mumurahin kita diyan sa forum na iyan. Huwag mo akong ganunin,” did not mean he called Obama “son of a whore” as translated by international media.

His explanation is stunning, it would render you speechless. He said putang ina is like saying “son- of- a bitch” or son- of- a- gun”, not son-of a whore.

He said that was the same when he also said “Putang ina mo, Pope.”

“It was not really a statement against the Pope. At itong Amerikano mahusay talaga, Americans really can spin a story. They use the predicate or the adjective that is really worst to hear…

“Iyong putang ina sa atin, they connected with the word “son of a whore.” A ‘whore’ is a very terrible thing to hear. I was talking all along in the dialect. The best combinations thereof the words, translating it to English, and they do it every day, “son of a bitch,” “son of a gun,” ‘di ba?

“Eh putang ina sa atin, sa—if the Filipinos will try to utter it we would have said, “he is a son of a bitch” and you heard of ‘son of a gun’ or ‘fuck you’. Pero it is not translated in any ordinary day and ordinary lang you say, ‘son of a whore’. Pero ginamit nila iyan, kaya siguro si... took offense. Tingnan mo mag gamit ang international press, I said ‘you better watch out.’ Pangkaraniwan sa akin—everybody man here, whether American, African or—who knows English would surely say, ‘son of a bitch,’ ‘son of a gun,’ it is not ‘son of a whore’. There’s never a translation for that, ‘di ba? “

Duterte hinted he has more to give than what he did in the Laos meeting. If it were a birthday, he said, the Asean 2016 was just a 16th birthday, not the 18th, when one makes a formal debut.

“This is just regional. You wait for international,” Duterte said.