Maniolas

VIENTIANE—Why not rename it Office of Disinformation and Miscommunication? As if the controversy stemming from President Rodrigo Duterte’s verbal assaults on two world leaders was not enough, the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) committed another diplomatic faux pas at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit here. The PCO, headed by Secretary Martin Andanar, on Wednesday issued a press release claiming Mr. Duterte would be seated between US President Barack Obama and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon during the evening gala dinner. “Presidents Duterte and Obama will be seated next to each other, which expectedly, will focus all cameras on them to deliver to the world the encounter of the two,” the statement read.   READ: Duterte to sit beside Obama, Ban Ki-moon at Asean gala dinner “Incidentally, (Ban) is also seated on the other side of President Duterte,” it added. “The media from all over the world, including from the Philippines, are up in excitement as each await the event where the two leaders will possibly say something positive after the two nations mutually agreed to move the scheduled bilateral meeting to a later date.”    Disappointment But the “excitement” over the supposed meeting of Mr. Duterte with Obama and Ban quickly dissipated and turned into disappointment as the three were seated separately during the gathering at the National Convention Center. The press statement issued by Andanar’s office proved to be a bum steer, or “kuryente” in journalism parlance. The President, who wore a maroon traditional Laotian garb, was Read More …

VIENTIANE—US President Barack Obama urged President  Duterte on Thursday to conduct his war on drugs “the right way,” after 3,000 people were killed in the crackdown in just over two months. “As despicable as these (crime) networks may be and as much damage as they do, it is important from our perspective to make sure that we do it the right way,” Obama told reporters when asked about his conversation with Mr. Duterte on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Nations (Asean) summit in Laos. “Because the consequences of when you do it the wrong way are innocent people get hurt and you have a bunch of unintended consequences that don’t solve the problem,” Obama said he told Mr. Duterte. Relations between the United States and the Philippines, longtime allies, saw a spectacular setback this week after the foul-mouthed Mr. Duterte branded Obama a “son of a bitch” and warned that he would not be lectured by the US leader on human rights. Mr. Duterte’s outburst on Monday was in response to being told Obama planned to raise concerns about his war on drugs. “I do not have any master except the Filipino people, nobody but nobody. You must be respectful. Do not just throw away questions and statements. Putang ina, I will curse you in that forum,” Mr. Duterte told reporters, using the Filipino phrase for “son of a bitch,” shortly before flying to Laos. “We will be wallowing in the mud like pigs if you do that Read More …

NEGOTIATING panels of the government and the secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) began yesterday a new round of talks in Kuala Lumpur to launch what they called the “implementation phase” of the peace process. Chief peace negotiator Jesus Dureza said this underscored the Duterte administration’s commitment to honor the Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro (CAB) signed two years ago during the term of President Benigno Aquino III, and to develop it further into a more inclusive enabling law that can pass muster in Congress. An earlier draft of the Bangsamoro Basic Law was rejected by the previous Congress due to what lawmakers said were its many “unconstitutional” provisions. “This [meeting] is actually to launch the implementation stage of what we envisioned to be a Bangsamoro enabling law. It is to implement the CAB that was signed between the government and the MILF in 2014,” Dureza said last week. The meeting is expected to focus on the mechanism that would determine how a new Bangsamoro law would be crafted. It is also expected to tackle key provisions of the CAB that could already be implemented, such as the delivery of socioeconomic development programs in Mindanao. Under the Duterte administration’s peace road map, all Bangsamoro peace agreements, including those with the Moro National Liberation Front (1996), would be integrated into the new enabling law that will create a new Bangsamoro government unit, Dureza said. In attendance at the launch in Malaysia were members of Congress, including Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, who was tasked Read More …

THE BRUTAL deaths last year of 44 Special Action Force officers in the hands of Muslim rebels in the Mamasapano, in Mindanao, led to a degree of mistrust between Christians and Muslims as reflected in social media, according to a US Department of State report. In its 2015 International Religious Freedom Report, the state department cited the January 2015 incident as serving to boost anti-Muslim sentiment in the mostly Christian country. Apart from the slain officers, also killed in the clash were more than 20 Muslim rebels and civilians, as well as Zulkilfi bin Hir, alias Marwan, a foreign bomb-making expert who was the original target of the ill-fated operation. “Observers stated the controversy surrounding the Jan. 25, 2015, Mamasapano incident… caused distrust between Muslims and Christians to resurface in social media, online commentary and public statements,” the report said. The report is carried out every year by the state department’s Office of International Religious Freedom in about 199 countries. It is headed by Ambassador-at-Large David Saperstein. A video that found its way to the public showing one of the 44 being shot twice at close range “spread very quickly on social media,” although at the time it was circulated, the full context was not verified, it said. Its release, coupled with gory photos that came out after the attack “showed the increasing strain in relations between Muslims and Christians,” the report said. The report noted the observation of the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility that press reporting on Read More …

Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump’s recent assertion that the United States was letting in “animals” from “terrorist nations,” among them the Philippines, has provoked a strong backlash in Manila, making headlines and prompting Albay Rep. Joey Salceda to propose barring Trump from the country. Salceda last week filed a resolution seeking to “refuse Donald J. Trump entry into the Philippines” for the “wholesale labeling of Filipinos as coming from a ‘terrorist’ state.” READ: Trump lumps PH with terror states Salceda condemned Trump’s “ugliness of utterances, largely unprompted and undeserved,” even though Trump profited handsomely from licensing his name and brand to a real estate development in the Philippines. In seeking Trump’s exclusion from the Philippines, Salceda cited Bureau of Immigration rules that bar the entry of foreigners who “clearly generated impressions not conducive to public good and [have] shown disrespect or [made] offensive utterances to the Filipino people.” Salceda said Trump’s “unrepentantly negative, dysfunctionally nativist, aggressively adversarial attitude” toward Filipinos was dangerous, as he could win the US elections in November and lay down policies that could affect the interests of American citizens of Philippine descent. Filipinos represent the fourth-largest immigrant group in the United States, about 4.5 percent of the total immigrant population, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank based in Washington. The median income of Filipino households headed by an immigrant was $82,370 as of 2013, far above the $53,000 of US-born households, the institute says. “With his current stature as candidate of Read More …