Regional Philippines News

‘Broken-hearted’ family mourn Filipina murdered in NZ

 News
May 282014
 
'Broken-hearted' family mourn Filipina murdered in NZ

The husband of a Filipina woman killed in a seemingly random attack in New Zealand said Thursday that his family was “lost in darkness” after her death. Blessie Gotingco, a 56-year-old mother-of-three, disappeared on Saturday night on her way home from work in central Auckland. Her body was discovered in a cemetery not far from her home two days later and police on Wednesday charged a 27-year-old man with murder. The cause of death has not been revealed. The killing has shocked New Zealand, where such attacks are relatively rare, and Gotingco’s husband Antonio said he had been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from across the small South Pacific nation. He said he had known his wife of 30 years since they attended primary school in Cebu City, describing her as his best friend. “She is the light of our home and without her we will be lost in darkness,” he said in a statement released by New Zealand Police. “Right now we are just trying to pretend that everything is OK but deep inside we are broken hearted. We have been robbed, she is gone too soon.” The accused man, who has been granted interim name suppression, was remanded in custody at an Auckland court on Wednesday to reappear on June 18.

Rebel bombs kill two Philippine soldiers

 News
May 132014
 
Rebel bombs kill two Philippine soldiers

Muslim guerrillas from a breakaway faction have killed two soldiers in a wave of small bomb attacks in the southern Philippines, the military said Tuesday. The blasts were claimed by the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), a guerrilla faction being hunted by the military after the government signed a peace treaty in March with the main Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). “If they (military operations) will not stop, we will bring our battle in other areas, including cities,” BIFF spokesman Abu Misry Mama said in a call to a local journalist. A roadside bomb planted by the BIFF exploded on Monday as a military convoy passed through the town of Datu Unsay on the southern island of Mindanao, killing two soldiers, said Colonel Dickson Hermoso, the area’s military spokesman. Four other soldiers were wounded, he added. Three other improvised explosive devices either exploded harmlessly or were disarmed in the region Monday and Tuesday, Hermoso added. He said the bombings were an a BIFF riposte to a military operation that killed 53 guerrillas in late January. “They waited… and now, they exact vengeance,” he told AFP. He said the BIFF was still trying to disrupt the peace accord with the mainstream group. The BIFF broke away several years ago from the 12,000-strong MILF, which has abandoned its fight for a separate Islamic state in the southern Philippines in exchange for the creation of a Muslim autonomous area. While security was tight in the south, “a small group Read More …

US-Philippines to launch war games after Obama pledge

 General
May 042014
 
US-Philippines to launch war games after Obama pledge

Longtime allies the Philippines and the United States start annual, large-scale military exercises on Monday after President Barack Obama vowed “ironclad” backing for Manila as a territorial dispute with China simmers. The two-week Balikatan or “shoulder-to-shoulder” drills involving 5,500 American and Filipino soldiers begin just days after Obama assured Manila his government was committed to a 1951 mutual defence treaty. The allies last week bolstered their ties with a new defence agreement signed ahead of a visit by Obama giving American forces greater access to Philippine bases — part of a US rebalancing of military power towards rising Asia. “What President Obama said was a reaffirmation of our treaty,” Philippine military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Ramon Zagala said. “It is very important to note that this is really relevant right now that we have a present threat,” he added, referring to an increasingly tense row with China over reefs and outcrops in the South China Sea, which Manila calls the West Philippine Sea. Obama’s four-nation Asian tour was dominated by worsening maritime tensions between Beijing and Washington’s allies in the region, which have triggered fears of military conflict. China claims nearly all of the South China Sea, which is believed to contain huge deposits of oil and gas, even waters and islands or reefs close to its neighbours. The Philippines, which has one of the weakest militaries in the region, has repeatedly called on the United States for help as China has increased military and diplomatic pressure to take control of Read More …

Communist rebel officer arrested in Philippines

 News
May 032014
 
Communist rebel officer arrested in Philippines

A high-ranking communist rebel officer has been arrested in the Philippines, a military official said on Saturday, amid a surge of deadly clashes between soldiers and the insurgents. Hopes of reviving peace talks with the rebels have dimmed since the arrest of Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) chairman Benito Tiamzon and his wife, the party’s secretary general Wilma Tiamzon, in March. On Friday police arrested Felix Armodia — a regional secretary of the New People’s Army (NPA), the CPP’s armed wing — in the southern island of Mindanao, the region’s military commander said in a statement. Lieutenant General Ricardo Rainier Cruz said Armodia was arrested after local residents tipped off authorities. “The public is now aware that their role in peace and security in the region is vital to the success of the security operations,” Cruz said. The decades-old Maoist rebellion of the CPP has claimed 30,000 lives, according to estimates by the government, which believes the rebels continue to pose a threat despite the NPA comprising of only 4,000 guerrillas — down from more than 26,000 in the late 1980s. Armodia is accused of masterminding a series of attacks on businesses and farms that did not give in to NPA extortion demands, the general said. There has been an increase in the number of deadly encounters following the arrest of the CPP leaders. Three soldiers were killed in a NPA ambush in the northern Philippines on Thursday, while three NPA guerillas were killed in a clash with troops Read More …

Philippines to offer renewed US military use of Subic

 News
May 022014
 
Philippines to offer renewed US military use of Subic

The Philippines said Friday it plans to give the United States access to five military bases under a deal that could see US forces return to their giant former facility at Subic Bay. An access deal signed last week would allow the US to rotate more aircraft, ships, equipment and troops over the next 10 years at unspecified bases in the territory of the Asian ally strategically facing the South China Sea. The two countries are now in follow-up talks to select the Filipino bases, said defence undersecretary Pio Batino, the chief Filipino negotiator. “Right now, the discussions would be ranging from three to five (Filipino military) bases,” he told reporters. “That’s not the final, but that is the starting discussion point.” The Philippines is offering Fort Magsaysay, a sprawling army base about 100 kilometres (62 miles) north of Manila that regularly hosts annual large-scale US-Filipino military exercises, Batino said. He added “limited portions of Subic” would also be offered, but declined to identify the three other bases under consideration. The Philippines intends to conclude the discussions not later than September 30, Batino added. The deal for increased US access is part of Philippine efforts to boost its weak military capabilities at a time of deep tensions with China over competing claims to parts of the South China Sea. China claims most of the sea, even waters close to the Philippines and other countries in the region. Subic, facing the South China Sea, was the former repair yard of the Read More …

Obama hits back hard at foreign policy critics

 General
Apr 282014
 
Obama hits back hard at foreign policy critics

Barack Obama’s frustration is spilling over as he makes the most strident defence of his foreign policy yet, rebuking critics who say his diplomacy is haphazard, weak and blurs US national security red lines. The US president’s patience snapped several times during his tour of Asia which wrapped up in the Philippines Tuesday, when confronted by arguments that he has failed to put his stamp on a world increasingly flouting US power. His four-nation trip was meant to cement the most substantive doctrinal element of his foreign policy, the pivot of American power to Asia, which had been a little ragged of late. But Obama’s inability to deter President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine, the crumbling Middle East peace process and the unstoppable carnage in Syria, opened the president to new charges his foreign policy is a bust. He had to reassure Asian allies nervous of China’s growing territorial muscle that despite his reluctance to fight traditional wars, Washington’s defence guarantees are rock solid. He rarely loses his cool in public, but Obama was at his most waspish in public comments on foreign policy during the trip — recalling his ill-tempered debates with Republican Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential race. His wariness of foreign quagmires is also a consistent political theme — recalling the 2002 rebuke of “dumb” wars that helped him harness public dismay with the Iraq war six years later to win the White House. Obama argues that hubris gets America into trouble and that avoiding “mistakes” like Read More …

Philippine vessel evades China ‘blockade’ of disputed reef

 General
Mar 292014
 
Philippine vessel evades China 'blockade' of disputed reef

2014 (AFP) – Philippine soldiers aboard a fishing vessel engaged Saturday in a dramatic stand-off with Chinese coastguard ships near a remote South China Sea reef claimed by both countries, an AFP journalist witnessed. The Philippine ship finally slipped past the Chinese blockade to reach Second Thomas Shoal, where a handful of Filipino marines are stationed on a Navy vessel that has been grounded there since 1999 to assert their nation’s sovereignty. The Philippine military said the ship, a fishing vessel with soldiers on board, had completed its mission to deliver fresh supplies to the navy ship and rotate the troops. “They were able to pass through the Chinese coastguard vessel and the mission is a success,” Cherryl Tindog, a spokeswoman for the military’s western command, told AFP. “We have successfully re-supplied and rotated the troops.” An AFP reporter and photographer were on a Philippine military plane that circled above the area during the stand-off, which they said lasted for about two hours. Four Chinese vessels had encircled Second Thomas Shoal as the Philippine vessel approached, according to the AFP reporter. Two of the vessels, with “Chinese coastguard” written on the side of the boats, then chased the Philippine boat and tried to block it from reaching the shoal. The vessels appeared to get within a few hundred metres of each other. China claims most of the South China Sea, even waters and islets approaching its neighbours. Second Thomas Shoal is part of the Spratlys, a chain of islets and Read More …

Philippines, Muslim rebels to sign peace treaty on March 27

 News
Mar 142014
 
Philippines, Muslim rebels to sign peace treaty on March 27

The Philippines and Muslim rebels are to sign a treaty on March 27 to end one of Asia’s longest and deadliest rebellions, a senior aide to President Benigno Aquino said Friday. The terms of the deal, completed in January after drawn-out talks, would see the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) disband its 12,000-member guerrilla force and share power with Manila in the Muslim south of the mainly Catholic nation. “After 17 long years of arduous negotiations, we are finally arriving at a political settlement that will seal enduring peace and progress in Mindanao,” Teresita Deles, Aquino’s chief adviser on the peace process, said in a statement. The decades-old rebellion has claimed 150,000 lives according to official estimates, and condemned large swathes of the south to poverty and violence. The insurgency also gave rise to smaller groups of Islamist militants, some allied to Al-Qaeda. “The signing… is expected to benefit not only the Bangsamoro (Filipino Muslims) but the entire country, and will radiate beyond our borders to the regional community, and perhaps the whole world,” Deles said. The Philippines’ Muslim population of around five million people regard the south as their ancestral homeland, and the MILF has led the armed quest for independence or autonomy since the early 1970s. After the peace deal signing, Aquino is to ask parliament to pass a “basic law” creating a Muslim self-rule area covering 10 percent of the country’s land, with its own police force, parliament and power to levy taxes. The political entity would Read More …

Philippine typhoon mother rises from ruins

 General
Mar 112014
 
Philippine typhoon mother rises from ruins

In the savage aftermath of the Philippines’ deadliest storm, an exhausted young woman gave birth to a girl on a filthy floor with little more than determination to sustain them. Emily Sagalis survived the tsunami-like ocean surges of Super Typhoon Haiyan by gripping a fence with one hand, while using the other to protect her swollen belly from chunks of metal and other fast-floating debris. Three days later the 21-year-old was lying on a concrete floor in labour amid broken glass, splintered wood and other wreckage of a destroyed airport building that had been turned into a makeshift medical centre. A military doctor told an AFP journalist who witnessed the birth — the first at the centre since the typhoon — that Emily’s life was in danger as there were no antibiotics to treat seemingly inevitable infections. But with the medics overwhelmed by a torrent of critically injured survivors, Emily was forced to leave with Bea Joy just seven hours after giving birth. Haiyan, one of the most powerful typhoons ever recorded, claimed about 8,000 lives in November last year, with many people dying in the terrifying days that followed when medicines, food and water were scarce. Emily and Bea Joy, however, defeated death, and today the first-time mother is striving with powerful maternal instincts to create lives of security and happiness on top of the weakest foundations. “I am happy that Bea Joy is happy and healthy. That’s the most important thing,” Emily told AFP on a recent visit Read More …

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