AFPC: China Reform Monitor No. 372 (CHINA and PHILIPPINE NATIONAL SECURITY)

China Reform Monitor No. 372, April 3, 2001
American Foreign Policy Council, Washington, D.C.

Iran-Russia-China axis seeks to limit US power;
Chinese nuclear scientists visit Pakistan military

Editor: Al Santoli

March 21

Iran has expanded relations with China and Russia to limit the role of Washington in Middle Eastern affairs, reports the Cairo Al-Ahram newspaper. Iran has relied on China and North Korea to develop strategic missile capabilities to confront Israel and rebuild its power, both in conventional and nuclear arms. Iran President Khatami's recent visit to Moscow, where he signed new economic and defense agreements, represents a reaction to the United States' efforts to isolate to contain and isolate Iran. Russia is striving to restore its influence exercised before the fall of the Soviet Union, the paper adds, "particularly after Washington did not hesitate to accept Eastern Europe into NATO' If we add this to the emerging Chinese giant, we will find that global transformations in the next few years will not give unipolar powers [US] much chance to enjoy its hegemony over world resources."

March 26

China's logging trade is ravaging the forests of northern Burma, stripping bare hundreds of square miles of ancient tropical forests, the Washington Post reports. The ecological damage in Burma is indicative of the mounting appetite of the Chinese economic giant is spreading to threaten the resources of Asia and other parts of the world. The unregulated logging boom in Burma is the result of a deal between the Burmese military dictatorship, tribal warlords and China, which supplies most weapons and military materiel to the regime. Since the 1949 Communist victory, China's environment has been severely damaged. Fifty years ago, half of Yunan province [which borders Burma] was forested -- today it is less than 10 percent. In 1998 Beijing imposed a logging ban. Conservationists say environmentally beneficial policies in China have created incentives for Chinese loggers to destroy forests in other parts of Asia.

March 27

Twenty-three Chinese nuclear scientists have arrived in Pakistan for week-long talks with the newly restructured Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, armed forces Services Chiefs, and the head of Pakistan's military-run regime reports the Islamabad Pakistan Observer. Led by Liu Jibin, Minister for Science, Technology, Industry and national Defense, the Chinese delegation will take part in the formal inauguration of the Chasma Nuclear Plant, built with Chinese assistance. The delegation will also visit Wah, Kamara and other nuclear and defense installations. They will pay a special visit to the Pakistan naval dockyard in Karachi.

March 28

The National Security Advisor to Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said that China was the biggest source of illegal drugs into the Philippines and that Chinese military officers are involved in narcotics trafficking, Reuters reports. Some 95 percent of the $5.3 billion drug trade in the Philippines is comprised of meth-amphetamines, called "ice," coming from China. Speaking to the Foreign Correspondence Association of the Philippines, Roilo Golez said, "PLA (People's Liberation Army} officers are the ones running the drug manufacturing plants in four or five coastal provinces of China." Asked what the involvement of the PLA men was, Golez said, "Manufacturing and trafficking."

Copyright © 2002, American Foreign Policy Council.
All Rights Reserved.

THE CHINESE INVASION CONTINUES

IS THIS POLITICS, OR ECONOMICS?

Strange Behaviour

We need not repeat the details of how President Arroyo collaborated with the Chinese in the ZTE Broadband deal, the Spratly Islands occupation^[1], and the leasing by GMA of 1 Million Hectares of our agricultural land to a Chinese firm in a vague contract. This covers about a tenth of our agricultural land. Where will the farmers among us now go for our livelihood and food production function? How can we have food security? After it was discovered by us Filipinos, Agriculture Sec. Yap made a statement that the deal will be on hold pending consultation.^[2]

The Poro Point controversy boils down to the question: Why did the Macapagal-Arroyo administration continue to give Manny Tan, owner of Poro Point Industrial Corp. (PPIC), the privilege of running the free port until she let Chavit Singson took over? Tan, who was given the privilege by President Erap in 1999, is a well-known importer of rice and fertilizer. People in the know say Tan was Erap’s crony. GMA retained him to run the free port.^[3]

The GMA government through it´s Department of Justice promptly dismissed in 2005, a P151-million tax evasion case against suspected Chinese smuggler Samuel Lee. He was charged with non-payment of taxes despite his income. He also allegedly ordered the diversion of three container vans of plastic resin from a customs bonded warehouse to a company in Valenzuela City upon his arrival at the airport upon his return from Hong Kong. The lawyer running after tax evaders contested the DoJ resolution on the case through a motion for reconsideration (MR) but the justice department appeared to have been dragging its feet. The Gloria Macapagal Arroyo government through the DoJ cited a legal technicality for dismissing the case. Lee was among the suspected smugglers named at a recent Senate hearing along with Vicky Toh and Lucio Lao Co, who were purportedly close to First Gentleman Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo. This deprived us Filipinos of another P151 million in taxes which could have been used for badly needed capital for rice farming.[4]

Dividing the Spoils with the Enemy

In the 1930’s, the Chinese almost entirely carried on the retail lumber throughout our entire islands. They cut and mill nearly 40% of the timber annually put in the market.^[5] Former DENR Secretary Gozun suspended the logging operations in Aurora of Toplite Lumber Corporation, owned by the Chua family, in 2003. Investigation revealed that it had been cutting trees beyond its designated area. But former DENR Secretary Mike Defensor ordered their resumption when he came into office.^[6]

The 25-year license to cut trees, covering 36,660 hectares in the Quezon province part of Sierra Madre, was granted to Wilson Ng on November 12, 2002, during the term of former Environment Secretary Heherson Alvarez. Alvarez's successor, Elisea Gozun, revoked the IFMA on January 13, 2004, saying "fraud, misrepresentation, and omission of material facts" surrounded the process by which the DENR granted the IFMA contract. Ng appealed to Malacañan. On March 4, 2005, four months after the tragic 2004 flash floods and landslides in the three Quezon towns, Wilson Ng was provided the license to cut trees again in the over-logged Sierra Madre mountain range by the Office of the President.^[7]

President Arroyo agreed to allow Chinese intruders, disguised as “fishermen” to go into the Philippine-claimed part of the disputed Spratlys archipelago. In effect, the Philippine military can no longer drive away the Chinese when they show up near the Kalayaan reef. The Chinese have built a garrison nearby.^[8]

Under the Cover of Economic and Legal Issues

There was a report which came out sometime 2005 about a Chinese invasion of Clark. Filipinos among us in Pampanga, experienced losing grip of economy with the recent establishment of a chinese owned retailing mall—SM in San Fernando. This time, the same chinese businessman, Henry Sy has established another of his retailing mall—SM in Clark and with it economic dislocation of our brother filipino businessmen there in Angeles City, Mabalacat and other nearby towns. We resisted as they were approaching. But they were too economically, politically and legally entrenched in our country for us to even slow down their movements. Again, with their establishment in Clark and with the tax exemption given them by the Philippine government, are the loss of our decades-old hold of our economic resources not to mention the 12% EVAT squeezed from us by the same government. With the establishment of SM goes loss of employment. It is also a gain of personnel for SM which have been traditionally exploiting them with 3 to 5 months contractual and no security of employment. The entry of the mall was facilitated by the Philippine Government thru the former CDC President Emmanuel Y. Angeles, now chairman of the Consultative Commission or Concom created by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to conduct consultations with people on the proposed amendments in the 1987 Constitution and the then Pampanga Vice Gov. Juan Miguel Arroyo, the President's son. With the facilitation, all obstacles such as: the site being within the aviation zone; public consultation; publication of the Memorandum of Agreement; were all done away with expeditiously. In 2003, the Angeles lost one multimillion-peso investment when Ayala Land Inc. backed out of a planned 8.7-hectare commercial center after a legal opinion of the Department of Justice sustained the Philippine government thru the CDC position of locating the SM-Clark Mall at the Clark main gate.^{[9] [10] [11] [12]}

Is this foreign invasion or not? If not, then what is this, politics? If indeed for the sake of argument this is politics, who will then protect us filipinos who are continuously being displaced from our source of livelihood when all institutions in our country today have been functioning to protect these foreigners?

If this is politics and therefore Filipino Soldiers among us should indeed not lift a finger to defend the oppressed brother Filipino among us, which institution will protect us? How many years have this been going on? Have we Filipinos been protected against them?

Opportunistic Invasion After Our Weakened Resistance Against the Americans

Around November of 1924, we tried to setup a legal channel of check points for identifying and assessing foreigners entering our country as part of our defense system of checking further foreign infiltration.^[13] However, while our legal check points where still in the setting up stage, the north americans, with their military might providing cover to the chinese, quickly dismantled them.^[14] An editorial appeared on June 5, 1926 in The Tribune. It made a comment regarding: the chinese making a plaything of our exclusion laws; their out maneouvering us from the start of our border checking operations, making a fool out of us.^[15]

We tried strategies based on our present condition to gain control as much area of our nation as we could against the foreigners. The start of our series of manoeuvres thru legal operations with the Retail Trade Nationalization Law in 1954 however, was out-manoeuvred by the Chinese. After we implemented this law, some 8700 of the 10,000 chinese who rushed to get hold of certificate of filipino citizenship papers after 1946, did so after 1954. We filipinos theoretically overrun previously chinese-controlled areas the strategic value of which where at most, of low significance. Thus in paper, the number of chinese registered as engaged in the retail trade was reduced and the number of us filipinos engaged in the same business was increased. In reality however, there was no physical difference. The difference was only in paper.^{[16] [17] [18]}

Many of these chinese were able to aquire legal documents of being Filipino Citizens in order to make their control of our resources resulting to displacement of us original Filipinos constitutional. It is they who applied what the famous Chinese General Sun Tzu said something like, “Therefore, the skillful leader subdues the enemy's troops without any fighting; he captures their cities without laying siege to them; he overthrows their kingdom without lengthy operations in the field.” They conquered our cities without the use of traditional combat weapons.  Our presidents were more than willing to be their puppet government. They have been protected by the laws of the land. They have been protected by the law enforcers of the land. They displaced us filipinos from our source of livelihood and we have no big brother to protect us!

Is this a constitutional, or economic issue?  Or is this a filipino national well-being and sovereignty issue?

---

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbhKcv3NYCc

[2] http://www.newsbreak.com.ph/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3855&Itemid=88889066

[3] ON TARGET Arroyo should allow opening of the boxesBy Ramon Tulfo, p. A18, August 22, 2006, Philippine Daily Inquirer

[4] This was first posted 03:07am (Mla time) Mar 10, 2006 By Armand N. Nocum, Michael Lim Ubac. It was published on page A1 of the

Mar. 10, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

[5] Hayden, “China, Japan and the Philippines,” Foreign Affairs, Vol.XI, No. 4, (July, 1933), pp. 711-715.

[6] Luz Rimban, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, GOING SOFT, PLAYING SAFE, Major players elude campaign vs illegal

logging in Aurora, First posted 02:34am (Mla time) Jan 31, 2005, Inquirer News Service, Editor's Note: Published on page A1 of the

Jan. 31, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

[7] Mallari, Delfin Jr., Palace restores permit to log in Sierra Madre, say NGOs, Inquirer Last updated 08:00pm (Mla time) 08/12/2006,

http://newsinfo.inq7.net/breakingnews/metroregions/index.php

[8] Lopez, Tony. “Why President Arroyo warms up to China, Sun Life vs Philamlife”, Virtual Business for Monday. April 25, 2005 posted

by Biznews Asia

[9] Rendy Isip, http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/?page=regions04_may12_2006

[10] (November 5, 2005 issue), Saturday, November 05, 2005 Builders say SM Clark will not open by Christmas
By Dante M. Fabian,

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/pam/2005/11/05/news/builders.say.sm.clark.will.not.open.by.christmas.html

[11] Postscript/PhilSTAR/April 14, 2005/Thursday Why there should not be another SM mall at Clark By Federico D. Pascual Jr.

[12] http://www.manilamail.com/archive/apr2005/05apr14.htm

[13] Tan, Antonio, The Chinese in the Philippines, A Study of National Awakenings 1898-1935. pp. 182-183

[14] Tan, Antonio, The Chinese in the Philippines, A Study of National Awakenings 1898-1935. p. 183

[15] Editorial, The Tribune, June 5, 1926.

[16] Filipinas Foundation, Inc., Philippine Majority-Minority Relations and Ethnic attitudes, An In-Depth Study, 1975, pp. 89,

96

[17] Mcbeath, Political Integration of the Philippine Chinese, pp. 34, 36-37

[18] Agpalo, Remegio E., The Political Process and the Nationalization of Retail Trade in the Philippines, pp. 103, 131, 193-218

José Miguel Garcia