Philippine

BY SEIJI YAMADA, ARCELITA IMASA, AND RICHARD ROTHSCHILLER Photograph Source: U.S. Army Photo by Sgt. 1st Class John Etheridge – Public Domain In January, the Philippine and US governments announced plans to allow U.S. military access to four additional bases in the Philippines. This agreement to base more U.S. military assets in the Philippines poses a threat to peace. Signaled by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton writing in Foreign Policy in 2011, the Obama administration made a “pivot” from the Middle East to the Asia-Pacific. Open markets in Asia provide the United States with unprecedented opportunities for investment, trade, and access to cutting-edge technology. Our economic recovery at home will depend on exports and the ability of American fir...

BY SARAH RAYMUNDO Photograph Source: U.S. State Department – Public Domain U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in the Philippines to meet the newly elected President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. just as the Rim of the Pacific exercise, or RIMPAC, ends. As the world’s largest maritime military exercises, RIMPAC has intensified the militarization of the Asia-Pacific region since 1971 and has further strengthened the alignment of the newly-minted Marcos Jr. regime with U.S. military interests. Just as it did in the Pacific War against Japan during World War II, the Philippines is again playing an important anchor for U.S. economic and military interests in Southeast Asia in its standoff against China. The consequences for the Filipino people and environment are devastating. Fo...

by Reuters International evangelist Pastor Apollo Quiboloy (2nd R) walks with presidential candidates attending his 60th birthday celebration in Davao City, southern Philippines on April 25, 2010. US prosecutors on Thursday announced sex-trafficking charges alleging that girls and young women were coerced to have sex with the founder of a Philippines-based church who is a friend and adviser to Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte. A 74-page indictment charges Apollo Carreon Quiboloy, founder of a church called Kingdom of Jesus Christ, The Name Above Every Name (KOJC) and other church officials, including two US-based church administrators, with running a sex-trafficking operation that threatened victims as young as 12 with "eternal damnation" and physical abuse.Federal prosecutors in ...

BY ALFRED W. MCCOY Photograph Source: Corazon Aquino was inaugurated as the 11th president of the Philippines on February 25, 1986, at Sampaguita Hall (Now Kalayaan Hall) – Public Domain As an eyewitness, I can recall the events of January 6th in Washington as if they were yesterday. The crowds of angry loyalists storming the building while overwhelmed security guards gave way. The slavishly loyal vice-president who would, the president hoped, restore him to power. The crush of media that seemed confused, almost overwhelmed, by the crowd’s fury. The waiter who announced that the bar had run out of drinks and would soon be closing… Hold it! My old memory’s playing tricks on me again. That wasn’t the U.S. Capitol in January 2021. That was the Manila Hotel in the Philippines in ...