“Militia vessels” fake news targets Pres. Duterte

THE fake news about “220 Chinese militia ships invasion” of Julian Felipe (or Whitsun Reef) started on March 20, 2021, which even the Task Force-West Philippine Sea (TF-WPS) knew was not authenticated as even they described the ships to be “believed to be manned by Chinese militia personnel” in their original report.

But nothing stops the Amboy media from stirring up tension with regularity like the arrival of the summer season thru fake news.

Unfortunately, our top defense department (DND) officials were trapped into playing along by the Amboy media’s ambush and Twitter interviews.

And probably thinking it was a good opportunity to highlight Philippine maritime claims (as everybody knows even the 2016 arbitration panel never said the Philippines had sovereignty over the West Philippine Sea), Sec. Delfin Lorenzana played along – to the detriment of his boss, President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s political standing.

Yahoo News, Al Jazeera and many other Western and Western-influenced news media inserted this comment in the fakes news about the Chinese fishing boats, “Critics have repeatedly called out President Rodrigo Duterte, who has nurtured friendly ties with Beijing since taking office in 2016, for not standing up to China’s aggressive behavior and deciding not to immediately demand Chinese compliance with an international arbitration ruling…”

Sec. Lorenzana finally poured water to douse the re- hot fake news of the Chinese fishing vessels as “militia” on March 29, nine days after the first fake news appeared in Rappler, Inquirer and the other usual suspects, saying the Philippines would not station a Navy ship in the area as it would be provocative and may consider a Coast Guard ship to patrol.

This is really all “cosmetics” because Vietnam already has a four-story structure at Colins Reef in Union Banks where Julian Felipe is.

Philippine Cabinet officials like Lorenzana must learn lessons from this latest “militia ships” fake news otherwise they will keep repeating the same mistake of being “useful idiots” of US agitation-propaganda operations to upset what is already a perfectly fine PHL-China relations Such relationship is immensely beneficial to the Philippines, the Asean region and the entire continent of Asia, with the World Bank’s prediction of 8.1 percent economic growth rate of China this year that would help pull up the region’s economies.

China has a patient and persevering outlook towards the Philippines, assisting the country in every way it can for the past decades, but more so under Pres. Duterte, highlighted by the PHL-China strategic cooperation agreement of 2018 during President Xi Jinping’s official visit to the Philippines.

The US$25-billion worth of projects under the agreement are now happening before our eyes; there is also the two China donated bridges spanning the Pasig River worth P700-million that are to open to traffic this year while the US$5-billion DITO telco project is starting already; too, only China had donated to us 1-millioin doses vaccine that jumped-started our national vaccination plan, with not a single dose given to us by the Americans despite our being their “only strategic ally and partner in Asia.

What has America and its gofers here like Carpio, Del Rosario, Alunan III et all done to help the country in all these months and years of crisis of the country?

Throw poisons into our public information and narratives, try to sabotage projects with their NED funded media and NGOs like delaying the Kaliwa Dam water supply for Metro-Manila, donate war surplus military equipment and boast about it? What clowns they are.

Now for April 1 Fool’s Day Albert del Rosari is proposing again US-Philippine joints patrols of the WPS, thanks the heavens we are not falling again for this crap.

(Herman Tiu Laurel is an author, writer and founder of the Phil-BRICS Strategic Studies think tank. Join his: “Power Thinks” with Ka Mentong Laurel and guests – Every Wednesday 6pm Live on Global Talk News Radio [GTNR] on Facebook and Talk News TV on YouTube; and Every Sunday 8 to 10am on RP1 738 on your AM radio dial.)