By Ado Paglinawan, journalist, book author and director of the Asian Century Philippines Institute and the Philippine BRICS Society
On July 7, 2019, Teodoro Locsin Jr as secretary of foreign affairs, tweeted, “…There is no deadline on the brilliant oil and gas MOU (memorandum of understanding) I wrote & China & PH signed. It is endless. I ACCEPTED China’s version of the Terms of Reference as superior to our own…”
Recently, he announced, “Nothing is pending; everything is over.”
What a dumbfounding contradiction three years later, but still high on his ego-classic “I”: “We (Wang Yi and I) had both tried to go as far as we could – without renouncing China’s aspiration on his (Wang’s) part; and constitutional limitations on my part. I shut down shop completely,” Locsin said.
By his own words, that the American boy pursued his own agenda. President Rodrigo Roa Duterte has been very explicit in the continuation of the talks between China and the Philippines. Locsin was clearly lying when he said he only implemented the outgoing president’s instructions to terminate the talks.
On the same day he made his announcement, however, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin further reduced Locsin to absurdity, “China stands ready to work in concert with the new Philippine government to advance negotiations on joint development and strive to take early substantive steps so as to deliver tangible benefits to both countries and peoples.”
And so, is there a bigger elephant in the room nursing Locsin? For that, we have to go back more than 30 years to dig the facts on what we are dealing with.
History readback
According to the Mike Billington of the Executive Intelligence Review and of the Schiller Institute, right after Ferdinand Edralin Marcos and the First Lady Imelda Marcos came home to the Philippines after the president’s state visit to Washington DC on September 1982, the neoconservatives of Washington DC, led by George Schultz and Paul Wolfowitch, fearing that the Marcoses have bewitched Ronald and Nancy Reagan, planned the overthrow of the Philippine president.
Is it by accident that in August 1983, Ninoy Aquino would force his homecoming amid the dangerous circumstances surrounding the medical condition of the President, and meet his assassin at the tarmac of the Manila International Airport, causing a political destabilization never seen before?
Is it by coincidence that in 1984 after that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund would freeze all loans and accommodations to our country and force our economy’s collapse? Hundreds of thousands lost their jobs, including me, because of the massive closure of factories and business establishments.
1986 Snap Elections
Is it by coincidence that by 1985 the United States forced Marcos to seek a fresh mandate, calling for a “snap” election? The Americans would then engineer the replacement of the organized opposition party UNIDO candidate Salvador Laurel by Ninoy Aquino’s widow, Corazon who only had a ragtag movement?
Part of this conspiracy were Schultz and Wolfowitch’s neocons sending a young Mark Malloch Brown to serve as Corazon Aquino’s political and public relations handler, in tandem with one Teddy Boy Locsin, son of a known pro-American publisher of the Philippine Free Press, to package their candidate.
Is it by coincidence that after fomenting a coup d’etat led by Gringo Honasan, his mentor Juan Ponce Enrile would solicit support from the Vice-Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in charge of the country’s policemen? According to EIR’s Mike Billington, Ramos had been attending neocon meetings in Washington DC before that?
Is it by coincidence that Cardinal Jaime Sin, known for his inclination towards the losing candidate Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, would call for the people to march to Camps Aguinaldo and Crame at Epifanio de los Santos Avenue or EDSA, to act as human shields for the forces supporting Enrile and Ramos?
Marcos’ mistake was that he would not resort to bloodshed and ordered Chief of Staff Fabian Ver to disperse the crowd peacefully. It was rumored that the American forces were merely waiting for orders to attack from their ships nearby, and that sort of tied Marcos’ hands.
He misjudged his friends. But worse, he miscalculated his enemies resolve to take him out of power by whatever means.
Is it a coincidence that the Americans would extract he and his family from Malacanang, and kidnap him to Hawaii, while he thought as he requested his friend Ronald Reagan to transport him to Paoay of his home province Ilocos Norte.
This sidetrack is pertinent to our subject here.
It’s a long story but after the Edsa revolution, Brown would seek the cover of Sawyer and Miller Group in New York as Philippine lobbyist in Capitol Hill, and service Aquino with the international press, foremost of which was landing her in the front cover of the Time magazine.
Locsin, however, lorded over the presidential party when Cory visited Washington DC on September 1986. When Ambassador Emmanuel Pelaez edited two phrases for political correctness in her speech before the US Joint Session of Congress, Teddy Boy cursed the ambassador, “Putangina mo, Mestizo”, shouting on top of his voice in the corridor of the floor we were billeted in Madison Hotel at 15th street Northwest DC.
The same Mark Malloch Brown would coordinate the demonization campaign of Imelda Marcos in the so-called Trial of the Century in New York in 1990, where she would however be adjudged “not guilty”.
I knew because I was only one-step behind from all this because as the Embassy Press Attache, I was in charge of the press protocol of Cory’s working visit. I can even narrate in gruesome details how Marc Malloch Brown planned the demolition of the former First Lady Imelda Marcos in the trial of the century under the late Chit Pedrosa as chairman of communications.
But after Mrs. Aquino left the scene, I somehow got detached from Mr. Brown.
2010 and 2016 Elections
The next episode I would be involved with another Aquino was the 2010 elections, the first time Comelec would be using the Smartmatic precinct count optical scan or PCOS machine. Ka Mentong, Bono Adaza and I filed with the Supreme Court for the nullification of that election because the Comelec collapsed all the minimum safeguards provided by the Automated Election Systems Law plus stipulations on the source code review and the requirement on digital signatures.
We fought our way but was stopped midway by the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on the Elections. The co-chairman of that committee was Congressman Teodoro Locsin Jr. As result, the road cleared to the joint session of Congress proclaiming Noynoy Aquino the 15th president of the Republic, and we somewhat just accepted our fate with a grain of salt but helpless to do anything further.
But the shock of my life was when the announcement of the visit to the Philippines of the chairman and CEO of Smartmatic was announced in December 2015. Guess who he was?
Is it by coincidence that it was Lord Mark Malloch Brown?
It appears that after Sawyer Miller Group, he found his way to the World Bank to the United Nations to serve a deputy secretary-general of Kofi Annan, to being appointed in the upper house of the UK parliament, now bearing the title of “Lord”.
The assignment, however, failed to install Liberal Party candidate Mar Roxas because Rodrigo Duterte captured the swing votes of the 2016 elections. Capturing the law of large numbers to his favor, the default programming of Smartmatic to shave could no longer be properly adjusted to surmount the remaining seven million votes of Duterte over Roxas.
But the proximate numbers between vice presidential candidates Bongbong Marcos and Leni Robredo, however, was close, and could still enable a Smartmatic tweak giving the latter at a little more than 263,000 votes.
The coincidences are just too much. But the American intervention in our election is too well-known by now.
Teddy Boy Locsin was there to service Cory Aquino’s power grab in 1986 and he was there to protect a Noynoy Aquino victory in 2010, two “regime change” episodes that placed us the under a 30-year curse of the Edsa Revolution.
Again that curse was exorcised first through a swing vote by the ABC classes in 2016 to install Duterte as 16th president, and second through a supermajority delivered by the D and E classes in 2022, when the masa and the poorest of the poor elected Ferdinand Bongbong Romualdez Marcos Jr as our 17th president.
Locsin’s wobble
Is it by coincidence, by his own admission, deny us of a valuable oil exploration joint venture with China at the time when the pump prices have gone over P90 per liter of diesel?
This is beyond Locsin’s narcissistic ego. He used “Philippine sovereignty” as the excuse for the collapse of his negotiations with Wang Yi, the foreign minister of China.
We have no claim for sovereignty over Recto Reef, or Reed Bank, because even by definitions by the United National Convention of the Seas (UNCLOS), areas that are mostly underwater cannot be subject of any territorial claim but China has on the basis of legal and historical rights which the Americans have been “framing” as the “nine-dash line”.
This why in the first paragraph I already quoted Locsin as saying “I accepted China’s version of the Terms of Reference as superior to our own.”
To reiterate, Reed Bank is at most part of our EEZ, to which we are only entitled to rights, not ownership. On the other hand, China’s claims are that of sovereignty.
As I have always said, the area is from the very beginning, “disputed”.
How could we grant Anglo-Dutch Shell and American Chevron to dig oil inside our territory at Malampaya for only 10% consideration, but we cannot allow a China corporation to explore in our EEZ for 60% consideration?
No one is applauding Locsin but Manny Pangilinan, Albert del Rosario and their counsel former Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio whose umbilical chords are connected to the claims of American Forum Energy in the same waters.
We can deal with the Americans for less and not with the Chinese for more?
Disputes are resolved best through negotiations. This went for three years under Locsin. Why the absence of transparency? Why were the results of the talks and the developments kept from the public eye?
Three years have been more than enough time for President Duterte to influence Congress to enact any law that would remove any gridlock to this joint venture that is tremendously giving an advantage.
Could we now still blame coincidence as to the times we have been fooled by this agent of powers foreign to our national interest?
America’s fronts
The neocon “regime change” conspirators that ousted Marcos were seeded by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Is it by coincidence that CSIS is now linked to with personalities who have solid investments in Philex and Forum Energy such as Anthoni Salim, Manny Pangilinan and Albert del Rosario?
Their tentacles are intertwined with lawfare and information war now budgeted by the USAID by a fresh half-a-million dollars besides the wager of the National Endowment for Democracy, the Omidyar Network and the Soros (Open Society) Foundation.
So could Mark Malloch Brown be too far behind? Is it by coincidence that he is still chairman of Smartmatic and president of the Soros Foundation?
What is my fearless forecast? That just as former associate justice Antonio Carpio has gravitated, Mr. Locsin will deteriorate to be the next megaphone for these vested interests.
Thank you and I leave the rest to your fertile imagination.
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