By Herman Tiu Laurel

 

Asia is enjoying its  peace and prosperity all through the first quarter of the 21^st Century we are living through today, and one of the recent occasions that we Asian have found to celebrate this era we are calling today the Asian Century is the 2025 9^th Asian Winter Games held in Harbin, China, between February 7 and 15, where 34 National Olympic Committees participated and 1,222 winter athletes competed in.

            The wonderful and exciting instances for the Philippines is the astonishing achievement of this tropical country in winning a medal in the 2025 Asian Winter Games in the freezing cold of some of the one of the most competitive sports of the games, but before we get into that historic victory let’s review some statistics: 20 Filipino athletes joined the winter games and competed in the skating, ski and snowboarding, and last but not least the curling competitions.

The Philippine Skating Union (PhSU) sent figure skaters Paolo Borromeo, Sofia Frank, Cathryn Limketkai, Isabella Gamez, and naturalized Aleksandr Korovin. Peter Groseclose entered in the short-track speed skating. The Philippine Ski and Snowboarding Association (PSSF) sent Adrian Tongco for snowboarding, Laetaz Amihan Rabe for freestyle skiing, and Francis Ceccarelli and Talullah Proulx for alpine skiing.

Last but not least are the athlete from the Curling Winter Sports Association of the Philippines (CWSAP),  also known as Curling Pilipinas, represented by 10 athletes including Marc Angelo Pfister, Enrico Gabriel Pfister, Christian Patrick Haller, Alan Beat Frei, Jessica Pfister, Benjo Delarmente, Kathleen Dubberstein, Leilani Dubberstein, Sheila Mariano, and Anne Marie Bonache. It was this team that gave the Philippines its historic GOLD from the games.

Yes, the Philippines pulled off a history making feat with the upset win of the Philippines’ Men’s Curling Team – Marc Angelo Pfister, Alan Beat Frei, Christian Patrick Haller, Enrico Gabriel Pfister, and Benjo Delarmente—for their spectacular win over Korea and for bringing home the GOLD! The first even for the Philippines at the Asian Winter Games! This is equivalent to the historic achievements in sports of weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz and gymnast Carlos Yulo for their country.

The 2025 9^th Asian Winter Gamers came to a close on February 14, 2025, Valentine’s Day, with the theme “Spring Warms Harbin, Love Inspires Asia” marking a warm, sunny spots on the globe where in other regions of the world trouble continues to cast dark clouds. In the east of Europe there’s the unresolved Ukraine war, in West Asia the bombardment of Gaza continues, yet dark forces from the West press on to bring trouble to Asia.

In early April 2025 Chinese media brought to fore a report from China’s National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center saying systems of both the 9^th Asian Winter Games and the information infrastructure in Heilongjiang Province, where Harbin is, saw a large number of hacks during the international event. The report claims the United States launched cyberattacks against the systems of the Asian Winter Games, held in Harbin in February.

Researching international cyber-sources, I found the KBC  Cybersecurity website report that provided more details. I quote the more important  part of the report:

            “The information systems for the competition and the critical network infrastructures in Heilongjiang Province were targeted by numerous cyberattacks from abroad, with most originating from the US, the Netherlands, and other countries and regions,…

“The center revealed that its data monitoring indicated abnormal network traffic since the games’ opening on February 3, including network asset discovery scans and extensive port scanning directed at the ISCs. The number of attacks fluctuated, with a notable increase between February 7 and February 13, peaking on February 8.

“Among the identified sources of attacks, 170,864 originated from the US, accounting for 63.24 percent. This was followed by Singapore (40,449 times, accounting for 14.97 percent), the Netherlands (12,414 times, accounting for 4.95 percent), Germany (6,682 times, accounting for 2.47 percent), South Korea (1,281 times, accounting for 0.47 percent), and other countries and regions,…” Asians and Filipinos must all be keenly aware of the continuing, uninterrupted U.S. hybrid war against Asia to try to prevent the Asian Century from realizing its full potential and helping the entire Global South rise with it into “Forever Peace and Prosperity.” Even the happy event of a sports events for Asian countries such as the 9th Asian Winter Olympics is not spared the threats of the  unconventional wars of the fading Western hegemonic power.

   

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