By Herman Tiu Laurel

 

Cognitive warfare is a never-ending process when a society is under contention by competing forces. The Philippines has been since the 2011 announcement of the Obama “Pivot to Asia” the focus of extreme U.S. efforts to geopolitically capture, control and direct towards its strategic goal of creating conflict and war in Asia to contain the rise of China and maintain its status as global hegemon of the world.

The U.S. cognitive warfare strategy is built on the 2016 arbitration case conceived and executed by U.S. legal advisers in the government of Benigno Aquino III, the last heir of the U.S. instituted EDSA One “color revolution” regime. The arbitration judgment does not even have the acknowledge of the U.N. to this day, yet the Philippine U.S.-Proxies controlled mainstream media has propagated the myth of its validity as a “landmark” decision.

The U.S.-Proxies cognitive warfare strategy ran smack against reality when geopolitically independent Filipino political leader Rodrigo R. Duterte won the presidency in 2016, as President Duterte carried out the Philippine Constitution’s Section 7 mandating that “The State shall pursue an independent foreign policy… ” which led to an economic boom in trade, ODA, tourism and investments from China.

The Duterte administration, with its independent foreign policy, earned 81% satisfaction rating as it ended in 2022 despite the Covid 19 crisis. The satisfaction with Duterte translated to a landslide victory for the “Uniteam”, the Marcos-Sara Duterte tandem in the 2022 elections which started of successfully sustaining the independent foreign policy until February 2023 when Bongbong Marcos openly returned to the vassal status to the U.S.

In February of 2023 Bongbong Marcos acceded to the implementation of “Project Myoshu” presented by the U.S. Naval Institute’s Captain Benjamin Goirigolzarri, U.S. Air Force, in a conference in early January 2023 hosted by Stratbase-ADRI proposed the “assertive transparency” strategy to “impose reputational costs against Beijing” through using the Philippine maritime security units to provoke Chinese reaction to sensationalize in media.

By the middle of 2024, in July, Raymond Powell had to  publish an article entitle “Transparency has not ‘failed’ the Philippines” as had professionally managed the Philippine provocations, calibrated the use of non-lethal such a water canons and blockades, gained more ASEAN and international understanding of the US-Proxies malicious intent. The surveys also showed that public interest in the territorial imbroglio interest only 5-7% of the population.

China’s justification for exercise more cogent measures in asserting its control over various maritime areas disputed by the Philippines has grown stronger rather than weaker due to the failure of the US-Proxies’ “assertive transparency” strategy, while the Philippines’ isolation from conflict and tensions-averse ASEAN is growing wider over the past two-years-and-a-half of the US-Philippine efforts to ramp up tensions in the region.

FPRRD abduction: cognitive warfare plus.

“Cognitive warfare, which aims to manipulate the way a population thinks and behaves, can impact a whole society by exploiting existing divisions, undermining trust, and shaping    public discourse…” the Google AI explains, with this we fast-forward to the latest developments in the “whole of society” cognitive warfare of the U.S. and its proxies (chihuahuas I  prefer to call them) in the Philippines.

Senator Imee Marcos has exposed in her recent senate foreign relations committee hearings that the government of BBM has planned “Operation Horus” drawn up in April 2024 aimed at bringing down the Dutertes including “In the ‘How to Attack’ section” among other actions “… a communication plan to divert the public’s attention from the arrest and transport of FPRRD to issues like the West Philippine Sea and alleged disinformation activities by China.”

This is the BBM gang’s plan within the bigger plan of the U.S.’s cognitive warfare against China. In January of 2024 BBM reiterated that the ICC has jurisdiction in the Philippines, hence, the country “won’t cooperate in its investigation.” Yet, on March 11, 2025 Bongbong Marcos lied to the world saying he enforced the “arrest” of FPRRD “because the Interpol asked us to do it…” which is now discredited claim based on the dubious justification of the “diffusion” notice.

Before we get entangled in the minutiae of the FPRRD kidnap incident let us take a wide-angle view again and look at the whole context of the anti-FPRRD and anti-VP Sara campaign. Who benefits from the elimination of FPRRD and VP Sara Duterte from the  Philippine political scene? At one level it is theorized that Martin Romualdez started it all with the People’s Initiative in 2023 to revise the Constitution to obviate the vice-presidential succession.

Another theory is it’s the First Lady clearing the way for son-congressman Sandro Marcos to the presidency, and others that FPRRD’s kidnap is the doings of the CPP-NDF Hague links. While one can agree that all these political factions have intense motives to neutralize FPRRD and VP Sara Duterte, but do have the power to compel the ICC into compliance and a president of a country to self-immolate in the pyre of an ill-conceived abduction of FPRRD?

Take the “inner circle” that conspired in the abduction of Duterte, two-out-of-four are widely known to act as enforcers of the US military in the Philippines, Defense Secretary Gibo Teodoro and NSA Secretary Año, the latter defending his role in the FPRRD abduction saying “my loyalty is always to the country…” The question is what country, for the U.S. is the greatest beneficiary of the abduction of FPRRD.

Over and above the local players in the “get the Dutertes” game are powerful international NGOs like the USAID-funded Amnesty International (AI) (tagged an “imperialist tool”) pre-judging FPRRD’s at the Hague as “a monumental step for justice” – even before ICC hearings start. What force has compelled these disparate forces to converge against FPRRD to bring him to a court known among the Global Majority as the “International Colonial Court”?

The culprit in the FPRRD abduction that no one wants to shout out loud is the “US Deep State” (which actually is pan-Western Deep State). The Duterte abduction is part of the much, much wider anti-Asia strategy of the West operating separately from the presidency of the U.S. The elimination of the Dutertes, given new emphasis by Sen. Imee’s report that Sara has been moved up the ICC list for arrest, is key to the strategy for U.S. total control of the Philippines.

The FPRRD kidnaping plot has run smack, head-on, against the awakening Filipino nation and global community. At least 86% of the Filipino people in the country and abroad are up in arms against the BBM government for perpetrating the FPRRD abduction and tying up its tongues in the hearings at the Senate Foreign Relations committee. This astounding upshot from this is the surge of support for the Duter-Ten, the Duterte senatorial candidates crucial in stopping the impeachment of VP Sara in the next senate.

EU Election Observers to monitor Foreign Meddling – laughable.

The headline posted by One News and Philippine Star (both Manny Pangilinan owned) online news on April 28, 2025 was both ominous and laughable, “EU Poll Observers to Monitor Trolls, Foreign Meddling” right at the same week the BBM government functionaries such as National Security Council gofer Jonathan Malaya is out in the media spreading the baseless scare of “indications” of China “interfering with the upcoming 2025 midterm elections.”

It is ominous as it signals direct intervention of the Western Powers in the May 11, 2024 mid-term elections in support of the cognitive warfare the BBM government is waging to cloud up the predictable cheating it will be committing to overcome the mounting surge of Duterte pro-independence candidates against BBM’s pro-US candidates. The vulnerability of the voting machine to cheating is already exposed by Isabela mayoral candidate Atty. Jeryll Respicio as well as Atty. Glenn Chong’s latest exposés.

The timing and coordination of arrival, media appearance and converging messaging of the EU Election Observer Mission (EUEOM) with BBM’s black election propaganda is very striking. The win of the US-backed and sycophantic BBM senatorial candidate (“con-didates” others say) is strategically crucial for the plans of the US proxy war to cripple Asia’s economic rise that Trump 2.0 tariff war has failed to dampen.  

These EU election observer missions are laughable as Europe’s conduct of elections are themselves in serious question today, with cases of electoral manipulation and sabotage by pro-EU and pro-war (anti-Russia) governments or by opposition factions in and out of government. In 2024 elections in Georgia and Romania were highlighted by pro-West versus anti-West political forces where the governments in power annulled victories of anti-West candidates charging “Russian influence operations” or “cheating.” U.S. geopolitical interference abounded.

Western Europe is no exception, Sahra Wagenknecht was robbed of her 5% win for parliament by failure of many of 230,000 registered voters abroad failing to receive their ballots – ensuring the victory of the pro-war Friedrich Merz. In France the EU power elite engineered the imprisonment of top opposition leader Marie Le Pen and barring the leading candidate to run in the 2027 elections to preserve the rule of the prevailing ruling power led by Emmanuel Macron – a move heavily criticized by EU leaders like Victor Orban and US VP JD Vance.

China has zero record of interference in internal politics of any nation. The U.S. has a long history of interference in nations all over the world. In the Philippines the U.S. installed Quezon, Roxas, deposed Quirino, set up Magsaysay, deposed Garcia to install Diodado Macapagal, deposed Marcos Sr. in 1986 and installed the Yellow regime from 1986 to 2016 (briefly interrupted in 1999 by Estrada whom the US also deposed), President Duterte disrupted the flow in 2016 only for the US to return in 2023 with BBM’s pivot back to the U.S.

To have foreign election observers from the EU to “monitor foreign meddling” is truly ironical and oxymoronic. It also portends more controversy and chaos in the coming midterm elections. In the end it may take a Duterte people power action in nationwide, scattered mass protests and civil disobedience campaign to paralyze the US-BBM regime and force it to abdicate along with the removal of the U.S. Bases, Missiles, to save the nation from the cataclysmic proxy war the US is plotting.

Google Maps WPS on, off, on again.

Last April 21, 2024 the Philippine News Agency headlined: “Gov’t welcomes inclusion of the WPS in Google Maps.” Tons of social media government trolls hailed this, but on April 30, 2025 the ABS-CBN News headlined this “’West Philippine Sea’ no longer visible on Google Maps” on May 1 GMA News Online headline, “West Philippine Sea label back on Google Maps.” This is how whimsical the claim of WPS is as a basis for waging a war of tension with China.

For this whimsical claim the Philippines has been sacrificing its ties with the roaring economic giant of the world today – China – in the process losing yearly billions of Dollars of income from Chinese tourism, infrastructure projects, ODA and investments that all other ASEAN countries are enjoying with China’s growing economy even amidst then now failing U.S. tariff war 2.0, while special ties with the U.S. means loaning to buy warplanes and missiles.

China is leading the Global Majority towards a brave new multipolar world while the Philippines willingly stays behind with its traditional colonial master to languish with the U.S.’s and its allies’ failing economies, unable to even take advantage of the lower 17% tariff of the U.S. that BBM’s DBM secretary Pangandaman says will “… weigh negatively on net exports… consumption, employment and the fiscal balance…”

Four consecutive months of increasing poverty ratings is reported by SWS in April of 2025 amid continuing agitation from the country’s security establishments, i.e. NSA on alleged China election interference and Philippine Navy flirtation with Taiwan naval cooperation (a clear red line) anti-China propaganda. The Philippine government has been warned by the Chinese government that it is “… playing with fire”.

It’s time the Philippines end Project Myoshu, restore the exercise of the Independent Foreign Policy, eject the U.S. and its military bases and missiles from the country and rejoin the ASEAN’s active pursuit of economic progress and prosperity adhering to ZOPFAN (Zone of Peace Freedom and Neutrality and the SEANFZ (Southeast Asian Nuclear Free Zone). If not the call for and push for impeachment of BBM must now proceed.

   

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