By Perfecto T. Raymundo, Jr.
PASIG CITY – Herman “Ka Mentong” Tiu Laurel, founder and president of the Asian Century Philippines Strategic Studies Institute (ASCPSSI), on Friday (Sept. 13) noted that there is a 500 percent increase in the value of armaments of the United States in its military stockpile.
“Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov have spoken that the Philippines is in the ‘cross-hair’ of a war instigated by the United States,” Laurel said.
During the ACPSSI Media Forum, Laurel cited the 11th Beijing Forum in 2024 with its enormously important theme of “Promoting Peace for a Shared Future” is an extremely timely opportunity to bring the Asia-Pacific and global majority community for dialogue and discussion to map the path to continuing world peace, progress and prosperity through common and indivisible security.
Laurel said that with 500 delegates from more than 100 countries and international organizations attending, and over 200 experts and scholars, exchanging analyses and views on how the world can move forward with the global peace agenda, and information from these discussions spreading and reverberating across the world’s traditional and new media, mankind’s awareness about the need for peace action will certainly be enhanced.
“An atmosphere of tension and conflict has been rising in regions and around the world where the collective West led by the United States has been sowing strategic turmoil,” Laurel said.
“It is no secret that the conflicts raging in the Eastern European and West African fronts, in Ukraine and Gaza, are workings of US proxy wars,” he added.
The ACPSSI top executive stressed “It is also no secret, especially to us in the Philippines and the Association of Southeast Asian nations, that the US seeks to spread this strategy of tension to Asia.”
Laurel said the Beijing Xiangshan Forum: Dialogue for forever peace convened yesterday (Sept. 12).
He added that the 21st Shangri-la Dialogue was clearly made into a platform to project the US to vilify China by highlighting the US’ willing stooge in Asia today, Philippine President Bongbong Marcos, as keynote speaker of the event to expound on the US-scripted South China Sea grumblings of US Filipino proxies that ASEAN and China have agreed to resolve respectfully and peacefully through dialogue and win-win strategies.
The think thank stressed “The Philippines is being dragged into the next proxy war the US is setting the stage for, imposing on the country the installation of intermediate and medium range missile launchers that have caused even Russia to take notice and express concern.
In reaction, Laurel said, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, “The implementation by the Americans of plans to deploy ground-based medium- and shorter-range missiles will not remain without our reaction…”
Sass Roganto Sassot asked What is the long-term goal of the United States in terms of our relationship with China?
“What Reuters exposed last July was on how the US military spread disinformation in the Philippines during the pandemic,” Sassot said.
The Covid-19 pandemic hit hard the Philippines on March 15, 2020 until December 2022.
“The long-term goal of the United States is to prevent the unification of Taiwan with mainland China. The Philippines is the exit point of Taiwan,” Sassot said.
“The long-term purpose of the permanent presence of the United States, through the EDCA sites, is to prevent the unification of Taiwan and China,” she added.
The United States never denied that there was such a deal on the Scarborough Shoal, when in fact, there was really no such a deal.
It is the narrative being propagated by mainstream media, which is, to have the United States’ presence back in the Philippines with the territorial dispute in the South China Sea or West Philippine Sea.
“If there is no conflict, then there is no more need for the United States. The rivalry will transform to partnership if there will be a joint venture activity between the Philippines, China and Vietnam in so far as exploration in the South China Sea is concerned,” Sassot said.
Whatever the Philippines does, the United States will follow.
“Joint development with China is the only realistic goal with the Philippines, which will transform the permanent crisis to permanent partnership,” Sassot said.
“We have no other choice, but to recalibrate the foreign policy with China,” Sassot added. A regime change will speed it up, which is the Philippines itself to assert its own interest.
“I hope we will bring back the foreign policy of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte. A regime calibration with President Bongbong Marcos will not be ‘dramatic’,” Sassot said.
Since its independence in 1946, the Philippines has never been engaged in any war with any country.
Sassot noted that there are many projects with China that are being kept delayed.
She advised for a joint development, which will have a joint administration, which has been an “offer” of China for the longest time, noting that, the Philippines is now “stuck” in the territorial dispute in the South China Sea.
“State practice changes in the international system,” noting that, no country has ever claimed Antarctica, and yet there is a “joint development venture” in Antarctica, adding that, “it should be a G to G (Government to Government) joint venture oil exploration.”
Sassot stressed that the Malampaya natural gas project was pursued with the hope of development in Palawan.
“Foreign policy is connected with oligarchy,’ she said, adding that, “What the administration (Marcos) did was in the wrong direction in our foreign policy.”
“Our foreign policy must be development-centered and the game now is geo-economics and the real need of the Philippines is development,” Sassot said, adding that, “The Philippines is a developing country, and therefore, what it needs is development.”
