translation: Marcos is making nice with the US against China, who is threatening our resources.
China, of course, is also planning to invade Taiwan, meaning they can block the sea lanes more efficiently
and blackmail us (Manila is on the western side of the Philippines) and this doesn't even mention the internet cables going through that area;
in some ways, China blew it when they failed to keep promises of aid with Duterte: Now China is claiming Duterte had a gentleman's agreement they could steal the West Philippine sea from us, but there is a problem: NO paperwork, of course, and the president can't do that without the senate agreeing.
This isn't the first time they pulled this trick: The ZTE scandal with GMArroyo did the same but was stopped when our free press caught them at it.
But this was the backstory of that deal: letting china explore the area for oil etc. which was later declared an unconstitutional agreement.
But of course this year's execizes are more worried about the possible invasion of Taiwan than China's continued steal of the Philippine resources in the West Philippine sea. When they started making those artificial islands etc. President Obama told PNoy not to fight but take them to court. The Philippines won in courts, which sent China a nasty letter which they ignored of course.
I should note that these joint Balikatan exercizes go on all the time.
since a nearby airbase is used by the Philippine special forces to teach Yanks jungle warfare etc, usually we know they are there when we hear planes and helicopters going over us.
But this year, the joint exercizes will be bigger than usual.
And ironically, most of the training is about coordination between militaries, which comes in valuable when a disaster strikes. And this being the Philippines, disasters are always striking (earthquakes, volcanos, landslide, typhoons, floods). Indeed, disasters are so common we have our own Wikipedia page.
in the meanwhile, it is "TagInit", aka hot season/summer. It is supposed to go up to 100 F today. No not global warming: It does this every year.
And with the hot/dry season comes other problems; My airconditioner needs to be cleaned because it isn't working as well as usual.
But the city water got a leak, so we are without water. We do have a pump but it is not efficient. Kuya is too busy harvesting the rice to hire someone to fix it, so our handiman is trying his best.
We still haven't had electrical brownouts so that is good (usually the hydro electric power available relies on adequate water, which goes down during hot/dry season).
Oh well, I know how to shower with a tabo so no problem.
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update; also see yesterday's post.
Some of Chinese students in Cagayan were reportedly shelling out P2-M to obtain degrees with others not even bothering to attend classes amid worries about the reported surge of their presence there where there are two Edca sites @inquirerdotnet https://t.co/XNlBF18UrS
— John Eric Mendoza (@JEMendozaINQ) April 18, 2024
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