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Web-only Exclusives November 30, 2000 From Our Correspondent: Hirohito and the War A conversation with biographer Herbert Bix From Our Correspondent: A Rough Road Ahead Bad news for the Philippines - and some others From Our Correspondent: Making Enemies Indonesia needs friends. So why is it picking fights? |
Week of May 28, 1999
ISLAND DISPUTES Up to 12 Chinese warships entered what Tokyo considers Japan's exclusive economic zone near the Senkaku islands (which the mainland calls the Diaoyutais), but Japan's Self-Defense Force took no action other than to monitor their movement. In Hong Kong, Philippine President Joseph Estrada hit out at Beijing for its activities in the Spratlys. "China's efforts in the South China Sea will undermine Southeast Asia's bottom-line security," Estrada told a meeting of senior Pacific Rim business leaders. He warned that ASEAN countries might not remain neutral in the face of China's "ambition."
TAIWAN
A WHITE-HATTED President Lee Teng-hui inspected the country's revamped armed forces, as military exercises roughly coincided with the release of Lee's book Taiwan's Viewpoint - an unorthodox analysis that calls on Beijing to grant greater autonomy to seven regions, based on cultural and nationalistic features. If Lee and Taiwan are serious about pushing that sort of line, they had better have the best military forces they can come up with - Beijing cursorily dismissed the book, and was no doubt less than amused by the thought of slicing up China into seven pieces. The anti-amphibious military exercises, fittingly, were held on Penghu, an island in the middle of the Taiwan Strait which was used by Dutch, French and Japanese invaders in the past. The impressive display reflects the 10-year effort to reduce troop numbers while enhancing combat capabilities.MANILA General Motors will decide by year-end whether to set up an assembly plant in the Philippines, according to GM's country manager Harold Koh. "It would be smaller than our plant in Thailand," where the U.S. firm is building a major regional assembly factory, Koh said. The Philippines lost out to Thailand in 1998 as a General Motors site.
Week of May 21, 1999
RATIFICATION OF THE VFA - Visiting Forces Agreement - remains under debate in the Senate. The pact, already approved by President Estrada, allows the resumption of large-scale military exercises with the U.S., which were suspended in 1995 and, more significantly, gives teeth to a mutual defense agreement. Actually, most of the demonstrations around the issue are against the agreement. The politically powerful Catholic Church denounced it as a pact "between a master and a lackey" and communist guerrillas say they'll call off peace talks if the agreement is approved. Estrada is sure he will have the necessary 16 of 23 senators lined up when the issue comes to its final vote on May 17Week of May 14, 1999
THE SPRATLYS As a confidence-building measure, Philippine and Vietnamese troops garrisoned in the disputed area will meet in friendly soccer matches when the typhoon season ends in October.MANILA State-run banks and pension funds may be ordered to invest up to $40 million in Philippine Airlines if the carrier fails to find new investors. The airline needs $200 million in fresh equity to keep flying, of which Chairman Lucio Tan has deposited $100 million. PAL said it received conditional approval for new credit guarantees from Britain, France and Germany, although the U.S. Export-Import Bank has not dropped its threat to repossess PAL aircraft.
Week of May 7, 1999
MANILA As part of a plan to accelerate faltering peace talks, the government will release 50 jailed New People's Army communist guerillas. President Estrada planned to free the insurgents in February but canceled the deal after the rebels kidnapped, among others, an army general and a captain, who were subsequently released. Estrada has set a year-end deadline for the negotiations and insists they be held in the Philippines.MANILA Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, wife of ousted Malaysian deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, refused to cancel a trip to the Philippines. Manila's ambassador Jose Brillantes was summoned to the Malaysian foreign ministry to hear of K.L.'s "unhappiness with the planned visit by Azizah," as Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar put it. Brillantes told him that "anyone who wants to come to the Philippines can." Philippine Foreign Secretary Domingo Siazon warned earlier that the trip could "harm our political relations with Malaysia if Wan Azizah uses this as a venue for political purposes." Azizah's three-day visit was sponsored in part by former president Corazon Aquino.
Week of April 30, 1999
ON THE EVE OF HIS 62ND BIRTHDAY President Joseph Estrada took to squatter areas in Manila to press the flesh. His popularity remains high, though he has made little progress in fulfilling his campaign promise to improve the lives of poor Filipinos. He faces a tough battle in keeping inflation to the government's 8%-9% target in the face of rising oil prices. Battles with secessionist-minded Muslim guerrillas in Mindanao continue, and peace talks with communist insurgents are set to unravel. Relations with China over the Spratlys are at a low ebb, but Malaca"ang seemed to bow to Beijing by refusing to grant permission for Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui to visit the country. "It would not contribute to stability in the region," according to an official spokesman.ACCORDING TO THE ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK'S Development Outlook for 1999, growth in the Asian and Pacific region is expected to pick up this year, from 2.6% in 1998 to 4.4% this year. Of four major Southeast Asian countries - Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand - Malaysia and the Philippines are the ones most likely to grow, although at modest rates of 0.9% and 2.4% respectively.
Week of April 16, 1999
MANILA President Estrada granted a 90-day reprieve for three convicted murderers on the eve of their execution to allow time for a review of their case. "No one should misconstrue from this reprieve my resolve to wage an all-out battle against crime," Estrada told a news conference hours before the scheduled death by lethal injection of Dante Piandong, 27, Jesus Morallos, 32, and Archie Bulan, 24. The three were sentenced to die for the 1994 robbery of a bus and the murder of a policeman passenger who had begged for mercy. The men have never admitted to the crimes. The country's death row population is set to top 1,000 this year.CHASE MANHATTAN BANK dismissed a Philippine Airlines' plan to stretch out its $330-million short-term debt payments to the bank over 12 years as "unconscionable" and a "deprivation of property without due process of law."
Week of April 9, 1999
MANILA "If they don't fulfill their promise, I won't have anything more to do with them," President Estrada said of the communist rebels holding four military and police hostages. He warned that the guerrillas must carry out their promise to free the men without negotiations, otherwise he will completely cut off all peace talks.Week of April 2, 1999
SPRATLYS Beijing rejected the Philippines' demand that it stop encroaching on reefs and outcroppings in the area. China has garrisoned troops on 10 sites, while Manila has troops on eight. Talks between the two countries in Manila on March 22 and 23 went into overtime but the dispute was not resolved, although both sides called for restraint. China ignored demands to dismantle its structures, like this one at Johnson Reef, and rejected a call to give both sides equal access to the facilities. And on March 24, Beijing extended a fishing ban into the disputed area - "Only people with special permits can fish areas around the Nansha [Spratly] Islands south of 12 degrees latitude," it declared unilaterally.Week of March 19, 1999
MANILA It looks likely that the Visiting Forces Agreement with the U.S. will be approved by the Senate, largely in response to the Spratlys situation. The VFA will basically revitalize the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty, signed to counter outside aggression. The pact provides for large-scale joint military exercises between the two countries.Week of March 12, 1999
HONOLULU A Hawaii federal court approved in principle an agreement between the estate of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos and the government for the payment of $150 million, minus legal fees, to 9,539 human rights victims or their families who were tortured, executed or had disappeared during the martial law era from 1972 to1986. One leftist leader denounced the plan as a "swindle" the day after it was announced.
IRIDIUM
Motorola's 66-satellite communication network Iridium expects to miss its first-quarter targets for the number of subscribers it has been able to attract and the amount of revenue it has generated. It could possibly wind up in technical default of agreements with the lenders that helped finance the $5-billion system.
Week of March 5, 1999
MANILA President Joseph Estrada cut off peace talks with communist rebels, citing their "treachery and bad faith" in kidnapping two army officers and a policeman. He ended negotiations "immediately and indefinitely," and withdrew guarantees of immunity from arrest given to 85 guerrilla negotiators and their staff - see Mindanao's ChanceWeek of February 26, 1999
SPRATLY ISLANDS Philippine defense secretary Orlando Mercado says that China has completed its work on enlarging structures on the chain of reefs. Mercado referred to surveillance photographs showing a three-story concrete building, a wharf, a helicopter landing platform and possible gun and radar emplacements.MINDANAO Hashim Salamat, chairman of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, says he will insist on a separate Islamic state in the southern Philippines if formal peace talks with the government proceed. "We are not talking of autonomy. That's out of the question. It is our right to be independent," Salamat told local TV reporters.
Week of February 19, 1999
SULTAN KUDARAT The Moro Islamic Liberation Front wants a popular vote to decide if a separate Islamic state should be established in Mindanao. MILF vice chairman Ghazali Jaafar made the proposal on the sidelines of peace negotiations with the government.Week of February 12, 1999
MANILA In talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the government said it is prepared to offer substantial autonomy beyond that ceded to the Moro National Liberation Front in 1996. Clashes in the current autonomous region in Mindanao are increasing.Week of February 5, 1999
MANILA The Supreme Court rejected what may be the final appeal to stay the Feb. 5 execution of convicted child-rapist Leo Echegaray.Week of January 22, 1999
MANILA Lucio Tan will remain chairman of debt-laden Philippine Airlines despite the appointment of four former executives of Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific Airways to help run the ailing flag carrier. President Estrada said Tan will still head PAL's policy-making board of directors, while the Cathay Pacific management team will take over operations.Week of January 15, 1999
PUBLIC OUTRAGE ACCOMPANIED the last-minute reprieve for a rapist scheduled to be the first convict executed since 1976. The Supreme Court in Manila suspended the execution of Leo Echegaray just three hours before he had been due to receive a lethal injection. Echegaray was found guilty of the 1994 rape of his then 11-year-old daughter. President Joseph Estrada said the decision marked a "sad day for law enforcement," while angry Filipinos phoned bomb threats through to the court building in protest. Echegaray's victim was said to be depressed and restless. She has called for her father's death sentence to be carried out.Week of January 8, 1999
Manila There were 188 known kidnap victims in 1998 compared to 249 in 1997, the independent Citizens' Action Against Crime said in its year-end report. Of the 1998 victims, six were abducted in November and 11 in December.News from The Philippines in 1998
News from The Philippines in 1997
News from The Philippines in 1996
News from The Philippines in 1995
