“The unrenewed Philippine-China coast guard hotline MoU is now being replaced by a new Philippine-China hotline reaching all the way to the highest offices of the two governments!”
WE HAVE seen a de-escalation order emanating from the Little President, i.e. the Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, following the shocking June 17 incident when the Chinese Coast Guard confronted the Philippine Navy Special Operation Group with axes and machetes, boarded and confiscated firearms from the Filipino soldiers.
Bersamin used very tempered words to describe the CCG actions not meant to be accurate but to be calming and even reassuring to the other side the Philippines did want to “ease tensions.”
Although Bersamin was quickly contradicted by the very hawkish, nay, even vulturish, Defense Secretary Gibo Teodoro countering the CCG action was an “aggressive and illegal use of force” – stating these in the presence of President Bongbong Marcos during a visit to the wounded navy man involved in the incident.
For weeks, there was a stand-off between the two government positions reflected by DFA Sec. Manalo and DND Sec. Teodoro sitting side-by-side at Imee Marcos’ Senate hearing on the issue.
This week, just a few days over a month after the June 17 incident, the Department of Foreign Affairs and China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the establishment of a “crisis hotline” between the highest levels of the two governments in case of potential clash situations.
This clearly pursues the de-escalation direction and indicates the Philippine government is sticking by the Bersamin line of downplaying conflict and upscaling dialogue and amicable resolution of differences.
The very next day after the hotline was announced, the US Proxies went into action.
Arch anti-China Lawfare (war using legalistic weaponry) enforcer former Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio went forum shopping and was readily welcomed (if not sought after) by the various Salim-Forum Energy and oligarchy linked mainstream media, to say the “PH-China hotline is ‘useless’” and that a hotline had already existed long before but “Beijing rarely answered.”
This was a blatant lie from a former Supreme Court justice.
The Chinese side has always been the eager-beaver party to maintain good communications with the Philippines side on all levels.
We can cite several examples, one is the recent New Year’s call from the Chinese embassy’s defense attache Col. Li to Adm. Alberto Carlos that led to the first “de-escalation” in the Feb. 4 “flawless” RORE mission.
The Chinese side is always eager to keep dialogue alive and dynamic cultivate improving relations, but the reverse has been true on the Philippines side since Feb. 2023.
In August of 2023, PCG spokesman revealed a very telling unspoken initiative from the Philippines side that year.
Tarriela revealed that during the visit in January of 2023 of President Bongbong Marcos to President Xi Jinping, one of the MoUs proposed by the Chinese side was the renewal of the Philippines and Chinese coast guard hotline set since 2017.
In the words of Tarriela to the Philippine media: “This is one of the MoUs proposed by the Chinese Embassy but not renewed.” The proponent would not have been the one to decline a renewal.
The Chinese Embassy in Manila was thrown into a panic in Feb. 2023 when all calls of the embassy from all levels to all levels of the Philippine government were snubbed.
Total silence met even the calls from the ambassador’s office to all levels of the Philippine government, and this was shocking to the embassy as PBBM just had one of the warmest welcomes to Beijing accorded by President Xi Jinping to any head-of-state, but a wall of silence followed in February after the Philippines agreed to the US “assertive transparency” strategy.
What followed Feb. 2023 had never been seen before in the 25 years since the BRP Sierra Madre had been deliberately grounded at the Second Thomas Shoal in 1999 when one could count on the fingers of two hands the number of significant clashes between the Philippines and China in the South China Sea.
After Feb. 2023, it became almost a weekly confrontation escalating to allegations of “military grade laser” then to “water cannon me” incidents, towards an easing in Feb. 2024, then the June 17 incident happened,
The unrenewed Philippine-China coast guard hotline MoU is now being replaced by a new Philippine-China hotline reaching all the way to the highest offices of the two governments!
We take the DND and the defense establishment hawks are quiet on this hotline revival and only the civilian US Proxies are vituperating against it.
Does this mean the riot act has been read to the US Proxies in the government bureaucracy and de-escalation is on its way back to permanence?
It’s one for Ripley’s.
