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Tag Archives: Manila
Austin’s Manila visit to bring deal on expanded base access – Philippines official
WASHINGTON/MANILA, Feb 1 (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s visit to the Philippines this week is expected to bring an announcement of expanded U.S. access to military bases in the country, a senior Philippines official said on Wednesday.
Washington is eager to extend its security options in the Philippines as part of efforts to deter any move by China against self-ruled Taiwan, while Manila wants to bolster defense of its territorial claims in the disputed South China Sea.
Austin arrived in Manila on Tuesday night, and will meet his Philippine counterpart and other officials on Thursday “to build on our strong bilateral relationship, discuss a range of security initiatives, and advance our shared vision of a free and open Pacific,” he said on Twitter.
On Wednesday morning, Austin visited U.S. troops stationed at a Philippine military camp in the southern city of Zamboanga, according to Roy Galido, commander of the Western Mindanao Command.
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“Our working relationship to them is very strong,” Galido told reporters, adding that U.S. troops help in counter terrorism, and humanitarian and disaster response missions.
U.S. officials have said Washington hopes for an access agreement during Austin’s visit, which began on Tuesday, and that Washington has proposed additional sites under an Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) dating back to 2014.
“There’s a push for another four or five of these EDCA sites,” the a senior Philippines official said. “We are going to have definitely an announcement of some sort. I just don’t know how many would be the final outcome of that.”
The official declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Manila and Washington have a mutual defense treaty and have been discussing U.S. access to four additional bases on the northern land mass of Luzon, the closest part of the Philippines to Taiwan, as well as another on the island of Palawan, facing the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
EDCA allows U.S. access to Philippine bases for joint training, pre-positioning of equipment and building of facilities such as runways, fuel storage and military housing, but not a permanent presence. The U.S. military already has access to five such sites.
The Philippines official said increased U.S. access needed to benefit both countries.
“We don’t want it to be directed to just for the use of the United States purely for their defense capabilities … it has to be mutually beneficial,” he said.
“And obviously, we want to make sure that no country will see … anything that we’re doing … was directed towards any conflict or anything of that sort,” he added.
Manila’s priorities in its agreements with Washington were to boost its defense capabilities and interoperability with U.S. forces and to improve its ability to cope with climate change and natural disasters, the official said.
He said that after cancelling an agreement for the purchase of heavy-lift helicopters from Russia last year, Manila had reached a deal with Washington to upgrade “a couple” of Blackhawk helicopters that could be used for disaster relief.
“The deal with Russia was very attractive because for a certain budget we were able to get something like 16 of these heavy-lift helicopters,” the official said. “Now with the United States, obviously their helicopters are more expensive, so we’re looking at how we can fit in the budget that we’ve had.”
Gregory Poling, a Southeast Asia expert at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, said access to sites in northern Luzon would help U.S. efforts to deter any Chinese move against Taiwan by putting the waters to the south of the island within range of shore-based missiles.
He said the U.S. and Philippine marines were pursuing similar capabilities with ground-based rockets, with Manila’s particular interest being to protect its South China Sea claims.
The Philippines is among several countries at odds with China in the South China Sea and has been angered by the constant presence of vessels in its exclusive economic zone it says are manned by Chinese militia. China is also Manila’s main trading partner.
Reporting by David Brunnstrom; additional reporting by Idrees Ali in Washington and Neil Jerome Morales and Karen Lema in Manila; Editing by Gerry Doyle
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
50 dead, dozens feared missing as storm lashes Philippines
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Flash floods and landslides set off by torrential rains left at least 50 people dead, including in a hard-hit southern Philippine province, where as many as 60 villagers are feared missing and buried in a huge mudslide laden with rocks, trees and debris, officials said Saturday.
At least 42 people were swept away by rampaging floodwaters and drowned or were hit by debris-filled mudslides in three towns in Maguindanao province from Thursday night to early Friday, said Naguib Sinarimbo, the interior minister for a five-province Muslim autonomous region governed by former separatist guerrillas.
Eight other people died elsewhere in the country from the onslaught of Tropical Storm Nalgae, which slammed into the eastern province of Camarines Sur early Saturday, the government’s disaster response agency said.
But the worst storm impact so far was a mudslide that buried dozens of houses with as many as 60 people in the tribal village of Kusiong in Maguindanao’s Datu Odin Sinsuat town, Sinarimbo told The Associated Press by telephone, citing accounts from Kusiong villagers who survived the flash flood and mudslide.
Army Lt. Col. Dennis Almorato, who went to the mudslide-hit community Saturday, said the muddy deluge buried about 60 rural houses in about 5 hectares (12 acres) section of the community. He gave no estimate of how many villagers may have been buried in the mudslide, which he described as “overwhelming.”
At least 13 bodies, mostly of children, were dug up Friday and Saturday by rescuers in Kusiong, Sinarimbo said.
“That community will be our ground zero today,” he said, adding that heavy equipment and more rescue workers had been deployed to intensify the search and rescue work.
“It was hit by torrents of rainwater with mud, rocks and trees that washed out houses,” Sinarimbo said.
The coastal village, which lies at the foot of a mountain, is accessible by road, allowing more rescuers to be deployed Saturday to deal with one of the worst weather-related disasters to hit the country’s south in decades, he said.
Citing reports from mayors, governors and disaster-response officials, Sinarimbo said 27 died mostly by drowning and landslides in Datu Odin Sinsuat town, 10 in Datu Blah Sinsuat town and five in Upi town, all in Maguindanao.
An official death count of 67 in Maguindanao on Friday night was recalled by authorities after discovering some double-counting of casualties.
The unusually heavy rains flooded several towns in Maguindanao and outlying provinces in a mountainous region with marshy plains, which become like a catch basin in a downpour. Floodwaters rapidly rose in many low-lying villages, forcing some residents to climb onto their roofs, where they were rescued by army troops, police and volunteers, Sinarimbo said.
The coast guard issued pictures of its rescuers wading in chest-high, brownish floodwaters to rescue the elderly and children in Maguindanao. Many of the swamped areas had not been flooded for years, including Cotabato city where Sinarimbo said his house was inundated.
The stormy weather in a large swath of the country prompted the coast guard to prohibit sea travel in dangerously rough seas as millions of Filipinos planned to travel over a long weekend for visits to relatives’ tombs and for family reunions on All Saints’ Day in the largely Roman Catholic nation. Several domestic flights have also been canceled, stranding thousands of passengers.
The wide rain bands of Nalgae, the 16th storm to hit the Philippine archipelago this year, enabled it to dump rain in the country’s south even though the storm was blowing farther north, government forecaster Sam Duran said.
The storm was battering Laguna province Saturday night with sustained winds of 95 kilometers (59 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 160 kph (99 mph) and moving northwestward — just south of the densely populated capital Manila, which had been forecast for a direct hit until the storm turned.
More than 158,000 people in several provinces were protectively evacuated away from the path of the storm, officials said.
About 20 typhoons and storms batter the Philippine archipelago each year. It is located on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a region along most of the Pacific Ocean rim where many volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur, making the nation one of the world’s most disaster-prone.
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Associated Press journalists Joeal Calupitan and Aaron Favila contributed to this report.
AP Exclusive: Philippines scraps Russian chopper deal
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The Philippine government has scrapped a deal to purchase 16 Russian military transport helicopters due to fears of possible U.S. sanctions, Philippine officials said.
Former Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said Tuesday night he canceled the 12.7-billion-peso ($227 million) deal to acquire the Mi-17 helicopters in a decision last month that was approved by then-President Rodrigo Duterte before their terms in office ended on June 30.
“We could face sanctions,” Lorenzana told The Associated Press, describing ways Washington could express its displeasure if the Philippines proceeded with the deal due to America’s worsening conflict with Russia.
American security officials were aware of Manila’s decision and could offer similar heavy-lift helicopters for Philippine military use, he said.
After serving as defense chief under Duterte, Lorenzana has been appointed by new President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to head a government agency in charge of transforming former military bases into business hubs.
Philippine Ambassador to Washington Jose Manuel Romualdez told The AP that the deal was canceled because Manila could face possible sanctions under a U.S. federal law called the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act if the helicopter deal went through.
A Philippine military official said the helicopter deal would undergo a “termination process” after the decision to cancel it was made since a contract has already been signed. The Russians can appeal but there is little room for the Philippine government to reconsider, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of a lack of authority to publicly discuss the issue.
Under the helicopter purchase agreement, which was signed in November, the first batch of the multi-purpose helicopters would have been scheduled for delivery by Russia’s Sovtechnoexport in about two years.
Asked in March if Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would affect the purchase, Lorenzana told reporters: “We do not see any likelihood of it being scrapped as of this moment” and added that “only time can tell.”
Lorenzana at the time said an initial payment had been made by the Philippines in January. It was not immediately clear what would happen to the payment after the Philippines’ decision to back out of the deal.
The Russian-made helicopters could have been used for combat, search and rescue operations, and medical evacuations in the Southeast Asian archipelago, which is often lashed by typhoons and other natural disasters, Philippine officials said.
In March, the Philippines voted “yes” on a U.N. General Assembly resolution that demanded an immediate halt to Moscow’s attack on Ukraine and the withdrawal of all Russian troops. It condemned the invasion and echoed U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s appeal for respect of humanitarian principles to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.
Duterte has expressed concern over the global impact of the Russian invasion but has not personally condemned it. When he was in office, he nurtured close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he once called his “idol,” and Chinese leader Xi Jinping while frequently criticizing U.S. security policies.
The Philippines is a treaty ally of Washington, which has imposed heavy sanctions aimed at pressuring Moscow to pull back from Ukraine.
The deal to acquire the Russian helicopters was among several weapons purchase agreements signed during Duterte’s final months in office.
Last February, Lorenzana signed a 32-billion-peso ($571 million) deal to acquire 32 S-70i Black Hawk helicopters from Poland-based aerospace manufacturer PZL Mielec. It was the largest military aircraft acquisition contract signed under Duterte, Philippine defense officials said..
Due to financial constraints, the Philippines has struggled for years to modernize its military, one of the most underfunded in Asia, to deal with decades-long Muslim and communist insurgencies and to defend its territories in the disputed South China Sea.
Strong quake kills 2, injures dozens in northern Philippines
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A strong earthquake left at least two people dead and injured dozens in the northern Philippines on Wednesday, where the temblor set off small landslides and damaged buildings and churches and prompted terrified crowds and hospital patients in the capital to rush outdoors.
The 7-magnitude quake was centered in the hard-hit province of Abra in a mountainous area, said Renato Solidum, the head of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.
“The ground shook like I was on a swing and the lights suddenly went out. We rushed out of the office, and I heard screams and some of my companions were in tears,” said Michael Brillantes, a safety officer of the Abra town of Lagangilang, near the epicenter.
“It was the most powerful quake I’ve felt and I thought the ground would open up,” Brillantes told The Associated Press by cellphone.
A villager died when he was hit by falling cement slabs in his house in Abra, where at least 25 others were injured and were mostly confined in hospitals, officials said.
A construction worker was hit by debris and died in the strawberry-growing mountain town of La Trinidad in Benguet province, where some roads were shut by landslides and boulders. Five people were injured when rocks and debris pummeled their SUV and a truck on a hillside road in Mountain Province near Benguet, officials said.
Many houses and buildings had cracked walls, including some that collapsed in Abra, where new President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who took office less than a month ago, planned to travel to meet victims and local officials.
The Red Cross issued a picture of a small three-story building precariously leaning toward a debris-covered road in Abra. A video taken by a panicking witness showed parts of an old stone church tower being peeled off, then falling in a cloud of dust on a hilltop.
Patients, some in wheelchairs, and medical personnel were evacuated from at least two hospitals in Manila, about 300 kilometers (200 miles) south of Lagangilang, but were later told to return after engineers found only a few minor cracks on walls.
The quake’s strength was lowered from the initial 7.3 magnitude after further analysis. The quake was set off by movement in a local fault at a depth of 25 kilometers (15 miles), the institute said, adding it expected damage and more aftershocks.
The U.S. Geological Survey measured the quake’s strength at 7.0 and depth at 10 kilometers (6 miles). Shallower quakes tend to cause more damage.
The Philippines lies along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of faults around the Pacific Ocean where most of the world’s earthquakes occur. It is also lashed by about 20 typhoons and tropical storms each year, making it one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.
A magnitude 7.7 quake killed nearly 2,000 people in the northern Philippines in 1990.
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Associated Press journalists Joeal Calupitan and Aaron Favila contributed to this report.
Philippines earthquake: 7.1-magnitude quake strikes Abra province, impact felt in Manila
The quake struck in northern Luzon, the country’s most populous island, at 8:43 a.m. local time (8:43 p.m. ET), according to USGS. The agency originally designated the quake 7.1-magnitude, before downgrading it to 7.0.
Its epicenter was about 13 kilometers (8 miles) southeast of the small town of Dolores, Abra province, with a depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles), according to USGS.
The earthquake’s impact was felt in the capital city, Manila, more than 400 kilometers (about 250 miles) away, where workers and residents evacuated from buildings and gathered on the street.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said citizens should brace for any aftershocks, but added it had not issued any tsunami warnings because it was detected inland. Abra is a landlocked region known for deep valleys and mountainous terrain.
In a statement, Rep. Ching Bernos, congresswoman for Abra province, said the quake “caused damages to many households and establishments,” and “was also felt in various parts of Luzon and activated preemptive measures in many places.”
Photos from Abra show buildings damaged by the quake and debris covering the ground. One building is seen with cracks along the walls, while another lies tilted on its side.
Bernos said her office is monitoring the situation and assessing the extent of the damage, and urged residents to stay alert “in light of the possibilities of aftershocks.”
Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. ordered an immediate dispatch of rescue and relief teams to Abra, and will visit the affected areas once he is “given the all-clear,” his press secretary said in news conference on Wednesday.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated Ching Bernos’ position. She is a congresswoman for Abra province.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated when the earthquake took place. It was Wednesday in the Philippines.
Marcos presidency complicates US efforts to counter China
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s apparent landslide victory in the Philippine presidential election is giving rise to immediate concerns about a further erosion of democracy in the region, and could complicate American efforts to blunt growing Chinese influence and power in the Pacific.
Marcos, the son and namesake of longtime dictator Ferdinand Marcos, captured more than 30.8 million votes in Monday’s election according to an unofficial count, more than double those of his closest challenger.
If the results stand, he will take office at the end of June for a six-year term with Sara Duterte, the daughter of outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte, as his vice president.
Duterte — who leaves office with a 67% approval rating — nurtured closer ties with China and Russia, while at times railing against the United States.
He has walked back on many of his threats against Washington, however, including a move to abrogate a defense pact between the two countries, and the luster of China’s promise of infrastructure investment has dulled, with much failing to materialize.
Whether the recent trend in relations with the U.S. will continue has a lot to do with how President Joe Biden’s administration responds to the return of a Marcos to power in the Philippines, said Manila-based political scientist Andrea Chloe Wong, a former researcher in the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs.
“On the one hand you have Biden regarding the geostrategic interests in the Philippines, and on the other hand he has to balance promoting American democratic ideals and human rights,” she said.
“If he chooses to do that, he might have to isolate the Marcos administration, so this will definitely be a delicate balancing act for the Philippines, and Marcos’ approach to the U.S. will highly depend on how Biden will engage with him.”
His election comes at a time when the U.S. has been increasingly focused on the region, embarking on a strategy unveiled in February to considerably broaden U.S. engagement by strengthening a web of security alliances and partnerships, with an emphasis on addressing China’s growing influence and ambitions.
Thousands of American and Filipino forces recently wrapped up one of their largest combat exercises in years, which showcased U.S. firepower in the northern Philippines near its sea border with Taiwan.
Marcos has been short on specifics about foreign policy, but in interviews he said he wanted to pursue closer ties with China, including possibly setting aside a 2016 ruling by a tribunal in The Hague that invalidated almost all of China’s historical claims to the South China Sea.
China has refused to recognize the ruling, and Marcos said it won’t help settle disputes with Beijing, “so that option is not available to us.”
Allowing the U.S. to play a role in trying to settle territorial spats with China will be a “recipe for disaster,” Marcos said in an interview with DZRH radio in January. He said Duterte’s policy of diplomatic engagement with China is “really our only option.”
Marcos has also said he would maintain his nation’s alliance with the U.S., but the relationship is complicated by American backing of the administrations that took power after his father was deposed, and a 2011 U.S. District Court ruling in Hawaii finding him and his mother in contempt of an order to furnish information on assets in connection with a 1995 human rights class action suit against Marcos Sr.
The court fined them $353.6 million, which has never been paid and could complicate the possibility of him visiting the U.S. in the future.
The U.S. has a long history with the Philippines, which was an American colony for most of the first half of the last century before it was granted independence in 1946.
The U.S. closed its last military bases on the Philippines in 1992, but the country’s location on the South China Sea means it remains strategically important, and under a 1951 collective defense treaty the U.S. guarantees its support if the Philippines is attacked.
Even though the Biden administration may have preferred to work with Marcos’ leading opponent, Leni Robredo, the “U.S.-Philippines alliance is vital to both nations’ security and prosperity, especially in the new era of competition with China,” said Gregory B. Poling, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
“Unlike Leni, with her coherent platform for good governance and development at home and standing up to China abroad, Marcos is a policy cipher,” Poling said in a research note. “He has avoided presidential debates, shunned interviews, and has been silent on most issues.”
Marcos has been clear, however, that he would like to try again to improve ties with Beijing, Poling said.
“But when it comes to foreign policy, Marcos will not have the same space for maneuver that Duterte did,” he said. “The Philippines tried an outstretched hand and China bit it. That is why the Duterte government has re-embraced the U.S. alliance and gotten tougher on Beijing over the last two years.”
Marcos Sr. was ousted in 1986 after millions of people took to the streets, forcing an end to his corrupt dictatorship and a return to democracy. But the election of Duterte as president in 2016 brought a return to a strongman-type leader, which voters have now doubled-down on with Marcos Jr.
Domestically, Marcos, who goes by his childhood nickname “Bongbong,” is widely expected to pick up where Duterte left off, stifling a free press and cracking down on dissent with less of the outgoing leader’s crude and brash style, while putting an end to ongoing attempts to recover some of the billions of dollars his father pilfered from the state coffers.
But a return to the hard-line rule of his father, who declared martial law for much of his rule, is not likely, said Julio Teehankee, a political science professor at Manila’s De La Salle University.
“He does not have the courage or the brilliance, or even the ruthlessness to become a dictator, so I think what we will see is a form of authoritarian-lite or Marcos-lite,” Teehankee said.
The new Marcos government will not mean the end of Philippine democracy, Poling said, “though it may accelerate its decay.”
“The country’s democratic institutions have already been battered by six years of the Duterte presidency and the rise of online disinformation, alongside the decades-long corrosives of oligarchy, graft, and poor governance,” he said.
“The United States would be better served by engagement rather than criticism of the democratic headwinds buffeting the Philippines.”
Marcos’ approach at home could have a spillover effect in other countries in the region, where democratic freedoms are being increasingly eroded in many places and the Philippines had been seen as a positive influence, Wong said.
“This will have an impact on Philippine foreign policy when it comes to promoting its democratic values, freedoms and human rights, particularly in Southeast Asia,” she said. “The Philippines is regarded as a bastion of democracy in the region, with a strong civil society and a noisy media, and with Bongbong Marcos as president, we will have less credibility.”
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Rising reported from Bangkok.
Dictator’s son far ahead in Philippine presidential vote
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The son and namesake of ousted Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos took a commanding lead in an unofficial vote count in Monday’s presidential election in the deeply divided Asian democracy.
With 80% of the votes tabulated, Marcos Jr. had 25.9 million, far ahead of his closest challenger, current Vice President Leni Robredo, a champion of human rights, who had 12.3 million.
The election winner will take office on June 30 for a single, six-year term as leader of a Southeast Asian nation hit hard by two years of COVID-19 outbreaks and lockdowns.
Still more challenging problems include deeper poverty and unemployment and decades-long Muslim and communist insurgencies. The next president is also likely to hear demands to prosecute outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte for thousands of killings during his anti-drug crackdown — deaths already under investigation by the International Criminal Court.
Duterte’s daughter, southern Davao city Mayor Sara Duterte, is Marcos Jr.’s vice presidential running mate in an alliance of the scions of two authoritarian leaders who concern human rights groups. The tie-up has combined the voting power of their separate northern and southern political strongholds, boosting their chances but compounding worries of human rights activists.
Sara Duterte also had a formidable lead with 25.8 million votes for vice president in the unofficial count from the Commission on Elections server. The president and vice president are elected separately in the Philippines.
“History may repeat itself if they win,” said Myles Sanchez, a 42-year-old human rights worker. “There may be a repeat of martial law and the drug killings that happened under their parents.”
In a late-night video statement, Marcos Jr. did not claim victory but thanked his supporters for accompanying him on “this sometimes very difficult journey” and urged them to keep up their guard until the vote count is completed.
“Let us keep watch on the vote,” he said. “If we’ll be fortunate, I’ll expect that your help will not wane, your trust will not wane because we have a lot of things to do in the times ahead.”
Marcos Jr., whose father was ousted in a 1986 army-backed “People Power” uprising, held a wide lead in pre-election surveys. But Robredo tapped into shock and outrage over the prospect of a Marcos recapturing the seat of power and harnessed a network of campaign volunteers to underpin her candidacy.
Officials said the election was relatively peaceful despite pockets of violence in the country’s volatile south. Thousands of police and military personnel were deployed to secure election precincts, especially in rural regions with a history of violent political rivalries.
Filipinos stood in long lines to cast their ballots, with the start of voting delayed by a few hours in a few areas due to malfunctioning vote machines, power outages, bad weather and other problems.
Eight others were in the presidential race, including former boxing star Manny Pacquiao, Manila Mayor Isko Moreno and former national police chief Sen. Panfilo Lacson.
Sanchez said the violence and abuses that marked the martial-law era under Marcos and Duterte’s drug war more than three decades later victimized loved ones from two generations of her family. Her grandmother was sexually abused and her grandfather tortured by counterinsurgency troops under Marcos in the early 1980s in their impoverished farming village in Southern Leyte province.
Under Duterte’s crackdown, Sanchez’s brother, a sister and a sister-in-law were wrongfully linked to illegal drugs and separately killed, she told The Associated Press in an interview. She described the killings of her siblings as “a nightmare that has caused unspeakable pain.”
She begged Filipinos not to vote for politicians who either openly defended the widespread killings or conveniently looked away.
Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte avoided such volatile issues in the campaign and steadfastly stuck instead to a battle cry of national unity, even though their fathers’ presidencies opened some of the Philippines’ most turbulent divisions.
“I have learned in our campaign not to retaliate,” Sara Duterte told followers Saturday night on the final day of campaigning, where she and Marcos Jr. thanked a huge crowd in a night of rap music, dance shows and fireworks near Manila Bay.
At her own rally, Robredo thanked her supporters who jammed her star-studded sorties and waged a house-to-house battle to endorse her brand of clean and hands-on politics. She asked them to fight for patriotic ideals beyond the elections.
“We’ve learned that those who have awoken will never close their eyes again,” Robredo told a crowd that filled the main avenue in the capital’s Makati financial district. “It’s our right to have a future with dignity and it’s our responsibility to fight for it.”
In Maguindanao province, a security hotspot in the south, three village guards were killed by gunmen outside an elections center in Buluan town, briefly disrupting voting. Nine would-be voters and their companions were wounded separately Sunday night when unidentified men fired five rifle grenades in the Datu Unsay town hall, police said.
Aside from the presidency, more than 18,000 government posts are being contested, including half of the 24-member Senate, more than 300 seats in the House of Representatives, as well as provincial and local offices across the archipelago of more than 109 million Filipinos.
More than 67 million people were registered to vote, including about 1.6 million Filipinos overseas.
In the 2016 contest, Duterte emerged as the clear winner within a few hours after polls closed and his key challengers quickly conceded. The vice presidential race that year was won narrowly by Robredo over Marcos Jr., and the outcome was slower to become known.
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Associated Press journalists Joeal Calupitan, Aaron Favila and Cecilia Forbes in Manila, Philippines, and Kiko Rosario in Bangkok contributed to this report.
The longest Christmas celebrations in the world
In the centuries-old carol “The 12 Days of Christmas,” celebrations span less than two weeks.
Today Christmas is regularly celebrated throughout December, and in some places, a good portion of November too.
But four months of festivities in the Philippines gives new meaning to the term “holiday season.”
The ‘ber’ months
Christmas is celebrated during the “ber” months, as it’s called in the Philippines — that is, September, October, November and December, said Robert Blancaflor, president of the Manila-based events design company Robert Blancaflor Group.
“Christmas is the longest celebrated season in the Philippines and … our country celebrates it the longest globally,” he said. “Can you imagine a whole nation willingly sharing warmth and love … this long?”
“Everywhere you look here is just pure Christmas,” said Robert Blancaflor, an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year finalist, adding he’s “glad to be living in such a joyous country.”
Courtesy of Robert Blancaflor
But the parties don’t end in December.
“Christmas fever starts on Sept. 1 and ends the first week of January,” said Marot Nelmida-Flores, a professor of Philippine studies at the University of the Philippines Diliman.
This is, however, “a recent phenomenon,” she said. And the reason why is a familiar one.
Commercialization of the holiday
“With the proliferation of shopping malls, first in metro Manila which later on mushroomed far into the provinces, Christmas carols started to be heard soon after All Saints Day [on] Nov. 1,” said Joven Cuanang, a neurologist and respected art and culture enthusiast in the Philippines. “This was to attract people to start shopping for Christmas gifts — it was commerce-driven.”
Retail stores pushing out Christmas-themed merchandise earlier than in the past is responsible for so-called “Christmas creep” in many countries. A significant difference is that while others condemn the practice, Filipinos largely embrace it.
A Manila vendor sleeps among Christmas “parol,” or lanterns made of paper and bamboo that are shaped to resemble the Star of Bethlehem.
NOEL CELIS | AFP | Getty Images
“Filipinos start to make parol, or Christmas lanterns, as early as September,” said Nelmida-Flores. “Now, many parts of the islands have their own trademark parol and Christmas theme plazas and parks.”
Families reunite
A sculpture in Manila pays tribute to overseas Filipino workers, many of whom are parents who spend years away from their children and loved ones to earn wages to financially support them.
JAY DIRECTO | AFP | Getty Images
That likely won’t happen this year. Many of the overseas workers, who live in places like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong, aren’t traveling this year due to the global pandemic.
Marites Rheme Lopez Javier, who has been living and working in Singapore for 18 years, hasn’t seen her family in the Philippines since 2019. She plans to celebrate Christmas with them, including her first grandchild born last month, via video chat.
Javier said radio stations begin to play English and Tagalog Christmas songs in September. This is also when decorations — including Christmas trees — go up. Festivals and beauty pageants, a controversial yet wildly popular activity in the Philippines, start in October, she said.
L: Ramiro Hinojas, known as the “dancing traffic cop” directs Manila traffic in a Santa Claus costume; R: Marites Rheme Lopez Javier said Santa isn’t as popular in the Philippines as in other countries. “It’s the aunties [female relatives] who slide money into kids’ stockings.”
L: TED ALJIBE | AFP | Getty Images; R: Courtesy of Marites Javier
She said as a child her family made their Christmas tree from manila paper and cardboard. Now, inexpensive plastic trees are the norm in her village.
When asked if she feels there’s “too much Christmas” in the Philippines, the 45-year-old native of Luzon island said, “No, we enjoy it! It’s a very happy time.”
Shifting celebrations earlier
The Peninsula Manila used to light its 45-foot Christmas tree in early November, but “we’ve moved it a tad earlier to the second Friday of October,” said Mariano Garchitorena, the hotel’s director of public relations.
He said “there’s no reason for delaying Christmas, since Christmas is always a good idea,” adding that this is what “any good Filipino, like myself, would say.”
The Peninsula Manila’s staff starts planning for Christmas in June, said Mariano Garchitorena.
Courtesy of The Peninsula Manila
The hotel includes al fresco dining in its holiday plans “to take advantage of the nippy weather,” said Garchitorena. The average temperature in Manila in December is 25 C (78 F), according to Climate-Data.org.
Nina Halley, founder of the Manila floral and décor company The Love Garden, said she starts receiving Christmas orders in July.
“Philippines is very much influenced by the West, particularly the U.S.,” said Halley. “So the same pines and cypresses, pinecones and dried oranges are heavily used in our décor. Believe it or not, we import fir trees … from Europe.”
A nation of faith
Religion is the foundation of the Philippines’ long festive period, said Blancaflor, adding that “the country is celebrating [its] 500th year of Christianity” this year.
Some 92% of people in the Philippines are Christian, according to the Stanford School of Medicine. Among the population of 110 million, more than 80% identify as Roman Catholic — a figure greater than that of Italy.
Some 88% of Filipinos said they were very or moderately religious, according to a 2020 survey by the Philippines social research institution, Social Weather Stations.
Catholics who attended nine days of pre-dawn “Simbang Gabi” masses in 2020 had to socially distance or attend sessions virtually in some areas, due to the global pandemic.
Ezra Acayan | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Many of the devout engage in the tradition of Simbang Gabi, a nine-day period of pre-dawn mass attendance that lasts from Dec. 16 to 24, said Blancaflor. The practice is thought to have been introduced by Spanish missionaries in the 17th century.
This used to mark the start of Christmas, said Cuanang, who recalled participating as a child: “Every dawn for nine days, we would huddle in the chill, going to church, culminating in the midnight mass on Christmas Eve.”
Joven Cuanang said when he was growing up in Ilocos in Luzon, children went house-to-house singing Christmas carols in exchange for tupig, a type of sweet rice cake, like the young Filipino carolers, circa 1955, shown here.
Evans | Three Lions | Hulton Archive | Getty Images
Back then, celebrations were only about three weeks long, he said.
“Most people of my generation find the four-month period a little too long,” said 81-year-old Cuanang.
What so much celebrating says about the culture
“Filipinos are a happy people,” said Halley, who added that her fellow citizens will find “any reason to celebrate and prepare food, gather around a table, sing, dance and be merry.”
Nina Halley and her “Pink Roses Christmas Tree” arrangement, made with roses, carnations, gypsophila (baby’s breath) and eucalyptus.
Courtesy of Nina Halley and The Love Garden
Linda Abella, 63, fixes the decorations on her Christmas tree outside her house in typhoon-hit Palo, Philippines on Dec. 23, 2013.
Ezra Acayan | NurPhoto | Corbis News | Getty Images
The country, comprising some 7,100 islands, is also prone to typhoons. On average, it’s hit by 20 a year, five of which are destructive, according to the Asian Disaster Reduction Center.
“Filipinos are quick to respond and channel the Christmas spirit to urgently [help] affected people above all else,” said Blancaflor. “One of the most beautiful things about the Filipinos [is] being able to smile through the downside of life and still be thankful amidst obstacles — knowing there will be a better day.”
China coast guard uses water cannon against Philippine boats
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Chinese coast guard ships blocked and sprayed a powerful stream of water at two Philippine boats carrying supplies to troops at a disputed South China Sea shoal, prompting Manila to order Beijing’s ships to back off and warn that its supply vessels are covered by a mutual defense treaty with the United States, Manila’s top diplomat said Thursday.
Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said no one was hurt in the incident on Tuesday, but the two supply ships had to abort their mission to provide food to Filipino forces occupying Second Thomas Shoal, which lies off western Palawan province in the Philippines’ internationally recognized exclusive economic zone.
Locsin said in a tweet that the three Chinese coast guard ships’ actions were illegal and urged them “to take heed and back off.”
It was the latest flare-up in the long-simmering territorial disputes in the strategic waterway, where China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have overlapping claims. China claims virtually the entire South China Sea and has transformed seven shoals into missile-protected island bases to cement its assertions, ratcheting up tensions and alarming rival claimants and Western governments led by the U.S.
The Philippine government conveyed to China “our outrage, condemnation and protest of the incident,” Locsin said, adding that “this failure to exercise self-restraint threatens the special relationship between the Philippines and China” that President Rodrigo Duterte and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, worked to nurture.
In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said China’s coast guard had upheld China’s sovereignty after the Philippine ships entered Chinese waters at night without permission.
National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon told reporters in Manila that two Chinese coast guard ships blocked the two wooden-hulled supply vessels. A third coast guard ship “water cannoned the two for one hour,” he said, adding that the outrigger of one of the Philippine ships was displaced by the impact.
A water cannon is a device on firetrucks that shoots high-velocity water for firefighting and crowd control but has also been installed on Chinese coast guard ships to drive away what China considers intruders in the waters it claims.
The Philippines plans to deploy coast guard and Bureau of Fisheries vessels instead of navy ships to back up its forces and enforce its fishing laws at Second Thomas Shoal, which Filipinos call Ayungin and China refers to as the Ren’ai reef, Esperon said.
The number of Chinese surveillance ships has increased in recent weeks in the far-flung shoal and also around Thitu, a larger Philippine-occupied island in the Spratly archipelago in the South China Sea’s most hotly contested area, he said.
Philippine forces won’t be deterred from traveling again to the shoal following the incident, he said.
“We will continue the resupply and we do not have to ask the permission of anybody because that is within our territory,” Esperon said.
The Philippine military deliberately ran aground a World War II-era warship, the BRP Sierra Madre, at the submerged shoal in 1999 to fortify its claim and provide a shelter to a small contingent of Filipino marines.
The Sierra Madre is now effectively a rusty shipwreck but the Philippine military has not decommissioned it. That makes the ship an extension of the government and means any attack on the ship is tantamount to an assault against the Philippines.
In 2014, the Philippine military invited more than a dozen journalists, including from The Associated Press, on a resupply mission to the shoal in a bid to draw global attention to what Philippine officials have called China’s bullying tactics.
Two Chinese coast guard ships then tried to block the slow-moving, military-chartered vessel carrying the journalists, with one cutting dangerously through the Philippine ship’s path twice. The Chinese coast guard warned the Philippine vessel by radio to turn back, saying it was illegally venturing into Chinese territory.
The Chinese ships blew their horns intimidatingly, but the boat managed to maneuver toward the Sierra Madre through shallow waters dotted with rocky coral outcrops, preventing the Chinese ship from pursuing.
Washington has no claims in the busy waterway but has patrolled the region with its Navy ships and aircraft to assure its allies, including the Philippines, and protect freedom of navigation and overflight. China has repeatedly warned the U.S. to stay away from the disputed waters and not meddle in what it says is a regional issue.
President Joe Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump, have repeatedly assured the Philippines that the U.S. will honor its obligation under the nations’ Mutual Defense Treaty if Philippine forces, ships or aircraft come under attack in the region.
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Associated Press writer Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed to this report.