VERA Files
DEFENSE Secretary Voltaire Gazmin had no choice but to say what EDCA, the agreement he signed with the United States Ambassador Philip Goldberg last April 28, really is under strict questioning by Sen. Miriam Santiago, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
THE rising tension at the Ayungin shoal, just 21 nautical miles from Mischief Reef where China has built fortifications, could be a test on the usefulness of the 1951 PH-US Mutual Defense Treaty In its statement issued last Friday, the Department of Foreign Affairs said: “The BRP Sierra Madre, a commissioned Philippine Naval Vessel, was […]
THE possibility of China pulling out of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea has been mentioned in informal discussions among foreign affairs experts and observers but it was the first time that a Chinese scholar said it in public. Shen Dingli, speaking to reporters after his speech in a forum “What […]
CHINESE Foreign Secretary Wang Yi made an offer yesterday during the Asean Regional Forum in Brunei that rendered the articulate Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario speechless. Del Rosario told reporters that Wang said “Scarborough and Ayungin were theirs, historically, and we were the ones sending ships, interdicting their fishermen, and the grounded ship has […]
IN Bangkok last week, the commander of the United States Pacific Command, Admiral Samuel Locklear, said the usual line that their Asian allies expect from visiting American officials: we will oppose China’s expansionism. “We will oppose the change of status quo by force of anyone,” Locklear said referring to the situation in South China Sea […]
April 28, 2013, marked the 6th year that farmer-activist Jonas Burgos disappeared.
IT was 1974 and I was taking up an advanced course in Mechanical Engineering at the US Navy Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.
Adverse weather situation provided a face-saving exit for both the Philippines and China in the more than two-month standoff over Scarborough shoal, also referred to as Panatag shoal or Bajo de Masinloc by Filipinos and Huangyan island by the Chinese.