How to detect Beijing’s Manchurian Candidate

 On Feb. 4, Rep. Rodante Marcoleta blurted: “There is nothing as West Philippine Sea. Wala po yu’n. Kahit basahin yung ating mapa, there is no West Philippine Sea.”

Doesn’t lawyer Marcoleta know legal fact? RA 12064 states:

“The maritime zones of the Philippines on the western side of the Philippine archipelago, including the Luzon Sea and the territorial seas of Bajo de Masinloc and the maritime features of the Kalayaan Island Group, shall be collectively called the West Philippine Sea.”

The House of Reps on May 29, 2023 passed it on third reading with a vote of 284-0-0. Marcoleta could be one of the unanimous “yes,” unless he was absent.

The National Mapping and Resource Information Authority is preparing new maps, with exact longitude and latitude coordinates.

Only the China Communist Party questions WPS. It claims the entire South China Sea, including WPS, as its internal lake. It drew a ten-dash line, formerly nine- and 11-, as sea boundary but without coordinates.

The Permanent Court of Arbitration rubbished CCP’s baseless claim in 2016. A growing number of states have affirmed the ruling based on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

So why did Marcoleta, a senatorial candidate of Rody Duterte, parrot CCP propaganda one week before official campaign began? As Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela lamented, “How will the world support our use of the term West Philippine Sea if we ourselves undermine it?”

Duterte idolizes Xi Jinping.

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This week, retired Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio warned Filipinos against electing China’s “Manchurian Candidates.”

A Manchurian Candidate is disloyal to or harms his country because he’s under the control or influence of another country (Cambridge English Dictionary).

The CCP wants the Philippine president, VP, lawmakers, justices and local officials as lapdogs. That’s to control government policy. It has done that in a dozen countries in Asia Pacific, Africa and South America.

How to detect a Manchurian Candidate? Adm. Rommel Jude Ong, ex-Navy vice commander and intelligence chief, devised five ways in Election 2022. He’s now a professor of praxis and senior research fellow at Ateneo School of Government.

Excerpting here my column of Oct. 20, 2021:

(1) Ask them their position on China’s aggression in WPS. They cannot, should not, hide it, Ong said.

Candidates can be made to sign their stand. That can help avert a Duterte-like flip-flop. In Election 2016 Duterte had bragged to “jetski to the Spratlys, plant the Filipino flag and declare ‘this is ours’” – only to disavow it five years later as a joke and his believers as stupid.

(2) Check the candidates’ past political affiliations and businesses, whether as principal or middleman. It’s like an official receipt, said Ong.

Two ex-generals in the Advocates for National Interest suspect Duterte’s longtime Chinese businessman-friend and former economic adviser Michael Yang to be a “China state agent.” Yang masterminded the Pharmally scam, wangling P12.7 billion in pandemic supply contracts from government with only P625,000 capital.

(3) Find out who their advisers, financiers and top campaigners are. Candidates may not be directly influenced by Chinese agents but by Filipino conduits around them, Ong said.

Revelations of political influencing by Chinese contributors to Australian and New Zealand parties sparked investigations. American and European officials have been forced to resign due to aides’ links to CCP handlers.

(4) CCP supports Manchurian Candidates with disinformation. Communist China is a master of propaganda, Ong said. Fake news proliferates online for its chosen ones and against rivals.

Facebook has shut down hundreds of accounts in Fujian, China for “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” The troll farms dwelt on Philippine political events. Frequently bashed were vice president Leni Robredo and critics of China’s sea aggression, like Justice Carpio and former foreign secretary Albert del Rosario.

(5) CCP influencing at local levels can be via sister-province or -city arrangements. Such ties normally are for economic, cultural and tourist exchange. In China’s case, counterparts are CCP cadres, Ong said.

Foremost targets are locales facing the West Philippine Sea and Benham Rise with military value to the CCP, Ong added.

In 2019, a Chinese firm tried to lease Fuga Island from the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority. The defense department objected.

Had the deal not been exposed, the People’s Liberation Army could’ve gained control of the narrow sea lane linking the Pacific Ocean and South China Sea and threatened Philippine security.

Separate attempts were made on two islands at the mouth of Subic Bay, Zambales, where the Philippine Navy is to set up a shipyard.

In 2015, a China state firm schemed a 99-year lease on a port in Darwin, Australia adjacent to a US naval base. In the Maldives, another Chinese company leased a reef for concreting into a seaport.

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Updates to Item 5:

The House quad comm exposed twin city ties with China of a Pampanga mayor, whose brother illegally sold thousands of hectares of land to Chinese POGO bosses.

Michael Yang’s moneybag in Pharmally was fellow Chinese Lin Weixiong. His Filipina wife is running again for Quezon City congresswoman.

A Luzon provincial governor permitted Chinese miners to level two mountains, thus polluting the air and rivers in five towns.

The Chinese used nickel ore to landfill Philippine Kagitingan (Fiery Cross) and Zamora (Subi) Reefs.

Exposed as POGO queen in 2024 was Bamban mayor Alice Guo, a Chinese with fake Filipinoship. High elective officials and police generals associated with her.

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