№ 788. The Western Sea

 

 

 BATANES, Philippines - Marilyn Hubalde still remembers the first time she heard the thunderous chop of military helicopters swooping over this northernmost outpost of the Philippines, less than 90 miles from Taiwan. It was April 2023, when Filipino and American troops descended on the cluster of 10 emerald green islands of Batanes province for amphibious warfare drills. 

“We were terrified,” the 65-year-old Hubalde recalled. “We thought China might attack when they learned there were military exercises in Batanes.” Hubalde’s helper, who was in the fields when the troops arrived, panicked and hid in the woods until nightfall. “She thought the war had already started,” said Hubalde, who owns a variety store in the provincial capital, Basco. 

Since then, Batanes’ 20,000 residents have become accustomed to high-tempo war games in these islands of tightly packed towns and villages wedged between rugged slopes and stony beaches. Among them: a series of joint exercises from April to June this year in which U.S. forces twice airlifted anti-ship missile launchers here.

Until recently, locals say, this smallest and least populous province of the Philippines was a peaceful backwater. But geography dictates that it is now on the frontline of the great power competition between the United States and China for dominance in the Asia-Pacific region. The islands sit on the southern edge of the Bashi Channel, a major shipping lane between the Philippines and Taiwan that connects the South China Sea with the Western Pacific. 

This year’s exercises revealed how the U.S. and its Philippine ally intend to use ground-based anti-ship missiles as part of efforts to deny the Chinese navy access to the Western Pacific by making this waterway impassable in a conflict, Reuters reporting shows. These missiles could also be used to attack a Chinese fleet attempting to invade Taiwan or mount a blockade against the democratically governed island.

 

The ability to conduct operations deep into the Pacific would be vital for the Chinese navy if it wanted to counter U.S. and Japanese attempts to intervene in a Taiwan crisis. Chinese naval and air forces would also need to operate in the Western Pacific to stymie any counter-measures by the U.S. and its allies if Beijing imposed a blockade on Taiwan.

 

“We should have the ability to deny the Chinese control of the Bashi Channel,” retired Rear Admiral Rommel Ong, a former vice-commander of the Philippine Navy, told Reuters in an interview. “In a conflict scenario, that decisive point will determine who wins or who loses.”

 

Retired General Emmanuel Bautista, a former chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, put it even more plainly: “The invasion of Taiwan is almost impossible if you don’t control the northern Philippines.”

New York Times

China views Taiwan as its own territory, and President Xi Jinping has said that Beijing refuses to renounce the right to use force to gain control of the island. Taiwan's government rejects China's sovereignty claims, saying only the island's people can decide their future.

 

“The Taiwan issue is China's internal affair,” the foreign ministry in Beijing said in response to questions. “How to resolve it is solely China's own business and does not warrant interference from others.” The ministry also said it advised the Philippines “against using any pretext to draw in external forces” and not to provoke confrontation and create "tensions in the South China Sea.”

 

The Pentagon did not respond to questions. Taiwan’s defense ministry declined to comment for this story.

 

 

 

№ 738. Manila Extract 4 (West Philippine Sea)

Manila Times

You are tense.
A Gordian knot
kneaded by diplomacy.

You are pawn.
Cross hairs
of myths and murmurs.

You are Manila.
Unspooled lances
stirring tempest in the sea.

№ 568. Manila Extract 3 (NCR+)

Scout Mag

You're Old Testament.
A prophecy of unsealed
memes and fake news.

You are red-tagged.
A metastasis
hooked on ether.
 
You are Manila.
Hangry for cures
sniffed from dystopia.

 

№ 458. Manila Extract 2 (ECQ)

Gutenberg

You are rabid.
Fugitives spilled from lockdowns
streaming on my walls.

You are febrile.
A torrid kiss
left by the contagion on my lips

You are Manila.
A hunter kindled by plague
stirring rust in my blood.

№ 371. Natural History Museum Through Square Lenses

№ 254. The Reading Club

Here's a good Friday find:

If you put all the books you own on the street outside your house, you might expect them to disappear in a trice. But one man in Manila tried it - and found that his collection grew.

№ 252. Solo Travel

Solo Travel Tips

Maybe it's time for a new adventure. Ticking off undone, unfinished businesses is exhausting.

№ 242. Manila, a Final Frontier

From the 1500s to the 1800s, the Philippines had been a frontier at the western edge of the Spanish Empire.

Because we were so far away from the throne --- two oceans away to be sure--- we were governed remotely and indirectly through the viceroy in Mexico. 

Global Map

Mexico, almost midpoint from Spain, was an accessible foothold to the New Worlds because it sits in the middle of the two maritime expanses of the Pacific and Atlantic. More importantly, it's geography was strategic. It served as a land bridge that facilitated the transshipment of people, information, culture and goods between the two oceans (Panama Canal was completed only in the early 20th century). Mexico's relative proximity to the Philippines not only cut down administrative challenges to the overextended Iberian royal power. It also trimmed down the time and costs of projecting the delegated power to the subjects in the Asian colony.

№ 208. Quiapo Under Square Lenses

Instagram shots from my Quiapo walks, circa 2013.

№ 207. I Wasn't Gonna

Nakpil House, Quiapo, Manila, circa 2013.

I wasn't gonna post. But the evening vibe got into my system.
I wasn't gonna browse. But the logs came into my line of sight.
So here's a velvet drip before I sign off.

№ 179. Lifesavers

Red chairs at the workshop lounge, Pompidou Center, Paris, May 2014

Dear Helena, wherever you may be,
Let me unfurl you like dawn on my sheets,
When dreams blur into wakefulness.

№ 156. Manila Walks: Manila Central Post Office

I had lived in Manila for close to three decades. And I had never explored this heritage building, until I moved to another city.

Sometimes, despite the almost conceded urban decay, I can still see the vignettes of the capital's charm. True, there aren't many. It takes a lot of faith and purpose to find them. But these enclaves in the middle of chaos do exist.

One such enclave sits in Lawton Plaza.

It is near the equally-historic Manila City Hall. By the banks of Pasig River just across Escolta and Binondo, it is an aging relic of Manila's post-colonial past. Just about a ten-minute walk from either Jones Bridge or Sta. Cruz Bridge, the Manila Central Post Office in its neo-classical architecture, fortunately, still looks elegant despite the fiscal neglect over the years.

The building, viewed from outside, looks sturdy and well-kept. But the interiors really need some face lift.

I hope for the day when we have enough resources to fix the place and restore it to its post-colonial, pre-martial law glory. These resources would entail funds, cultural capital, bureaucratic will and time.

Soon, I hope.

№ 110. Binondo Rising: Part 1

Say "Ahh" for Tikoy, kid.

Binondo is still a study in controlled chaos.

Many Filipinos already know that Binondo is home to Manila's Chinatown. Many Chinese-Filipinos call it their spiritual home, I think, mainly because it's a transplant of their roots in China. I had lived in Binondo for almost two decades before college beckoned me to the hills of Valencia.

Binondo is so different now and yet oddly familiar in equal parts.

For one, it has become gentrified: cleaner, although the esteros still stink; littered less with horse manure and other organic refuse; and, freshened up with new high rises and coats of paint. Another reason for the ambivalence is while I can still eat at the staple restaurants like The President's, Eng Bee Tin, Ha Yuan and Country Chicken, et cetera, there are many that have already upgraded while a few have not done so well.

Fried garlicky peanuts, chicha-corn
(dried and  fried crisp with coconut oil) and other street delights.

№ 78. Sacraments

There are many sacrifices I have to endure in Manila. 

 

Pasig

One daily grinding thorn is commuting--- either by public transportation or private car. Long lines, traffic, heat, pollution, noise and all urban blight seem to converge like LDL or bad cholesterol in the arteries of the city.

It helps that someone---yes, a priest---had the vision to write about the art, he calls it "sacrament", of waiting.

That dirty word, again. "Sacrament" has been so burdened with all layers of Catholic meanings for me that it's become almost sinister. I hesitate to use it.

But, admittedly, he nailed the insights in the experience and wrote damn well about it. So I must share the space with those nuggets about the art (for us secular folks) of waiting.

"Waiting is a mystery - a natural sacrament of life - there is a meaning hidden in all the times we have to wait. It must be an important mystery because there is so much waiting in our lives. 

 

Everyday is filled with those little moments of waiting (testing our patience and our nerves, schooling us in self-control). We wait for meals to be served, for a letter to arrive, for a friend to call or show up for a date. We wait in line at cinemas and theaters, concerts and circuses. Our airline terminals, railway stations and bus depots are great temples of waiting filled with men and women who wait in joy for the arrival of a loved one - or wait in sadness to say goodbye and give the last wave of hand. We wait for springs to come - or autumn - for the rains to begin and stop. And we wait for ourselves to grow from childhood to maturity. We wait for those inner voices that tell us when we are ready for the next stop." (Son of the Prodigal).

№ 31. Abakada Typhoons

Hand me my stash. I have an itch to scratch. Will travel, again.

Manila is depressing when soaked and flooded by Abakada typhoons: Falcon, Goring, Hanna, Ineng, Juaning, Kabayan, Lando. 

All in unbroken succession. Who's next? 

You get the drip? (sorry, can't help it).

№ 29. My Life in REM Sleep

Today is May 4, 2010, Tuesday. We're in the middle of Manila's concrete bake off. It’s only 11:10 AM and I’m already melting from the heat. 

I’m writing this confession on a black Mac, which has the color of my id.

---

Like the rings of a redwood, sweat is etched in my indexes. They yield tales of the fat years as well as the lean ones. 

I have recently been self-employed---unplugged from the matrix of production.  Technically though, I am just a capitalist in hibernation.

I also just switched from Windows to Mac last year. 


Yes, I’m aware that Mac is a Q Continuum compared to that unenlightened majority of the technological divide. Those protozoans and their clones. Still, my Mac hums on XP. Defilement, you say. Well, my system can’t be purged of all eighteen years of assimilation. Redmond is still fused with my flesh.

---

№ 28. Manila Extract (after Ondoy)

Design Anthology

You are dense.
An equation of salty noodles 
steaming in my cup.


You are stained.
A peppered whisper
left by the ketchup on my lips.


You are Manila.
A name seasoned by monsoons
stirring needles in my gut.