Day: July 20, 2022

People living near a leaking dam in central Laos remained fearful Wednesday, five days after a video of the leak went viral, despite assurances from the government that it is structurally safe and will be fixed in weeks, sources in the country told RFA.

Video of the apparent leak at the Nam Theun 1 Dam in the central province of  Bolikhamxay was shared on Facebook on Saturday, a week before the fourth anniversary of the Southeast Asian country’s worst ever dam collapse that killed more than 70 people.

Authorities told RFA on Monday that  the video depicted only “seepage” that would have no effect on operations or safety at the hydroelectric dam on a Mekong River tributary.

On Wednesday, however, the government put out a statement saying that the Lao Ministry of Energy and Mines had found two small leaks during an inspection last month, and a second inspection on Sunday after the video circulated determined that the leaks were still the same size.

“Our department inspected the dam on June 25, 2022 and found two leaks on the right side of the dam. However, the leaks are small and won’t have any impact on the structure of the dam,” Bouathep Malaykham, director of the ministry’s energy industry safety management department, said in the statement.

“We immediately asked the dam developer to look for the source of the leaks and stop the leaks as soon as possible,” he said.

“The developer is planning to fix the leaks in three weeks and our Ministry of Energy and Mines is closely monitoring the dam every day. Actually, we’re going to inspect the dam again on July 27, 2022,” Malaykham said

The 650 MW Nam Theun 1 Dam is part of Laos’ controversial development strategy  to build dozens of hydropower dams on the Mekong River and its tributaries to become the “Battery of Southeast Asia” by exporting power to neighboring countries. Critics question rising debt levels and environmental damage as well as safety.

The safety department head acknowledged that footage of the leaks on social media had caused understandable concern.

But he rejected comparisons with the July 23, 2018 disaster, billions of cubic feet of water from a tributary of the Mekong River poured over a collapsed saddle dam at the Xe Pian Xe Namnoy (PNPC) hydropower project following heavy rains. It wiped out all or part of 19 villages, leaving 71 people dead and displacing 14,440 others.

Malaykham’s statement reminded residents that the Xe Pian Xe Namnoy dam which collapsed in southern Laos four years ago was a soil dam, while the Nam Theun 1 Dam is a compact concrete dam. 

“For those who want to post news and pictures of the dam, please think twice, and make sure your information is correct. If not, it might create some misunderstanding among the public,” he said.

But the 2018 disaster is still fresh in the minds of people who live downstream from Nam Theun 1, and they remain terrified even with the explanation, a teacher in the province’s Pakkading district said Wednesday.

“The dam is leaking now, and sooner or later the leak is going to get worse and finally the dam is going to break,” the teacher told RFA’s Lao Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons.. 

“Actually, the water is leaking from a dirt wall, not from the concrete wall, so, it’ll get larger and larger soon,” the teacher added.

Another resident of the district told RFA he was not assuaged by government assurances.

“History will repeat itself. We experienced the worst dam collapse four years ago, and now this is happening again.”

A survivor of the 2018 disaster said the developer has instituted a warning system in the years since it caused what has been described as Laos’ worst flooding in decades.

“The Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy Dam developer often issues alerts or warnings to us during the rainy season; but up to now, there has been no drills of an emergency or rescue plan at all,” the survivor told RFA Wednesday.

The government recently ordered more inspections on hydroelectric dams, a dam developer in northern Laos’ Oudomxay province told RFA.

“We already do inspections. We coordinate with the local authorities and residents about our dam condition,” the developer said.

Dams also warn the public and the local authorities prior to releasing water, an employee of a dam developer in southern Laos’ Sekong province told RFA.

The Nam Theun 1 hydropower project is 60 percent funded by Phonesack Group, 25 percent by EGAT and 15 percent by Electricite du Laos. When complete, its 650 MW of output will be sold to neighboring Thailand.

Though the Lao government sees power generation as a way to boost the landlocked country’s economy, the projects are controversial because of their environmental impact, displacement of villagers without adequate compensation, and questionable financial and power demand arrangements.

Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

North Koreans whose family members have escaped the country and resettled in South Korea are being banished to rugged rural areas, in the latest punishment for citizens vilified as traitors by the Kim Jong Il regime, sources in the country told RFA.

Ryanggang province, located along the border with China in the north of the country, meted out the punishment to 30 households in mid-July, shortly after the central government changed escapees’ designation from “illegal border crossers” to “traitorous puppets.” 

According to a previous RFA report, the change in terminology coincided with a decision to more fiercely crack down on the families for their relatives’ escape from the country’s sputtering economy and harsh political system.

“On July 13th, The State Security Department selected defectors’ families and exiled them to remote mountainous areas,” a resident of Ryanggang province told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“They selected families who had two or more family members defect to South Korea. Thirty households were simultaneously relocated,” the source said.

Both North and South Korea use politically charged terms to refer to escapees, and many international media outlets render these terms as “defector” in English. 

Rights organizations make a distinction between defectors, who were part of the government or military at the time they escaped, and refugees, who were not involved in the country’s power structure and left for economic reasons or to flee persecution.

The latest punishment follows previous anti-escapee campaigns, including when North Korea forced citizens to attend mass rallies to denounce the escapees as traitors, arrested people for speaking positively about escapees in public, and arrested families for having phone contact with, or receiving money from, members of their household who escaped to the South.

In many areas close to the border with China, remittances from escaped family members are an important source of income for many families, and they are usually able to get out of punishment by bribing authorities when they are caught. But it has now become more difficult to avoid the consequences.

The plan for Ryanggang province to banish refugees’ families to remote areas had been in the works for several months, the source said. 

While the original plan would have punished all families related to escapees, the authorities decided to narrow their net.

“They reduced the target size to those families in which two or more members had defected … because too many families would have to be expelled for having just one family member who defected from North Korea. That target population is too large,” said the source.

“The expelled families went through a joint investigation by the State Security Department and judicial authorities under the presence of the head of their neighborhood watch unit. They confiscated the family’s cash and valuable household items, such as electronics,” said the source.

The banished families encompass people from all walks of life, according to the source.

“A couple in their 70s was selected for exile because two of their grandsons defected. Others included parents whose sons or daughters escaped, or children left behind after their parents fled to South Korea first,” said the source.

“Those to be exiled did not know where they were being sent until the moment they left. They kept the final orders secret, fearing that if their close neighbors learned where they would be, they might forward that information to their family members in South Korea,” the source said. 

The relocation order only affected people whose family members escaped after 2010, another Ryanggang resident told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely.

“An industrial truck owned by a company came by in the early morning and transported the exiles somewhere else, and they brought with them only minimal cooking tools,” said the second source.

“A driver in a shoe factory and forestry machinery business reported that he took a banished family from Bocheon to exile in Pungso,” the second source said. 

The source said that exiled families are commonly dropped in obscure villages –Samsu, Kapsan, Pungso, and Pungsan—lying somewhere between 12-75 miles from Hyesan, a city of more than 190,000 people and the administrative center of the province.

“These areas have several security guard posts, so it is difficult to wander freely out there,” the second source said. 

The second source confirmed the earlier RFA report that escapees are now referred to as “traitorous puppets,” indicating a renewed crackdown on their families. The term “puppet” is often used to refer to the South Korean government, implying its illegitimacy.  

“The residents blame the authorities for exiling the families, who can just barely make a living with the help of their defector family members,” the  second source said. 

“The authorities took this measure to prevent the inflow of external information over the telephone” 

 According to statistics from the South Korean Ministry of Unification, at least 1,000 refugees from the North have arrived in South Korea every year since 2002, peaking at more than 2,900 in 2009. 

Under Kim Jong Un’s rule, though, refugee arrivals in the South decreased to slightly more than 1,000 in 2019, then dropped off sharply in 2020, likely due to increased border security during the coronavirus pandemic. 

Only 229 North Korean refugees made it to South Korea in 2020, 63 in 2021, and 11 through March 2022.

Translated by Claire Shinyoung O. Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Thirty ethnic Rakhine civilian men arrested in June for allegedly having connections to Arakan Army rebels in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state have been charged with harming public interest, relatives of those arrested and people assisting the men told RFA on Wednesday.

They were arrested by the Myanmar military around the same time that soldiers and the Arakan Army (AA) were arresting each other’s personnel amid rising tensions in the area, which was engulfed in war between the two forces from 2018-20, the sources said.

Tensions between the two sides intensified in May when some civilians with ties to the AA were hunted down by the military. The AA retaliated by capturing junta soldiers. Neither side has released those it is holding.

As part of the ongoing hostilities, the military arrested more than 40 civilians, but later freed 10 and has opened cases against the remaining 30, sources told RFA.

Among those charged under Section 505(a) of Myanmar’s Penal Code are nine men from Sittwe, six from Ponnagyun township, three from Kyauktaw township, eight from Mrauk-U township and four from Kyaukphyu township.

After the AA arrested three soldiers in Mrauk-U on June 21, the military, in turn, arrested no less than 10 civilians. Some were released, but eight people, including Kyaw Win Hlaing, were charged in the Mrauk-U District Court under Section 505(a) of the Penal Code.

Kyaw Win Hlaing, a 30-year-old tricycle driver, was arrested the following day, said a family member who spoke on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. On July 4, he was taken from a military interrogation center to Yangon General Hospital in the commercial hub Yangon.

Though military authorities claimed that Kyaw Win Hlaing had kidney disease, the man had to receive medical treatment because he was severely beaten during the interrogations, his relative said.

“The military lied to us that his kidneys were not good, but we noticed that he was badly beaten,” said the family member. “There were many injuries and wounds. He was beaten in the groin and belly and on the legs. We think the military is purposely doing this to people.”

Kyaw Win Hlaing is now finding it difficult to pay for his medical care, the relative said.

‘They are innocent’

Military authorities charged four of the six civilians arrested in Ponnagyun township — Tun Hlaing, Win Maung Than, Kyaw Min and Myat Thuratun — only under Section 505(a), while the other two — Ba Hlaing and Myo Thwin — were also charged with allegedly obstructing justice.

Ba Hlaing’s wife, Aye Khaing, told RFA that the military arrested the men unlawfully.

“They are innocent,” she said. “That’s why we want our men to be released as soon as possible. We also want to say that the charges against them were not right. They were wrongfully accused.”

“My husband is a person free from politics and scandals,” she added. “He has been working honestly and was arrested unlawfully.”

Captain Kyi Hlaing of the military’s Light Infantry Battalion 550 based in Ponnagyun filed the charges against the six men, who appeared in court on July 15. Their next hearing date is July 29.

All six and two youths from the township’s Pauk Taw Pyin village, were arrested on June 16 after the AA arrested a junta soldier, local sources said. The two young men are now in Sittwe Prison, though their charges are unknown.

Family members told RFA that three locals, including activist Zaw Win, who were arrested and charged in Kyauktaw township under Section 505(a) of the Penal Code, will appear in court on Thursday.

The other two individuals — Sai Wunna Kyaw and Tun Tun Zaw — were arrested on June 24.

Than Hlaing and Khin Ohn Nwe, who were arrested on May 26, are also facing trial under Section 505(a) for allegedly providing funds to the AA.

Subjected to torture

Myat Tun, director of the Rakhine Human Rights Protection Group, said the men had been arbitrarily arrested and unlawfully detained and that their relatives said they had been tortured by the military during interrogations.

“According to family members of those who were arrested, we heard that they were subjected to torture during the interrogations,” he said.

“Article 30 of the Declaration of Human Rights clearly states that people cannot be tortured,” Myat Tun added. “This should not have happened.”

Those arrested are civilians who have no association with the AA, he said.

Writer and former political prisoner Wai Hin Aung said the arrested civilians should not be harmed.

“If these people were taken away on suspicion for questioning, then they should be released afterwards,” he said.

“It’s no problem with taking action against AA members, but I don’t want civilians to be harmed in any way,” he added.

AA spokesman Khine Thukha said the actions of the military council are crimes because the people who have been arrested and charged are innocent civilians.

RFA could not reach junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment, though he previously said on June 28 that no civilians had been arrested by military forces in Rakhine state.

“These people are completely innocent civilians,” he told RFA. “Making arbitrary arrests of these innocent civilians and torturing them are bullying acts. Therefore, we want to say that this is a case of injustice. It is nothing uncommon for armed forces to seize each other’s personnel. However, arresting and abusing innocent civilians like this is a crime against humanity.”

Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Junta troops killed at least 10 people and set fire to around 500 homes during a raid on a predominantly Muslim village in Myanmar’s embattled Sagaing region, residents and members of the armed opposition said Wednesday.

Sources from Kyi Su village, in Sagaing’s Kanbalu township, told RFA Burmese that seven of the 10 victims died in the blaze that followed the military’s arson attack on July 18, while the remaining three were “beaten and shot to death” inside a local Buddhist monastery. Their bodies were discovered by residents who returned to the village on Tuesday after junta troops left the area.

The three victims executed by the military were identified as Moe Thin, 20, Tin Shwe, 20, and Maung Gyi, 45. Residents said that the seven who died in the fire had yet to be identified, as their remains were charred beyond recognition.

A resident of Kyi Su, who declined to be named, but identified himself as the brother of Moe Thein, said the raid began when junta troops were airlifted to the village in central Myanmar, which is home to a community of around 5,000 Muslims and Buddhists.

“While we were sitting in the village, two helicopters suddenly appeared in the air and began firing at us. Other helicopters dropped the soldiers, who came up along the main road and shot and arrested people, and then set fire to the houses,” he said.

“About 500 houses were burned down in the fire. My younger brother was killed. After having lost everything, we are now more determined than ever to fight against them till the end.”

The resident said that the number of buildings destroyed in the fire accounted for more than half of Kyi Su’s 900 homes and were predominantly located in the southern, Muslim section of the village. Only around 10 homes were torched in the northern section of the village, which is home to its smaller Buddhist community.

The junta which seized power from the elected government in February 2021 has faced the fiercest armed resistance in Sagaing region. Residents of the largely agricultural region have borne the brunt of army retaliation, often featuring burnings of villages that have displaced thousands of people.

Most of Sagaing’s 34 townships and more than 5,900 villages have been affected by fighting between military forces and members of the anti-junta People’s Defense Forces (PDF).

Possible religious violence

Another resident of Kyi Su, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal, said that while furniture was destroyed in the village monastery, he believes the military raid specifically targeted the Muslim population.

“The Muslim school in the Eastern Mosque was burnt down. They fired at the buildings inside the mosque compound and smashed everything too. The Western Mosque also met the same fate,” he said.

“Most [of the people there] are Muslims. I think they were carrying out a form of religious violence.”

Residents told RFA that they were working to extinguish the remaining fires set by the military as recently as Wednesday morning.

They said the force that stormed the village comprised about 120 troops. Military uniforms were discovered in the village when residents returned, but it was unclear which unit the troops were from because the badges had been removed.

An Islamic religious leader from Kyi Su, who also declined to be named, told RFA that dozens of villagers are missing following the raid.

“About 100 people were arrested in the lightning raid. They were taken to the monastery and the elderly were later released. About 50 people are missing,” he said.

“We want the war to end as soon as possible, as the village is facing a lot of trouble. We need help badly now. Many people are homeless. The junta is inhuman and has no sympathy for the population at all. There’s no one worse than them in the world.”

Attempts by RFA to contact junta Deputy Minister of Information Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun went unanswered Wednesday.

‘Truly loathsome’

A member of the anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group based in neighboring Khin-U township called Monday’s raid “an act of cruelty against the people.”

“This kind of action is totally unacceptable. [The junta troops] cannot be compared even to animals,” he said.

“I don’t think there’s a single rifle in that village and yet, they used excessive force to murder people and burn the village. They even killed people at the entrance of the monastery. The actions of the military, which claims to protect the nation and religion, is truly loathsome.”

Other sources in the region told RFA that junta troops were raiding additional villages between Khin-U and Kanbalu townships on Wednesday in three columns.

Last month, independent research group Data For Myanmar, which studies the effects of conflict on communities, said that at least 18,886 houses had been destroyed by military arson across the country since the military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup.

According to Thai NGO Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, junta authorities have killed nearly 2,100 civilians and arrested more than 14,800 in the nearly 18 months since the takeover, mostly during peaceful anti-coup protests.

Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Hong Kong journalists targeted under a citywide crackdown on dissent for their reporting of the Yuen Long mob attacks of 2019 have marked the third anniversary of the attacks with a YouTube documentary.

A group of independent journalists including Bao Choy, who was arrested in November 2020 over her investigative documentary for government broadcaster RTHK about the July 21, 2019 mob attacks on train passengers at Yuen Long MTR, published a 14-minute video to YouTube on Tuesday, ahead of Thursday’s anniversary.

Bao’s Hong Kong Connection TV documentary titled “7.21 Who Owns the Truth?” showed clips from surveillance cameras at shops in Yuen Long and interviewed people who were identified in the footage.

Its airing forced police to admit that they already had a presence in the town, but did nothing to prevent the attacks as baton-wielding men in white T-shirts began to gather in Yuen Long ahead of the bloody attack on passengers and passers-by.

“On the third anniversary of the 721 Yuen Long attack, a group of independent journalists have made this special program about the unfinished investigation … summarizing clues collected by civil society over the past few years, and following up with a few who have been persevering in seeking the truth,” the video description reads.

“We are not affiliated with any media organization and have no news platform, but we sincerely appreciate the willingness of multiple independent journalists to work together on this production,” it said.

“We have made this to professional standards despite the lack of salaries or resources.”

Post-crackdown freedoms

The video also “pays tribute to the interviewees who dared to comment publicly and on the record,” despite an ongoing crackdown on public criticism of the government under a national security law imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from July 1, 2020.

“Some of them have been forced to leave [Hong Kong], while others have chosen to stay, but they all want to see the day when the truth is made public,” it said.

The HKIJ channel where the video was published had garnered 3,540 subscribers by Wednesday afternoon, and 5,700 likes, with a number of supportive comments from Hongkongers.

“You were the victims, but you bravely stood up and remembered the pain. I sincerely thank you and wish you all peace,” one comment read, while another said: “Neither forget nor forgive. Thank you to everyone who stood up.”

“Thank you to every citizen who still dares to tell the truth, and every reporter who reports the truth, three years on,” another comment said.

Galileo

The video includes interviews with three people who were in Yuen Long MTR three years ago, including Tuen Mun resident “Galileo” who was attacked while trying to rescue journalist Gwyneth Ho, and chef surnamed So who sustained heavy injuries from being beaten with rods, as well as a local businessman who supplied CCTV footage from his premises.

“Galileo” and his wife tell the producers they gave high-definition video and detailed witness accounts to police, but that most of the attackers hadn’t been arrested to this day.

Choy was arrested and fined for “road traffic violations” relating to vehicle registration searches used in her RTHK film.

Thirty-nine minutes elapsed between the first emergency calls to the final arrival of police at the Yuen Long MTR station, where dozens of people were already injured, and many were in need of hospital treatment.

At least eight media organizations, including the Hong Kong Journalists Association, the Hong Kong Press Photographers Association and the RTHK staff union expressed “extreme shock and outrage” at Choy’s arrest.

Book fair censored

The anniversary came as the Hong Kong Book Fair, once a vibrant showcase for independent publishers in the city, started displaying prominently a number of new titles about CCP leader Xi Jinping and the history of the ruling party, apparently specially produced for the Hong Kong market.

Offerings from CCP-backed publishers were on prominent display at the fair on July 19, including titles expounding the success of the “one country, two systems” model under which Beijing took back control of Hong Kong in 1997.

A spokeswoman for the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC), which runs the book fair, denied that a higher level of censorship is being implemented at the fair under the national security law, which bans public criticism of the authorities.

“We don’t engage in the prior vetting of books, nor will we take action to censor any books,” spokeswoman Clementine Cheung told reporters. “But if someone complains or thinks there is an issue with a book, we have a mechanism for checking on that.”

“If there really is a problem with a book, it won’t be up to us to decide that,” she said.

While independent publishers have been gradually disappearing from the book fair in Hong Kong, organizers set up a small but independent event titled the “Five Cities Book Fair 2022” in small venues in Taipei, London, Manchester, Vancouver and Toronto, showcasing titles that are now banned in Hong Kong, especially those about the political crackdown and the 2019 protest movement.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

The new government in the Philippines should seek loans from other sources after China left three heavily promoted railway projects unfunded during Rodrigo Duterte’s entire six-year term, a top planner for the former president said.

The lack of funds, announced by the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. administration last week, came as a surprise to the Filipino public, which had regularly received favorable updates from the government on projects under Duterte’s “Build, Build, Build” infrastructure blitz financed by Beijing.

Loans from China come with strings attached, warned Ernesto Pernia, Duterte’s socioeconomic planning secretary, adding that senior Chinese officials always close deals with a mindset of getting something in return.  

“Having been the agnostic in the economic team about Chinese officials’ promises or seeming generosity, I would not recommend revisiting/reviewing the three railway projects with the Chinese and just drop them altogether. Much better to deal with ODA with Japan, South Korea, Australia, the U.S. and the E.U.,” Pernia told BenarNews, using an acronym for official development assistance. 

The three projects are the 380-km (236-mile) railway from Laguna province, south of Manila, to Bicol province, on the southern end of Luzon Island; a 71-km (44-mile) railway that would connect Subic Bay Freeport Zone in central Luzon and the Clark Freeport Zone, both sites of former sprawling U.S. military bases; and the first phase of the Mindanao Railway Project stretching from Davao to Digos city in the southern Philippines.  

Pernia said he was skeptical when China ODA-funded projects were discussed during Duterte’s state visit to Beijing in October 2016, several months after the president took office.

“I think China high officials have this quid-pro-quo mindset especially given their desire to claim practically the whole of the South China Sea including Philippine territory,” Pernia said. “Hence, the Chinese have been taking their sweet time in releasing the funds after the Philippines had long before submitted the requisite project proposals.” 

In a stunning announcement last week, Cesar Chavez, Marcos’ transportation secretary, said that ODA loan deals with China were deemed “withdrawn” after the Asian giant had “failed to act on the funding requests” by Duterte officials.  

“We want the Filipino public to know that we have no funds for the Calamba to Bicol project. Same with the Clark-to-Subic and Tagum-Digos rail projects, no funds. We are saying this now to manage the expectations of the public, by both chambers of congress, the cabinet and those relying on these,” Chavez told reporters on July 15.

The projects, whose estimated costs are U.S. $4.9 billion, were part of the “Build Build Build” program, which the Duterte administration and its allies had promoted widely. Under the former president, who left office on June 30, Manila established closer ties with Beijing. He shelved a 2016 landmark arbitration court ruling that invalidated China’s expansive claims in the disputed South China Sea, as he pursued loans and grants from the Asian superpower. 

Beijing claims nearly all of the South China Sea, including waters within the exclusive economic zones of the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan.

After showing reporters a text message he had received, Chavez said Carlos Dominguez III, Duterte’s finance minister, had noted that China was imposing a 3 percent interest rate – much higher than the rates offered by other financiers such as Japan, at 0.1 percent. 

“I canceled the application instead of keeping it in suspended animation. If you wish to pursue this, I understand that the Chinese financing agency will be asking for interest rates in excess of 3 percent,” Dominguez said in the message to Chavez. 

Overhyped deals  

An analyst questioned whether China was serious about Philippine infrastructure projects.

“Both China and Duterte have the tendency to overhype deals or projects,” said Alvin Camba, a University of Denver assistant professor and analyst who focuses on China-Southeast Asia relations. 

China has a history of canceling projects, he said. 

“Cancellations happen for so many different reasons. But China tends to cancel more than Japan or the West,” Camba told BenarNews, citing studies that for every 10 Memoranda of Understanding, China produces only one concrete output. 

Unlike the West, China has a “murky” landscape filled with different overlapping actors, including middlemen and state-controlled firms, he said.

“When you deal with the West or U.S. or Japan, you know exactly who or what agency you are dealing with. In China, you don’t know which part of China you are dealing with,” he said. 

Camba did not put all the blame on China, noting that land issues and conflicts among regional politicians and elites in the Philippines had contributed to the cancellations.

Marcos vows a ‘firm voice’ 

In response to the announcement made by Chavez, the new transportation secretary, the Chinese Embassy in Manila blamed the pandemic for some delays.

“Over the past two years, COVID-19 has impacted implementation of some projects, hindering the site availability, causing delays of procurement, affecting goods mobility and so on,” the embassy said in a statement on July 16. 

“As to infrastructure, China has comprehensive strength and is well-known for its quality and speed. China will tap its own advantage and support the Philippines to improve its infrastructure. Our two sides have been negotiating technical issues and made positive progress to move the projects forward,” it said. 

Seventeen projects in the Philippines have been completed, and “more than 20 projects are under implementation or in progress,” the embassy said. 

However, BenarNews obtained a document from the National Economic Development Authority that details China-funded infrastructure flagship projects in the Philippines but contradicts the information from the Chinese embassy.

It shows that China so far has completed only two donated bridges: the Binondo-Intramuros Bridge ($60 million) and the Estrella-Pantaleon Bridge ($26 million) in Metro Manila. In addition, a dam project was completed through a loan – the Chico River Pump Irrigation Project ($76 million) in the northern Philippines. 

At least five projects are in the pre-construction stage. The interior department scrapped the controversial Safe Philippines Project Phase I, which would have installed 12,000 security cameras initially in Metro Manila and Davao City, over late funding from Beijing, according to the document.

Only two projects are under construction: the Davao City Coastal Bypass Road, donated by China to Duterte’s hometown; and the Kaliwa Dam project, a China-loaned project that is facing strong opposition from indigenous people. 

Meanwhile, all eyes are on Marcos, the son and namesake of the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, and what kind of policy he will pursue with China. The Marcos family is known to be a close ally of Beijing.

In a report on “Chinese Diplomacy in Southeast Asia during the COVID-19 Pandemic,” published Wednesday, the Asia Society Policy Institute said Marcos had indicated he would hedge relations with China and the United States and “avoid the wild swings of the Duterte era.”

Marcos has promised to uphold Philippine claims to the South China Sea while speaking to “China in a ‘firm voice’” even as he sees “relations shifting into a ‘higher gear,’” the institute noted.

“With a willingness on both sides, it remains to be seen if China and the Philippines can capitalize on the relationship despite the South China Sea-shaped elephant in the room,” the report said.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.