All Quiet In The Second Front

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Will The Last One Leaving, Please Turn-off the Light

Pepe Escobar
Southeast Asia
6 Oct 2004

HONG KONG and MANILA - Palmolive Palma, Rejoice Rivera, Lux Laurel and six other soft-porn "Shampoo Beauties", topless or clad in skimpy underwear and transparent yellow raincoats, didn't break a sweat literally to stop traffic in Manila recently. Nobody knew exactly what they were up to. They could have been mocking the Metro Manila Development Authority, whose chairman Bayani Fernando - in the obvious absence of really serious problems in the megalopolis - decided to go after men who refuse to wear shirts in public. Or they could have been protesting a ban on soft-porn movies ordered by SM Holdings - the country's biggest shopping-mall operator, controlled by Chinese-Filipino taipan Henry Sy.

Who cares? Public scandal or not, at least Palmolive Palma and the rest of the girls, in the midst of the current Philippine economic crisis, have found a niche home market. They don't need to karaoke a Tagalog version of Peter, Paul and Mary's "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and then slog in daily purgatory living the life of an OFW (overseas Filipino worker).

Filipino Central casting

There they are, concentric rings of Filipinas spread out in Hong Kong, on the tarmac, on the subway, on the way to the Star Ferry pier, spilling over from Statue Square through the vault of the HSBC building engulfing Armani and Bulgari luxury compounds, mobbing wily Cantonese operators promoting lucky draws of Nokia cellular phones with prepaid SIM (security identity module) cards - "as little as HK$0.15 a minute [2 US cents] to the Philippines". Everywhere there's the infectious atmosphere of a larger-than-life social club; women of all ages chatting non-stop, comparing notes, staring endlessly at photos of boys and girls in school uniforms, sharing their food, reading Tagalog-language papers or calling home on their discount Nokias. By all means, Filipino maid Sundays in Hong Kong's Central district remain one of Asia's social-anthropology highlights.

The maids configure the most conspicuous example of Ferdinand Marcos' 1970s drive to export Philippine labor as a policy to increase foreign currency and so repay the country's mounting international debt. Now there are at least 7.5 million legalizedOFWs spread throughout 186 countries, apart from at least 1.7 million illegals. The soundtrack of Southeast Asia - and most of the Middle East - is played by Filipinos. Officials and crews on cargo and cruise ships sailing across all oceans are invariably Filipino. Filipino doctors and nurses migrate to overseas hospitals by the thousands every year. At least 4,000 Filipinos risk their lives working in Iraq. (The Philippines banned its citizens from going to work in Iraq after truck driver Angelo de la Cruz was kidnapped by Islamic militants on July 7. However, 42% of all Filipinos believe they have a right to look for a job in a danger zone such as Iraq.)

More than 200 Filipinos recently used the "southern back door" of Mindanao to sail to Turkey and then cross the border to find jobs in Iraq. More than 2,000 OFWs have landed in jail. Two were beheaded in Saudi Arabia. One was hanged in Singapore. One, de la Cruz, escaped beheading in Iraq. Hundreds of thousands live under semi-slavery regimes and suffer daily abuses.

Forced by abysmal mass poverty at home and the never-ending economic crisis, the Hong Kong amahs leave their families behind and embark on three-year contracts that pay a fixed salary set by the Hong Kong government. They then send 70-85% of the total back to the Philippines every month.

The "privilege" of working in a wealthy, advanced and multi-racial society where they keep the house impeccably clean, cook tasty food, communicate well, teach English to the children of their wealthy employers for free, and learn Cantonese almost immediately, is rewarded in many cases with being treated as a very low-class citizen - not to mention a back-breaking, full six-day workweek and a single trip to see the family back home once every two years. The "social club" spread out in Hong Kong's Central district confirms that not a few among them have to sleep on kitchen floors or even on top of cupboards.

In Hong Kong's notorious, decades-old culture of labor exploitation, these women get paid less than half of what is offered by the lowest job in Hong Kong anyone would possibly contemplate taking. It's virtually impossible to gauge how such a warm, lovely people - bearing a strong Latin influence - can endure the worst of the Cantonese Inquisition - horrific abuse not too dissimilar to the case of Celestina Valdez Aquino, 44, who sued her former Hong Kong employer Betty So because she was repeatedly mistreated and then fired. Her crime: she had three deformed fingers.

So what do they get at the end of the calvary? They get education for their children, perhaps the possibility of opening a small business and improving their quality of living when they return home. This, of course, if they are not forced to come back sooner than they think - replaced by cheaper maids from mainland China.

The national heroes' plight

The peaceful weekly downtown Hong Kong sit-in, also referred to as the Sunday social club, is also a tremendously graphic political statement - an explosion of joy and autonomy after every recurrent six-day prison regime. Class struggle yes, but with a wicked smile.

How many are there in Hong Kong? The official numbers list at least 240,000 foreign maids - the absolute majority are Filipinas, with a smaller contingent of Indonesians, Thais and Nepalese. Unofficially, they number at least 400,000. The odds are always stacked against them. Racism is evident. Mean tai tais, or women of taste, don't like them - it's not hard to overhear the Chanel crowd in Hong Kong labeling Filipinas "public nuisances" or "impolite guests". In 2003, Hong Kong slashed the maids' minimum monthly wage of HK$3,670 (US$470) by HK$400 (US$51). This year, to help fund President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's presidential campaign, the government in Manila raised the processing fees for their employment contracts from HK$85 to HK$297.50 (US$37).

No wonder the Sunday social club, apart from the odd beauty contest - like the recent search for the "Summer Babe 2004", all contestants duly numbered, carrying a rose and sporting the same mauve dress - is also the ideal place for myriad Philippine organizations to rally against the terrible working conditions as well as the homeland policies that encourage the export of Filipino women.

Connie Bragas-Regalado, chairwoman of the Migrante Sectoral Party, is one of the fiercest voices defending the interests of OFWs. Migrante's position is that the Philippine government should at least give these women and girls adequate protection, since it can't already guarantee them jobs in their homeland.

Former president Cory Aquino used to call the Hong Kong amahs "national heroes". Not only that, they were also the unknown heroes of an Asian phenomenon - the economic boom in Hong Kong from the 1980s up until the 1997 Asian financial crisis. After all, because of the amahs the white-collar elite in Hong Kong didn't need to worry about taking care of their homes, so there was plenty of time to concentrate all their energies on making loads of money.

Now Arroyo's government wants to tax OFWs' income. Former Philippine labor secretary Nieves Confesor once said that "Filipino overseas labor should be viewed as an internationally shared human resource, whose work benefits both the host country and the Philippines". The people from Migrante totally disagree: "That's very degrading. How can you share your migrant workers when they are treated as modern slaves in different countries? The expertise of the migrant worker should be used for the development of our own country and secondarily for the development of other countries - not to provide 'entertainment' and cheap labor for foreign countries." No wonder the crucial theme of Migrante's platform is the struggle for the creation of a sustainable internal market so millions of Filipinos are not forced to go into exile to find a job.

In Manila, Bragas-Regalado lays down the line: "GMA [Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo] is pushing OFWs to pay taxes, despite the absence of adequate government services and protection here and abroad. This administration is propagating a big lie by indirectly blaming us for the fiscal crisis and poor tax collection." And this is happening while "big-time tax evaders like [Chinese-Filipino tycoon] Lucio Tan go unscathed". Migrante stresses that the US$7.6 billion in remittances by OFWs in 2003 "is almost 100 times the figures of foreign direct investments".

Bragas-Regalado points out that "both the dollar remittances and government fees on OFWs help keep the economy afloat. How can this administration even think that OFWs are not helping the country? President Arroyo and her minions brought the country to this fiscal crisis. They are the culprits who should be made to account to the overseas Filipinos and the people in the homeland."

Nightlife economics

There are OFWs who are not as patient as the Hong Kong amahs and prefer to take a shortcut. Every day, when the bright lights start shining in Wanchai, one of Hong Kong's financial districts, an army of made-up, dressed-up young Asians - Chinese, Mongolians, Thais and most of all Filipinas - hits a string of bars like the immense Neptune II. At 4 or 5 in the morning, if they're lucky, they may be richer by US$100 or so - courtesy of business executives and expats. This certainly beats one week of toiling under the domestic Cantonese Inquisition.

These so-called public relations girls play the game with deftness. All it takes is to be "tabled" (served drinks by a customer), occasionally danced with, served as many drinks as possible, and then the girl can collect a percentage from the bar or club owner (who is not her employer). In one hour in a nightclub, a girl makes three or four times what she would make in one hour under the Cantonese Inquisition. And everything extra that happens outside the nightclub is the girl's own business. More than a few young Filipinas in Hong Kong end up following the bumpy road of working as a maid, then a waitress, and then PR girl, until they reach Valhalla: marriage with a Westerner.

There is no shortage of websites advertising Filipino ladies for Westerners; some even boast a top 10 on why they are the ultimate prize. (For the record: a Filipino lady is loving, romantic and caring; puts family first ahead of money; is deeply religious; believes in a one-man, one-woman relationship; is understanding, patient and supportive; has a flexible personality and is very optimistic; is well educated; dedicates profound respect to her partner or provider in the family; and adores a partner that makes her feel good about life.) Since the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are not doing much to alleviate the Philippine economic crisis, some Western lonely hearts are more than happy to volunteer for the job.

(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.

Japan plays peacemaker in the Philippines

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How the US got its Philippine bases back

By Herbert Docena
Southeast Asia
Nov 28, 2007

MANILA - Last year, the United States Quadrennial Defense Review, a public and official document required by the US Congress from the Pentagon to express US military strategy, announced that: "Of the major and emerging powers, China has the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States and field disruptive military technologies that could over time offset traditional US military advantages absent US counter-strategies."

Capping a series of pronouncements by high-level US officials warning China not to challenge the US as well as a series of actions indicating US moves to encircle China with US military assets and allies, the document confirmed what many had long suspected to be the case: that the US sees China as the rival whose rise it must prevent and whose military power it must contain. One of the countries in which the US has been deepening its military presence in is the Philippines - considered by US analysts as firmly located within what they call "the dragon's lair" - that strategic area around China where decisive battles could erupt in certain war-planning scenarios.

Though the US military officially vacated the Philippines and its mammoth Subic Bay base in 1991, since 2001 it has moved to re-integrate the Philippines firmly within what it now calls its "global defense posture". Despite the US and Philippine governments' efforts to play down their presence, a clearer but still incomplete picture of the extent and depth of the re-establishment of the US's military presence in the Philippines has emerged.

Recurring exercises

First, the US has stepped up deploying troops, ships and equipment to the country, ostensibly for training exercises, humanitarian and engineering projects and other missions, even though its military officially vacated the Philippines and its mammoth Subic Bay base in 1991.

Since 1998, a steady stream of US troops has arrived in the country for regular military exercises involving up to 5,000 troops, depending on the exercise in various locations throughout the country. Through the Visiting Forces Agreement, which was required by the US to conduct the exercises, it was only beginning in 2001 that the number and the size of troops involved jumped significantly. In 2006, up to 37 exercises were scheduled, up from 17 to 24 in the preceding years. [1]

In any given year since then, few are the days or weeks when there would be no US troops somewhere in the country, giving lectures to Philippine troops, participating in large-scale maneuvers, joining command exercises, simulating war games or taking part in other related activities. Compared to any other Southeast Asian country, the Philippines hosts the most number of such exercises and activities. As a result of these continuing deployments, former US ambassador to the Philippines Francis Ricciardone has described the US presence in the country as "semi-continuous". [2]

Though presented largely as efforts to improve the skills of Filipino soldiers, the aim is also to gain strategic ground. As former US Pacific Command chief Thomas Fargo himself has pointed out: "The habitual relationships built through exercises and training and a coherent view of regional security with regional partners is our biggest guarantor of access in time of need ... Access over time can develop into habitual use of certain facilities by deployed US forces with the eventual goal of being guaranteed use in a crisis, or permission to preposition logistics stocks and other critical material in strategic forward locations." [3]

As US troops come and go in rotation for frequent regular exercises, their presence - when taken together - makes up a formidable forward-presence that brings them closer to areas of possible action without need for huge infrastructure to support them - and without inciting a lot of public attention and opposition. For instance, US troops will be able to deploy faster to the South China Sea if they are holding exercises off Palawan or in Zambales than if they were in Hawaii. In the face of domestic sensitivities regarding a permanent US military presence, they would also be able to say publicly that they are only in the Philippines temporarily and that they will be leaving soon. What is left unsaid, however, is that they are also always arriving.

And as US troops depart then come back again, they leave behind the infrastructure that they had built and used ostensibly for the exercises and which could still be of use to the US military in the future for missions different from those for which they were initially built. In General Santos City, for example, the US constructed a deepwater port and one of the most modern domestic airports in the country, connected to each other by one of the country's best roads.

In Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija, where US troops routinely go for exercises, the airport has been renovated and its runway strengthened to carry the weight of C-130 planes. [4] In the southern islands of Basilan and Sulu, venues of Balikatan exercises, the US, through United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has also built roads and ports that can berth huge ships. [5]

Along with troops, an increasing number of ships have also entered the country with increasing frequency, ostensibly for exercises and humanitarian missions. On at least one occasion, it appeared that they even came unannounced and unexpected. [6] According to the US Congressional Budget Office, "[T]he Navy counts those ships as providing overseas presence full time, even when they are training or simply tied up at the pier." [7] Though they come and go, the US military sees their regular and frequent "temporary" deployments as part of its global "posture."

As the US National Defense Strategy states, "Our posture also includes the many military activities in which we engage around the world. This means not only our physical presence in key regions, but also our training, exercises and operations. They involve small units working together in a wide range of capacities, major formations conducting elaborate exercises to achieve proficiency in joint and combined operations, and the 'nuts and bolts' of providing support to ongoing operations. They also involve the force protection that we and our allies provide to each other." [8]

Just-in-time basing

Second, the US has secured arrangements and built infrastructure that would allow it to use ports and airfields to pre-position equipment, secure logistics support and engage a broad range of locally-provided services that would enable it to launch and sustain operations from the Philippines if necessary.

In September 2001, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo granted the US free access to its ports and offered it over-flight rights to its airspace. [9] In November 2002, the US and Philippine governments signed the Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (MLSA), which has been described by researchers with the US Congressional Research Service as "allowing the United States to use the Philippines as a supply base for military operations throughout the region". [10] The MLSA obliges the Philippine government to exert "best efforts" to provide the US logistics supplies, support and services during exercises, training, operations and other US military deployments.

The agreement defines these to include food, water, petroleum, oils, clothing, ammunition, spare part and components, billeting, transportation, communication, medical services, operation support, training services, repair and maintenance, storage services, and port services. "Construction and use of temporary structures" is also covered. [11] In other words, the MLSA gives the US access to the full range of services that the US military would require to operate in and from the country. Also through the MLSA, the US has secured the services that it would normally be able to provide itself inside a large permanent base but without constructing and retaining large permanent bases - and without incurring the costs and the political problems that such bases often pose.

In 2003, an analyst reported that among all Southeast Asian countries only the Philippines has provided a "forward positioning site" for the US to store equipment to be used for regional operations. [12] In August 2005, the Overseas Basing Commission, the official commission tasked to review US basing, identified the Philippines as one of the countries - along with Thailand, India and Australia - in which so-called "Cooperative Security Locations" (CSLs) are being developed by the US in the region. [13] According to the Pentagon, CSLs are a new category of bases that refer to facilities owned by host-governments but are to be made available for use by the US military as needed.

The Philippine government has not disclosed the locations and other details about these CSLs. The airport in Mactan, which now hosts a fleet of US Orion reconnaissance planes, [14] is reported to be one site where Pentagon officials intended to establish such a facility, [15] but this has not yet been officially acknowledged or independently confirmed. Yet Arroyo herself had earlier in July 2001 raised the idea of renting out naval facilities in Subic Bay, an oft-used venue for joint exercises to the US military.

Lockheed Martin, a company often contracted by the US military, was reported to have been waiting for approval to establish a regional aircraft maintenance facility at Clark Air Base. [16] Halliburton KBR, another US corporation that has secured US military contracts, was reported as having been granted in November 2001 a US$100 million contract to convert Subic Bay into a modern commercial port. [17] The company had earlier announced that it was exploring redeveloping the former US Navy Ship Repair Facility in Subic Bay for maritime logistics and ship support services. [18]

Arrangements that combine commercial with military activities, noted then US PACOM Admiral Dennis Blair, "opens up possibilities for the sorts of things that we can work together on in the future". [19] Indeed in a recent thesis for the US Naval Postgraduate School, these arrangements are precisely what were recommended by Thomas Garcia: "not a return to the grand infrastructure of the past" but "the use of only a small logistical facility currently utilized by the commercial ship industry, and the port infrastructure of berths and airfield already in place." [20]

Another option suggested by Garcia was to locate the Philippine Navy in Subic and then allow the US to position its ships inside the nominally Philippine-owned base. [21] Former US PACOM chief Admiral Thomas Fargo had in fact announced plans to use Subic and Clark for the transit of personnel and trans-shipment of equipment, as well as a re-fueling post for US ships from Honolulu, Guam, or the US West Coast bound for the US base in Diego Garcia. [22] Though nothing has since been heard of these plans, the reports indicate that such options are still on the table. Given the US government's policy of partial disclosure, it's also possible that such plans have gone ahead unannounced and possibly in other places, in the manner that Kaplan had described above. [23]

The terms of the MLSA and the establishment of CSLs reflect the US's increasing emphasis on just-in-time logistics support and pre-positioning of equipment to ensure that US forces - dispersed as they are around the world, often far away from main bases where they store equipment and tap all kinds of services - are always ready and rearing to go. It is not so much the size of the base that matters, but whether it can provide the US military with what it needs and when it's needed.

As the Council on Foreign Relations recently pointed out, "While host nation support often carries the connotation of basing, its role of staging and access is perhaps more critical. Support for port visits, ship repairs, over-flight rights, training areas and opportunities, and areas to marshal, stage, repair, and re-supply are no less important for both daily US presence in the region and for rapid and flexible crisis response." [24]

Forward operating unit

Third, the US has already succeeded in stationing indefinitely a US military unit in the Philippines. Since 2002, a unit now called the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines (JSOTF-P) has been deployed to and based in Zamboanga, Basilan, Sulu and other areas in Mindanao in the southern Philippines.

While initially presented as part of on-again, off-again temporary training exercises, it has since been revealed that this unit has continuously maintained its presence in the country for the past six years. With the Philippine government not giving a definite exit date, and with US officials stating that this unit will stay on as long as they are allowed by the government, it is presumed that it will continue to be based in the Philippines for the foreseeable future.

In an apparent effort not to draw attention to the unit, the US and Philippine governments have publicly revealed little about the real nature and mission of the JSOTF-P, except to project it as part of the US-led "war on terror" and to highlight the humanitarian and civil engineering projects that it undertakes. The media, for the most part, have through the years uncovered little about the unit and have reported on it by following the description offered by the US and Philippine governments. Most of what has since been gathered about the unit has come from US military publications and specialist sources not intended for general public consumption.

Headquartered in the Philippine military's Camp Navarro in Zamboanga City, [25] but with its personnel sent to various locations, the JSOTF-P has effectively established a new form of US military presence and basing in the country. When it was publicly revealed in August 2007 that the US Department of Defense via a US military construction unit had granted a contract to a company providing "base operations support" for the JSOTF-P, [26] the US Embassy admitted that the US was setting up allegedly "temporary"structures for "medical, logistical, administrative services"and facilities for "for them to eat, sleep and work" [27].

The Philippine's own Visiting Forces Commission also confirmed that the US maintains "living quarters" and stock supplies inside Philippine military camps. [28] Renowned US military historian Robert Kaplan, who revisited the JSOTF-P inside Camp Navarro in 2006 described these structures as signifying a "more hardened, permanent arrangement".[29] According to a US military publication, the JSOTF-P's area of operations covers about 20,000 square kilometers, covering the entire island of Mindanao and its surrounding islands and seas. [30] According to various media reports, the number of troops attached to the unit has ranged from between 100 and 450, but it is not clear what the actual total number is for any specific period. [31] US Lieutenant Colonel Mark Zimmer, a JSOTF-P public affairs officer, said it varies "depending on the season and the mission." [32]

US officials have consistently maintained that US troops belonging to the unit "train, advise and assist" the Philippine military in their war against alleged terrorists in the country. Though denying that they are involved in "actual combat", US officials also repeatedly assert that they have the right to shoot back when under fire. In US military publications, US troops belonging to the unit have characterized their mission as "unconventional warfare", "foreign internal defense" and "counter-insurgency". [33]

In fact, they have been reported to have exchanged gunfire with and to have been attacked by alleged insurgents. [34] There have also been numerous sightings of US troops in the vicinity of active military operations, some of which have been confirmed by Philippine military officials. [35] At the height of Philippine military offensives against insurgent targets in August 2007, US soldiers were photographed by a press wire agency leading a military convoy in Sulu. [36]

All of this has served to challenge Philippine government claims that the US troops are not involved in the fighting. As Colonel Jim Linder, former head of JSOTF-P, has stated, "We're very much in a war out here ... We'll spill American blood on Jolo. It's only by luck, skill and the grace of God we haven't yet." [37] Referring to their bases in the southern Philippines as "forward operating base-11" and "advanced operating base-921", [38] the JSOTF-P corresponds to the new kind of forward-deployment that the US has introduced as part of its ongoing effort to realign its global posture and overhaul its offensive capabilities.

In terms of profile and mission, the JSOTF-P is similar to the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-Horn of Africa), which was established in Djibouti in eastern Africa in 2003 and also composed mostly of Special Forces. Like the JSOTF-P, the CJTF-Horn of Africa has also been conducting "humanitarian"missions and aid projects. Similar to the Philippines, Djibouti has also seen a dramatic increase in the amount of military aid it receives from the US. [39] As a sample of the US's new austere basing template, the CJTF-Horn of Africa has been described as the "model for future US military operations". [40]

Indeed, more deployments similar to that of the JSOTF-P and CJTF-Horn of Africa are planned in other locations around the world. [41] In 2004, former PACOM commander Thomas Fargo talked about expanding Special Operations Forces in the Pacific. [42] Apparently referring to the JSOTF-P, former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld also announced that the Pentagon would establish more "nodes for special operations forces". [43]

In his 2005 Annual Defense Report, Rumsfeld said that the US military "will improve its global force posture to increase strategic responsiveness while decreasing its overseas footprint and exposure. In place of traditional overseas bases with extensive infrastructure, we intend to use smaller forward operating bases with prepositioned equipment and rotational presence of personnel ... We will maintain a smaller forward-presence force in the Pacific while also stationing agile, expeditionary forces capable of rapid responses at our power projection bases." [44]

As evidenced by the fact that most Filipinos are not even aware of their presence and their actions, the JSOTF-P has managed to circumvent public opposition and legal restrictions governing the presence of foreign troops in the country. Hence, as Kaplan noted, "The JSOTF had succeeded as a political mechanism for getting an American base-of-sorts up and running ..." [45] C H Briscoe, command historian of the US Army Special Operations Command, under which the units of the JSOTF-P belong, concurs: "After more than 10 years, PACOM has reestablished an acceptable presence in the Philippines ..." [46] (Italics added.)

Though the Abu Sayyaf Group and other "terrorists" are the self-avowed targets of the JSOTFP, its location and capabilities allow it to aim much farther. In fact, the JSOTF-P's "area of operations" covers places in Mindanao in which the communist paramilitary group the New People's Army (NPA) is also active. The US had also tagged the NPA as a "foreign terrorist organization" and therefore as a legitimate target of the "war on terror". In fact, the US has also directly offered to more actively help in fighting the NPA. [47] As it is, US military assistance and training are directly contributing to the Philippine military's war against them.

Strategically positioned between two routes at the entrance of a major sea lane, the Makassar Strait, at the southwestern rim of the South China Sea, closer to Malaysia and Indonesia than most of the rest of the Philippines, the JSOTF-P, according to C H Briscoe, the unit's official historian, is "now better able to monitor the pulse of the region". [48] Indeed, Major General David Fridovich, commander of the US Special Operations Forces-Pacific, has stated that the area including the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia is the "key region where we presently focus our indirect efforts". [49]

Rommel Banlaoi, an analyst with the National Defense College of the Philippines, finds, "The American war on terrorism has provided the US an excellent justification to hasten its reestablishment of a strategic presence in Southeast Asia." [50] Having secured that presence, the US has become closer to that country with "the greatest potential to compete militarily" with the US.

By getting the US "semi-permanently" based south of Luzon for the first time since World War II, Kaplan notes that "the larger-than-necessary base complex" in Zamboanga has delivered more than tactical benefits. [51] In the minds of the US Army strategists, Kaplan notes, "Combating Islamic terrorism in this region [Southeast Asia] carried a secondary benefit for the United States: it positioned the US for the future containment of nearby China."


Notes

1. Carolyn O Arguillas, "Q and A with US Ambassador Francis Ricciardone: Ops-Intel-fusion is not spying," MindaNews, February 28, 2005; Jojo Due, "Biggest RP-US military exercise starts next week," Philippine Business Daily Mirror, February 17, 2006.

2. Carolyn O Arguillas, "Q and A with US Ambassador Francis Ricciardone: Ops-Intel-fusion is not spying," MindaNews, February 28, 2005.

3. Admiral Thomas Fargo, Transcript of Hearing of US House of Representatives Committee on International Relations Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, June 26, 2003.

4. Karl Wilson, "US force in Asia to become smaller but deadlier," Daily Times, August 22, 2004.

5. United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Growth with Equity in Mindanao project website; Embassy of the United States of America, Manila, Republic of the Philippines, "Securing Peace in Mindanao through Diplomacy, Development, and Defense," August 2006.

6. In October 2005, for example, a huge US military ship, later identified as a high-speed vessel, was spotted off Basilan near Zamboanga City. The Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Department of Foreign Affairs gave conflicting versions as to the nature and mission of the ship, with the DFA spokesperson even initially indicating that they were not informed about its arrival only to subsequently claim that the US Embassy had actually requested permission for the ship's entry. ("US military ship sneaks into Southern RP, Sunstar, October 12, 2005, Manila Times, October 13, 05, Phil Star, October 28, 05.

7. US Department of Defense, National Defense Strategy 2005, Washington DC, pp. 18-19.

8. US Department of Defense, National Defense Strategy 2005, Washington DC, pp. 18-19.

9. Mark Lander, "Philippines Offers US its Troops and Bases," New York Times, October 2, 2001; Rufi Vigilar, "Philippines opens its ports to US military," CNN, September 18, 2001; Angel M Rabasa, "Southeast Asia After 9-11: Regional Trends and US Interests," Testimony presented to the Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific House of Representatives Committee on International Relations on December 12, 2001.

10. Thomas Lum and Larry A. Niksch, "The Republic of the Philippines: Background and US Relations," Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, January 10, 2006; Sheldon W Simon, "Theater Security Cooperation in the US Pacific Command," National Bureau of Asian Research Analysis, Volume 14, Number 2, August 2003.

11. Mutual Logistics Support Agreement Between the Department of Defense of the United States of America and the Department of National Defense of the Republic of the Philippines, November 21, 2002.

12. Sheldon W Simon, "Southeast Asia solidifies antiterrorism support, lobbies for postwar Iraq reconstruction," Pacific Forum CSIS Comparative Connections, Second Quarter 2003.

13. Overseas Basing Commission, Report to the President and Congress, Arlington, Virginia, August 15, 2005, p. H11.

14. Al Jacinto, "NGOs: Probe US military facilities," Manila Times, August 29, 2007.

15. Robert D Kaplan, Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts: The American Military in the Air, at Sea, and on the Ground (New York: Random House, 2007), pp. 88-90.

16. Thomas Fuller, "Subic Bay May be Up for Rent," International Herald Tribuna, July 13, 2001; "US Briefs RP on plans for using Subic, Clark," Inquirer, September 28, 2001.

17. Frida Berrigan, "Halliburton's Axis of Influence," In These Times, March 28, 2003.

18. Halliburton, "Press Release: Halliburton KBR to Evaluate Subic Bay Facilities," November 21, 2001.

19. Admiral Dennis Blair (Commander in Chief, US Pacific Command), Transcript of Press Conference, Manila, July 13, 2001.

20. Thomas J Garcia, "The Potential Role of the Philippines in US Naval Forward Presence," Thesis for US Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, December 2001, p. xiv.

21. Thomas J Garcia, "The Potential Role of the Philippines in US Naval Forward Presence," Thesis for US Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, December 2001, p. 30.

22. "US Briefs RP on plans for using Subic, Clark," Inquirer, September 28, 2001.

23. Council on Foreign Relations, The United States and Southeast Asia: A Policy Agenda for the New Administration, July 2001, pp. 47-48.

24. Robert Kaplan, Imperial Grunts: On the Ground with the American Military from Mongolia to the Philippines to Iraq and Beyond, New York: Vintage Books 2006, p.147.

25. In August 2007, Focus on the Global South publicized the granting by the US Department of Defense, through the US Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC), of a six-month $14.4-million contract to a certain "Global Contingency Services LLC" of Irving, Texas for "operations support" for the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines (JSOTF-P). According to its own website, the NAVFAC is the unit within the US military that is in charge of providing the US Navy with "operating, support, and training bases". It "manages the planning, design, and construction and provides public works support for US Naval shore installations around the world". Among their business lines are "bases development" and "contingency engineering". According to the announcement by the Pentagon, the contract awarded to Global Contingency Services LLC includes "all labor, supervision, management, tools, materials, equipment, facilities, transportation, incidental engineering, and other items necessary to provide facilities support services." Global Contingency include "facility operations and maintenance; air operations; port operations; health care; supply and warehousing; galley; housing support; emergency services; security, fire, and rescue; vehicle equipment; and incidental construction." Contingency Response Services LLC describes its work as encompassing "operating forces support", "community support", and "base support". According to the Defense Industry Daily publication, the contract also includes "morale, welfare, and recreation support". The specific contract for work for the JSOTF-P is expected to be completed in January 2008 but other contracts may follow as part of the $450 million-package. ("Contracts, June 6, 2007," US Department of Defense; Press Release, "DynCorp International and JV Partners Win $450 million NAVFAC Contract," DynCorp International, November 2, 2006; "Contingency Response Services", DynCorp International; Defense Industry Daily, "$14.4M to help US SOCOM in the Philippines," June 8, 2007; Ethan Butterfield, "DynCorp lands $450M Navy Contingency Services Deal," Washington Technology, November 3, 2006.

26. "US denies building bases in Mindanao," GMANews.TV, August 27, 2007.

27. Veronica Uy, "VFACom Chief Denies US bases in Mindanao," Inquirer.net, August 24, 2007.

28. Robert D Kaplan, Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts: The American Military in the Air, at Sea, and on the Ground (New York: Random House, 2007), p. 319.

29 T D Flack, "Special Operations Force Aiding an Important Ally," Stars and Stripes, March 11, 2007; T D Flack, "Special Operations Force Aiding an Important Ally," Stars and Stripes, March 11, 2007; Colonel Gregory Wilson, "Anatomy of a Successful COIN Operation: OEF-Philippines and the Indirect Approach," Military Review, November to December 2006.

30. At start of the deployment in January 2002, there were supposed to be 160 to 250 who were joining. (Steve Vogel, "Americans Arrive in Philippines US Special Forces To Aid Filipino Army In Threatened Areas," Washington Post, January 16, 2002; Fe B Zamora, "All US troops will leave on July 31, says Wurster," Philippine Daily Inquirer, July 1, 2002; Pat Roque, "US Special Forces in Philippines," Associated Press, February 18, 2002; Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough, "Philippine confusion," Washington Times, February 8, 2002). In November 2002, the Army Magazine reported that there were 260 members of the task force were in the southern Philippines. (Army Magazine, "News Call," November 1, 2002). In February 2003, 350 Special Forces were reportedly scheduled to be sent to Sulu but this was postponed. (Eric Schmitt, "US combat force of 1700 is headed to the Philippines", New York Times, February 21, 2003; Bradley Graham, "US Bolsters Philippine Force," Washington Post, February 21, 2003) In October 2003, 300 Special Forces were reported to be in Basilan ("US spy aircraft deployed in Philippines," October 13, 2003 The News International (Pakistan). By February 2006, 250 more troops were reported to be joining those who were already in Sulu but it was not clear how many were still there at that time ("RP-US to conduct war games amid 'rape' controversy," Philipine Daily Inquirer, January 10, 2006; "No time frame of US troops' stay in Sulu," Mindanews, January 17, 2006). Shortly after, US military spokesperson Captain Burrel Parmer announced that 400 US troops will be Sulu for various projects. (Ding Cervantes, "5,500 US military personnel coming for Balikatan 2006," Philippine Star, February 17, 2006). In September 2006, 114 US troops were reported to have arrived in Zamboanga City as part of the "normal rotation" of soldiers under JSOTF-P, according to the US Embassy. (Julie Alipala, "100 GIs held at Zambo immigration," Philippine Daily Inquirer, September 28, 2006). In February 2007, US today reported 450 and Reuters put the number at 100 (Paul Wiseman, "In Philippines, US Making Progress in War on Terror," USA Today, Februay 13, 2007; "Philippines increases security for US forces," Reuters, February 26, 2007).

31. "Civilians want probe on US military's alleged supervision in Sulu war," Mindanews, November 24, 2005.

32. Colonel David Maxwell, "Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines: What Would Sun-Tzu say?" Military Review, May-June 2004; Members of the 1st Special Forces Group, "The history of the 1st SF Group in the Republic of the Philippines; 1957-2002," Special Warfare, June 2002; C H Briscoe, "Why the Philippines: ARSOF's expanded mission in the war on terror," Special Warfare, September 2004; "Interview with Vice Admiral Eric T Olson," Special Operations Technology Online, July 13, 2004, Volume 2, Issue 4; Colonel. Gregory Wilson, "Anatomy of a Successful COIN Operation: OEF-Philippines and the Indirect Approach," Military Review, November to December 2006.

33. John Hendren, "Rebels shoot at US Troops in the Philippines," Los Angeles Times, June 18, 2002; Army Magazine (published by the Association of the United States Army), "News Call," August 1, 2002; Roel Pareno, "Gunfire hits Huey with US troops," Philippine Star, March 9, 2006.

34. See Herbert Docena, Unconventional Warfare: Are US Special Forces Engaged in an 'Offensive War' in the Philippines?" (Quezon City: Focus on the Global South, 2007).
35. "American troops aboard Humvee spotted leading military convoy," Philippine Daily Inquirer, August 15, 2007.

36. Eliza Griswold, "Waging Peace in the Philippines", The Smithsonian, December 2006.

37. Major Kevin T Henderson, US Army, "Army Special Operations Forces and Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) Integration: Something a Joint Task Force Commander should Consider," monograph, United States Army Command and General Staff College, School of Advanced Military Studies, 19 May 2004; another writer talks about a "Forward Operating Base 11" in the southern Philippines (Cherilyn Walley, "Impact of the semi-permissive environment on force protection in Philippine engagements," Special Warfare, September 2004); T D Flack, "When Visiting Jolo, Show a Little Courtesy, Please," Stars and Stripes, March 12, 2007.

38. Alain Lallemand, "Profiteering on Location," International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, May 22, 2007.

39, Center for Defense Information, "Worldwide Reorientation of US Military Basing: Part II: Central Asia, Southwest Asia, and the Pacific," October 7, 2003; Stanley A Weiss, "After Iraq, a New US Military Model," International Herald Tribune, December 27, 2006.

40. Greg Jaffe, "Rumsfeld details big military shift in new document," Wall Street Journal, March 11, 2005.

41. Admiral Thomas B Fargo, "Regarding the Defense Global Forces Posture Review," Testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, September 23, 2004.

42. Donald H Rumsfeld (US Secretary of Defense), Testimony before Senate Armed Services Committee, Washington DC, September 23, 2004.

43. Donald H Rumsfeld (US Secretary of Defense), Annual Report to the President and the Congress 2005, p. 36-37.

44. Robert Kaplan, Imperial Grunts: On the Ground with the American Military from Mongolia to the Philippines to Iraq and Beyond, New York: Vintage Books 2006, p.150.

45. C H Briscoe, "Reflections and Observations on ARSOF Operations During Balikatan 02-1," Special Warfare, September 2004.

46. Christine Avendano, "US willing to help RP troops in fight vs NPA," Inquirer.net, June 28, 2007.

47. C H Briscoe, "Reflections and Observations on ARSOF Operations During Balikatan 02-1," Special Warfare, September 2004.

48. "Interview with Major General David Fridovich," Special Operations Technology SOTECH, April 23, 2007.

49. Rommel C Banlaoi, The War on Terrorism in Southeast Asia, (Manila: Rex Book Store Inc., 2004).

50. Robert Kaplan, Imperial Grunts: On the Ground with the American Military from Mongolia to the Philippines to Iraq and Beyond (New York: Vintage Books, 2006), p.178.

51. Robert Kaplan, Imperial Grunts: On the Ground with the American Military from Mongolia to the Philippines to Iraq and Beyond (New York: Vintage Books 2006), p.134.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Herbert Docena is author of "At the Door of all the East: The Philippines in United States Military Strategy", a new report launched by Focus on the Global South, an international policy research institute.

(Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

US digs in deeper in the Philippines

By Noel Tarrazona
Southeast Asia
Sep 5, 2007

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines - As the Armed Forces of the Philippines expand the scope of their offensive against Muslim insurgent groups on Mindanao, some are wondering if the escalating conflict could lead or already has led to the establishment of a permanent US military presence in the restive region.

Since the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on New York and near Washington, the United States has, as part of a Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with the Philippines, poured hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of military aid and technical assistance toward the army's counterinsurgency campaign against Abu Sayyaf, a radical separatist group that Washington contends has links to regional and global terror groups, including Indonesia-based Jemaah Islamiya and al-Qaeda.

More recently, the Philippine Army has resumed low-intensity hostilities with two Muslim ceasefire groups, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Manila has accused the MNLF of harboring members of the 300-member Abu Sayyaf. With US military assistance, though not full-fledged fighting forces, the Philippine Army is believed to have largely hobbled the dwindling Abu Sayyaf by decapitating its top leadership.

With the spiraling fiasco in Iraq and the re-emergence of the Taliban as a fighting force in Afghanistan, the US has no clear-cut victories to show after President George W Bush launched his "war on terrorism" in 2001. Southeast Asia, including combating Abu Sayyaf in the southern Philippines, was identified by Washington as an important theater in the global campaign and by certain measures now represents the only front were the US could conceivably declare any sort of a military victory.

The irony, of course, is that US soldiers have reputedly not done any of the fighting in Mindanao and that the Philippine Army is now threatening to widen the conflict seemingly beyond the United States' original strategic objectives. Some political analysts believe that the recent army operations against the MILF and MNLF have been driven by military leaders keen to keep the United States' financial assistance flowing - despite the new offensive's only tenuous link to Washington's stated counter-terrorism goals. The US has so far remained mum on the Philippine Army's recent allegations that the MNLF, and to a lesser degree the MILF, are in league with Abu Sayyaf.

But a widened conflict and longer stay in the Philippines could serve Washington's broader strategic goals beyond the "war on terror" in the region - counterbalancing China. Since 2002, the US has invested millions of dollars toward the construction not only of military facilities, but also of development and humanitarian projects in and around Zamboanga City, where the US and the Philippine Army have staged a series of ever larger "shoulder to shoulder" joint military exercises, including June's joint Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) naval exercises. More than 600 US troops took part in the original six-month exercises here in 2002, and the US has established a counter-terrorism training camp in the area.

Those joint exercises have now extended into the Muslim-dominated neighboring provinces of Sulu and Basilan, conflict-ridden areas where the fighting between rebel and government forces has been most intense. In Sulu alone, the US has allocated more than US$100 million for infrastructure and social services, an attempt to address the abject poverty that Manila contends has driven the region's unemployed youth into insurgent camps, but also possibly to pave the way for future resource extraction.

Ever since the Philippines' former colonial overlord was ousted in 1991 from its long-held military bases at Subic Bay and Clark, local law has strictly prohibited the re-establishment of foreign military bases in the country. The legislation was put in place specifically to guard against a repeat of the country's experience under the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who for years was financially propped up by Washington and symbolically fortified by the United States' military presence in the country.

Yankee come home

Now some in President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's camp are believed quietly to favor maintaining some sort of US military presence in the country - both to consolidate recent US-supported battlefield gains against Muslim separatist groups and more broadly to counterbalance China's growing military might in the region.

Outwardly Manila's bilateral relations with Beijing are cordial, but the two sides have in recent years skirmished over their competing claims to the reputedly oil-rich Spratly Islands. The recent joint CARAT exercises with the US notably coincided with a Foreign Ministry announcement of a new joint seismic marine undertaking with Beijing to settle their disputed claims in the South China Sea.

For their part, US officials deny harboring any ambitions to establish a permanent military base in Mindanao, or for that matter anywhere else in the Philippines. Joint Special Operation Task Force commander Colonel David Maxwell, who leads the joint exercise with the Philippine Army, says the US presence is strictly consistent with the provisions of the VFA.

Left-leaning groups, such as Focus on the Global South (FGS), a research institute based in Thailand that has closely monitored the US military's presence in the Philippines, contend that the US has, in apparent violation of Philippine laws, already established de facto bases in Mindanao. According to VFA commissioner Edilberto Adan, the technical definition of a US base entails US troops and supplies being located inside a host nation's facilities - as is now the case in the southern Philippines.

FGS noted in a recent statement that the US Overseas Basing Commission (OBC), an official US government body, has recently listed the Philippines as developing "cooperative security locations" - a category of military bases in official US parlance - and that US troops in Mindanao refer to their locations there as "Advanced Operating Base 920".

The research outfit also said that the OBC currently describes the Philippines as a supply base for military operations throughout the region and asked why the US base-construction unit, the Naval Facilities Engineering Command, recently allocated a P650 million ($14 million) six-month contract to US firms offering "base operations" services in the Philippines.

It also asked why the US has launched a series of new military-related projects across the region - estimated to be worth at least $14.4 million - at a time the campaign against the emasculated Abu Sayyaf should in theory be winding down.

FGS argues that, consistent with US practice and that of governments in other countries that host US bases where they face domestic opposition, in an attempt to obscure the precise definition of what constitutes a base, Washington and Manila are deliberately keeping the exact nature of the US military presence in Mindanao under wraps.

Although the so-called "Cooperative Security Locations" are technically run and maintained by Manila or private contractors, the Pentagon considers them US military facilities that may be activated for pre-positioning logistics support and as venues for joint operations with host militaries during actual combat operations.

VFA commissioner Adan has reacted to the allegations by saying that the said facilities only serve to provide living quarters for the small number of US troops who are providing technical and logistical assistance to the Philippine Army in its operations against Abu Sayyaf.

He said the facilities are "not bases inside our camps; these are lodgings that are under Philippine control", and emphasized that US troops are not engaging in actual combat but rather are sharing intelligence with the Philippine Army and providing humanitarian, engineering, medical, veterinarian and explosive and disposal services.

Other Philippine officials contend that the US-financed construction of the contested facilities will benefit the impoverished region by creating hundreds if not thousands of new jobs. Several local leaders and residents have been openly supportive of the United States' presence in the historically restive region, noting that the Philippine Army failed to come to grips with Abu Sayyaf until US soldiers arrived on the scene. Whether those same local groups would be willing to accept a more outwardly permanent US military presence is altogether unclear.

Noel T Tarrazona is a journalist and training consultant to non-governmental organizations promoting Christian-Muslim peace dialogue and leadership training in the southern Philippines. He may be contacted at zpressclub@yahoo.com.

(Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.

Filipino diaspora moves up value chain

By David L Llorito
Southeast Asia
Jul 21, 2007


MANILA - A growing global search for English-speaking talent is greatly benefiting Philippine workers who pursue overseas opportunities and badly hurting the local companies and domestic economy they are in growing numbers leaving behind.

A recent study conducted by Grant Thornton International and Philippine accounting firm Punongbayan & Araullo found that 43% of Philippine companies rated the scarcity of skilled labor as the major impediment to their business-expansion plans. Last year only 15% of Philippine companies surveyed complained about a chronic lack of skilled labor.

"Employers across industries are experiencing ... the draining of our local talent pool," said Greg Navarro, managing partner and chief executive officer of Punongbayan & Araullo. "Even in the accounting practice, we are struggling to compete with foreign firms that see the Philippines as a good resource for highly trained, English-speaking [staff]."

Official statistics from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration corroborate those complaints. Since 2000, the Philippines on average has seen 79,000 professional and technical workers, most of them college or university graduates, take positions overseas each year.

Over the past six years, 10,000 nurses have left the country annually for Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States and other destinations. Close to 13,000 medical caregivers, many also with nursing backgrounds, have likewise left each year for jobs in destinations as far flung as Taiwan and Israel.

Meanwhile, Japan and South Korea are emerging as the most popular destinations for performing artists, with each country now receiving on average 55,000 Filipinos per year. More worrying to national competitiveness, the Philippines is sending a growing number of highly trained information-technology (IT) workers to such countries as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Malaysia, Singapore and the US - undermining the crucial local electronics industry.

Official figures may understate the actual outward movement of IT workers to such countries as Singapore and Malaysia, where they are often directly recruited by employers there. Many Filipino IT workers take advantage of the waived visa requirements for fellow Association of Southeast Asian Nations countries by applying directly to regional companies while traveling on tourist visas.

Manuel Villa, a Filipino industrial engineer who works for Fairchild Semiconductors in Singapore, said there are many professional Filipinos in that country. He said that apart from IT workers, a growing number of Filipino professionals are seeking high-paying jobs with Singaporean and multinational companies, including positions in upper management, engineering, logistics and aviation. "The [official] Filipino population here has already reached 120,000 and is rising," he said.

Previously, the professional exodus only affected a few sectors of the Philippine economy, predominantly shipping, aviation, engineering, construction and nursing. In the past three years, however, the loss of professionals has hit nearly every sector.

That includes Filipino journalists moving to Singapore, Saudi Arabia and the UAE; engineers and oil-rig workers to Nigeria, Russia, and the Persian Gulf states; speech and physical therapists to the US; and mining engineers and geologists to Australia and China.

According to the Personnel Management Association of the Philippines (PMAP), high-value-added industries are being hit by higher staff turnover rates, including pharmaceuticals, banking, consumer goods, hotels, electronics, semiconductors, telecommunications, and IT. Anywhere between 33% and 59% of employees who recently left their jobs in these industries pursued new opportunities abroad, according to a recent PMAP survey.

The lower-paying public sector is also being adversely affected. For instance, the state-run Weather Bureau and Mines and Geosciences Bureau are increasingly losing forecasters and geologists to better pay offers from abroad. The Department of Science and Technology recently revealed that out of almost 3,000 national scientists with PhD degrees in various scientific disciplines, nearly 500 have left the Philippines in recent years.

Outward march

Even the Armed Forces of the Philippines have not been spared foreign poaching. Army sources who spoke with Asia Times Online said Australia recently started to recruit Filipino soldiers trained in asymmetrical warfare and counterinsurgency operations, sometimes luring them with the offer of citizenship.

The Australians "know that Filipino soldiers are well trained in the different occupational specialties which make them competent and efficient and they can communicate and verbalize [in English] very well", a senior army officer said in an interview. "The Armed Forces of the Philippines is using American military doctrines and it is compatible with Australian military doctrines. For several decades, our soldiers have been fighting the NPA [New People's Army], secessionists, and terrorist groups. The Australians do recognize this Filipino talent," he said.

As more Filipino professionals move offshore, local companies are scrambling to recruit from a thinning talent pool. "In just 12 months, we lost about a dozen human-resource officers to other companies," said Raymond Santiago, corporate-affairs manager of Unilab, producer and exporter of prescription and consumer-health products.

Noel de Leon, country manager of Mercer Consulting, a global human-resources company with clients in 42 countries, attributes the fierce global competition for Filipino talent to demographic change in the US and the Asia-Pacific region. "There's a war for talent out there because China is growing so fast," said de Leon. "The trend of rising demand for skilled workers is really Asia-Pacific-wide."

In a recent regional survey, Mercer found that anywhere between 50% and 77% of companies in Japan, South Korea, mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Australia and New Zealand had expressed intentions to hire more English-speaking staff, even as many of them are experiencing high local worker attrition rates. "And where are they going to get new talents? Naturally, many of them will recruit from the Philippines," said de Leon.

And global economic trends show that demand will grow before it diminishes. In a recent paper titled "Global Competition for Skilled Workers and Consequences", Manolo Abella, a Bangkok-based labor-migration expert who formerly worked for the International Labor Organization, said the intensifying battle for Filipino and other English-speaking professional talent results from "the growth of global supply chains" brought about by trade and investment liberalization.

"The emergence of these global production structures has been everywhere accompanied by greater movements or transfers of technical and managerial personnel," said Abella. "Another important development has been the growth of informal as well as flexible forms of employment, opening markets for foreign workers willing to enter occupations or sectors abandoned by [local workers]."

According to Dieter Ernst, an economist and senior research fellow at the East-West Center based in Hawaii, the trend toward downsizing of local staff among US firms since the late 1990s has also been a major factor in the hiring trend. Ernst explained that because many US companies operate on very lean staff, many of these firms are now scrambling for lower-paid, but equally skilled, foreign workers.

"For many high-tech companies, competing for scarce global talent has become a major concern," said Ernst. "As a result, global sourcing for knowledge workers now is an important global manufacturing and supply-chain strategy. The goal is to diversify and optimize a company's human-capital portfolio through aggressive recruitment in global labor markets."

But what's adding real fire to the global professional-talent war is increasingly aggressive recruitment from the US, Canada and Australia, especially in regional areas suffering from low population and labor-force growth. For instance, Canada and Australia have been offering permanent residence and citizenship as incentives for skilled migrants, including from the Philippines.

Through its so-called H1-B visa program, US firms have been increasingly aggressive in trying to lure IT workers from the Philippines to Silicon Valley. Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been giving temporary admission to skilled engineers, welders, pipe fitters, accountants, journalists and advertising people from the Philippines and other Asian countries. And Australia is now using its universities as so-called "academic gates" for attracting skilled migrants from the Philippines and all over the world.

Slowly but surely, the mounting professional exodus is driving up wages in the Philippines. Patrick Marquina, associate consultant for Watson Wyatt, another human-resources-related firm, says 148 Philippine companies involved in manufacturing, business process outsourcing, banking and other industries have in the past year all raised their pay scales by an average of 9.2%, or nearly three times the benchmark inflation rate.

Rising pay scales, Marquina explained, are moving fastest in the outsourcing and IT-related businesses. Still, several economic analysts and corporate executives believe average professional wages have risen too little, too late, and fret that the mounting exodus of talent from the Philippines is adversely hitting overall national competitiveness.

Labor expert Abella said: "Experience has shown that human capital, rather than natural-resource endowments, is the key to economic development. The current competition for the highly skilled has raised alarms that ... developing countries will have difficulty in creating a critical mass of professionals and technical workers needed to raise productivity."

David Llorito is a researcher at the BusinessMirror, a Manila-based daily newspaper. He has more than a decade of experience in socioeconomic research, policy analysis and business-economy journalism in the Philippines.

(Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.

US outsources war to Filipinos

By Cher S Jimenez
Southeast Asia
Jul 15, 2006


MANILA - Filipinos are taking up work at US-run facilities in Iraq, dodging an official Philippines travel and employment ban on the war-torn country and providing the US military and its affiliated contractors the cheap, English-speaking manpower it is having increasing difficulty recruiting at home.

The deployments to Iraq represent an illicit spin on the Philippines' global outsourcing phenomenon, where more than 8 million Filipinos have left home for higher paying jobs abroad. The Philippine government imposed a ban on the deployment of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to Iraq in July 2004, soon after Manila recalled its small humanitarian contingent after militant captors threatened to behead a Filipino truck driver working for the US occupation forces.

The Philippines remains a staunch supporter of US-led counterterrorism operations in Southeast Asia, including cooperation in combating alleged Islamic terror groups in the southern Philippines. Critics contend that the hotly contested 2004 election had abruptly influenced President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's government decision to withdraw from the US-led "coalition of the willing" occupation forces in Iraq. Two months before the ban was announced, another Filipino truck driver was the Philippines' first casualty in Iraq, which unleashed a torrent of anti-American protests in Manila.

More recently, however, the Philippine government has demonstrated a waning verve in enforcing that ban. Two years later, an estimated 3,000 out of the total 7,000 Filipinos now serving at four US military-run camps in Iraq are undocumented workers, according to Philippine labor officials. Comparatively high wages have been a push factor: Filipinos in Iraq earn monthly salaries from the US military and its affiliated business interests ranging between US$600 to $1,000 excluding special allowances, according to the labor official.

Filipinos already were a massive presence in the Middle East, and have historically shown extraordinary staying power in the region when faced with violent conflict. When the first Gulf War erupted between Iraq and the US in 1991, there were nearly 100,000 OFWs working in a wide array of jobs in Kuwait. When Iraqi forces first invaded the oil-rich sultanate in 1990, despite offers of free repatriation by the Philippine government, only a few of the workers took up the offer to leave their jobs and fly home.

Philippine labor officials estimate that there are currently about 1.5 million OFWs in the Middle East - many of whom are willing to work amid grave security risks rather than face the dismal labor market back home. An estimated 11% of the Philippine's in-country labor force is currently unemployed, and that rate is steadily rising due to an explosive population growth rate. Last year an estimated 8 million OFWs pumped nearly $12 billion of remittances into the Philippine economy.

The comparatively high wages on offer in Iraq has made it an attractive growth market for Middle East-based OFWs, Philippine labor officials say. Despite the "not valid for travel to Iraq" advisory stamped into every Philippine passport, thousands of Filipinos are openly defying the ban and government officials are either hard-pressed or unwilling to find a solution to the subversion of the ban.

US looks the other way

Philippine-based labor groups contend that the US and Philippine governments are covertly using OFWs to advance American interests in Iraq. While Philippine labor officials openly admit that many OFWs stole into Iraq after the ban was imposed and now work openly at US-run military facilities, they do not have hard evidence to confirm that US government or wayward Philippine officials are behind the illegal deployment of workers.

The US Embassy in Manila declined to comment on the allegations. A Philippine labor official wouldn't address the specific allegations, but admitted that US "employers" in Iraq still "favor" Filipinos because of their English-speaking abilities and long experience in the region. Former Philippine Labor Secretary Patricia Sto Tomas said many Filipinos evade immigration authorities by using secret passage points in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Jordan. The Philippine government has a standing agreement with all of these countries to block OFWs from traveling or crossing into Iraq.

In December, 88 Filipinos were stranded in Dubai after immigration officials there stopped them from boarding a flight to Iraq. It was apparently the first time that OFWs were prevented from illegally entering into Iraq. But Rosalinda Baldoz, chief of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), said officials in these countries usually look the other way when Filipinos pass through proper immigration channels. "They don't really care if you have a stamp in your passport that says you're not allowed to enter Iraq," she said.

Jason Cruz, a 40-year-old warehouseman, and Ernie de Leon (not their real names), a 23-year-old lifeguard, told Asia Times Online that they were able to enter Iraq illegally through Dubai. Cruz said he flew to Dubai on a visit visa and then later applied for work through United Arab Emirates-based Prime Projects International (PPI), a subcontractor of US military contractor Halliburton, which provides support services to US armed forces in Iraq.

Communicating by e-mail, both men said they traveled to Iraq from Dubai without any hitches and suggested that this is was at least partly due to their employer's known connection to the US military. "What I know is that PPI is a subcontractor of Halliburton/KBR, so there was no problem for us to come here even if there is a ban stamped on our passports," Cruz wrote in an e-mail.

According to www.icasualties.org, an independent organization that monitors conflict-related deaths in Iraq, a number of Filipinos have been killed in Iraq since the 2004 ban was imposed. Rey Torres, a driver and security guard with Qatar International Trading Company, was shot and killed outside Baghdad on April 18, 2005. Ponciano Loque and Benjie Carreon were killed on November 11 in a roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad. The organization listed their profession and employer as "unknown". The following week, on November 18, Alexander Mesa Ilocto was killed in a road accident between Iraq and Kuwait. His position and employer were likewise listed as "unknown".

Recent reports have revealed that a syndicate operating through the Philippines' Department of Foreign Affairs was selling "clean" passports for P5,000 to P25,000 ($100 to $500) to OFWs, with the rate scale depending on how fast the applicant desired to leave the Philippines. However, the tide of OFWs flowing into Iraq has recently kicked up a legal fuss back in the Philippines.

Mark Villacruzes, who has previously claimed to represent US contractor Triple Canopy, a private security and special operations firm founded in 2003 by former US Delta Forces, allegedly recruited former members of the Philippine armed forces after the ban was imposed to work as security personnel for American officials and facilities in Iraq.

Villacruzes, who is now out on bail on charges of illegal recruitment, is alleged to have employed about 300 former Philippine soldiers for Triple Canopy's operations in Iraq since the Philippine government ban was first imposed in 2004. Most of the recruits came from the Subic Naval Base, a former American facility in the Philippines.

Before the ban, Villacruzes ran a brisk recruiting business through Armstrong Resources Corporation, a licensed recruitment firm based in east Manila. In March 2003, he allegedly recruited 21 former Philippine soldiers to work for Triple Canopy in Iraq. That batch of recruits was reportedly offered six-month contracts on a US$1,000 per month salary, US$150 in special allowances and free accommodation basis. While attractive by Philippines' standards, the wages and benefits are considerably less then US national recruits receive.

Last month, Villacruzes was charged with illegal recruitment and breach of contract for failing to pay war compensation payments, which amounted to $9,000 for each of the 21 returnees, who sued him through the POEA. The case has since reached the justice department. They have also asked POEA to put Armstrong Resources Corporation under preventive suspension and bar Triple Canopy from participating in Philippines overseas employment programs.

Significantly, Philippine officials have so far been reluctant to make accusations or pursue charges against the US firms that appear to have played a key role in the illegal recruitment of OFWs to staff their operations in Iraq. That inaction might be explained by previous close government-to-government cooperation in awarding Filipinos work in strategically sensitive business related to the US-led global "war on terror" campaign.

In March 2002, local recruitment firm Anglo-European Services, which is known to have ties with Kellogg Brown & Root, a division of the Halliburton Company that has won massive troop support contracts in Iraq, sent 250 Filipino construction workers to build additional detention cells for US-held terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

The recruitment was kept under wraps by both the US and Philippine governments, which apparently agreed that all worker travel documents and recruitment requirements would be expedited in just a few hours by US embassy officials. According to people familiar with the situation, the Guantanamo-bound Filipino workers were allegedly slipped out of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport without passing through standard immigration procedures and left Manila onboard a chartered flight to Cuba.

Anglo-European Services is now aggressively querying the Philippine government to clarify if the ban on travel and employment in Iraq is still in effect, due to reports that large number of OFWs who continue to pour into the war-torn country. The recruitment company says it has a big job order on hold for Filipino workers in Iraq due to the official but lightly enforced ban.

Cher S Jimenez is a Manila-based journalist with the BusinessMirror newspaper. She recently received a grant from the Ateneo de Manila University to conduct investigative journalism on illegal workers in the United Arab Emirates.

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