Three years ago, the most powerful political families in the Philippines joined hands to secure the nation’s biggest election victory in four decades. Now they are locked in a feud that threatens to derail one of Asia’s economic growth stars.
In dramatic events on Tuesday, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s government arrested and deported his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte to face the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The move came just over a month after the impeachment of his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, by allies of Marcos. A Senate trial, which would determine whether she gets removed from office, is scheduled to begin in July.
Sara Duterte, left, with Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in 2022. Photographer: Ezra Acayan/Getty ImagesRead More »
As US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirms USAID was not “dismantled” and instead streamlined to make it a more effective tool of interference and regime change (that is all USAID ever was), there are some other interesting facts regarding USAID…
Off to the side was a more youthful Wolfowitz. He told me that this picture, which had pride of place in his office, was of exactly the moment when the Reaganites had narrowly voted to dump the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines in 1986 and to recognize the election victory of his opponent Cory Aquino.* “It was the first argument I won,” said Wolfowitz proudly. “I said that if we supported a dictator to keep hold of a base, we would end up losing the base and also deserving to do so. Whereas,” he went on, “by joining the side of ‘people power’ in Manila that year, we helped democracy movements spread through Taiwan and South Korea and even I think into Tiananmen Square in 1989.“
* See, for the best account of this upheaval in real time, James Fenton’s book The Snap Revolution.
VoA—U.S. engagement in Southeast Asia, especially Myanmar, can advance America’s national security, economic interests and broader strategic goals in countering China’s expanding influence, foreign policy analysts say.
Prospera, a Peter Thiel-backed crypto ‘city’ running unregulated medical experiments on a Honduran island may very well be the spark for a US coup against Honduras this November.
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Another group to have visited Prospera in recent weeks are Republicans for National renewal, a MAGA-aligned group founded by Mark Ivanyo, a former staffer in Trump’s first term Department of Justice. They touted Prospera as ‘similar to President Trump’s proposed Freedom Cities’ and also took aim at Castro, saying Prospera was ‘a bastion of pro-Americanism, economic freedom & Bitcoin acceptance in socialist Honduras.’
Prospera was also visited last week by Cremieux, an anonymous twitter account regularly retweeted by Elon Musk (and likely run by more than one white crypto-libertarian type) that helps set the libertarian discourse.
Given these links it’s inconceivable that Trump hasn’t heard about Prospera and the threats to its existence. Marco Rubio, a man aggressively hostile to anything that looks or smells like socialism in Latin America, almost certainly has as well. It was telling that he didn’t bother visiting Honduras on his recent trip to Latin America, his first outside the US.
I’ve strongly suspected that these so-called ‘Network States’ would be used as staging grounds for regime change operations. I am aware of the ones in Venezuela and Brazil, as well as a few others in Africa.
We often hear that the new Trump administration inaugurates the age of technofeudalism. Just look at Elon Musk, pontificating about so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) democracy from the Oval Office while undemocratically occupying the US Treasury payment system. But is the administration simply using bullying as a mode of power, as Adam Tooze recently diagnosed it, destroying institutions without measure or plan?
Speaking at a Stratbase Forum in Makati City, Gregory Poling, senior fellow and director of the Southeast Asia Program and Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said the collaboration extends to Japan trilateral and bilateral partnerships.
Poling noted the exemption of military aid for the Philippines, along with Taiwan and Ukraine.
“The Philippines is the only country in Asia that explicitly had its military assistance unlocked as a result of Secretary [Enrique] Manalo’s meeting with Secretary [Marco] Rubio. That’s a pretty good sign.
A 2023 Pew Research survey found that about 80% of women married to men in the U.S. take their husband’s last name. Under the SAVE Act, if their voter registration name differs from the name on their birth certificate or passport, they may need to show additional documents.
If the SAVE Act were to become law, Bedekovics said married women who have changed their names should obtain certified copies of all marriage certificates, locate their birth certificates, and keep any change-of-name documentation on hand for any updates to their voter registration.
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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