(From left) Commission on Elections spokesman James Jimenez, Rappler Chief Executive Officer Maria Ressa, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Solicitor General Jose Calida.
WE may well be headed for war in the Philippines. The Philippines is letting inciters of revolutions into the heart of our election process. Why are we letting Rappler, which receives some $150,000 a year from the National Endowment for Democracy, or NED, the known funder of antigovernment protest groups, including violent rioters, in the Arab and Ukraine revolutions and Hong Kong protests, the financial arm of the CIA as admitted by the former head of NED, Alan Weinstein, himself, be the official media partner of the Commission on Elections (Comelec)? During the height of the Hong Kong protests, Dr. Michael Pillsbury of Hudson Institute admitted that the NED also funded “millions of dollars of programs” in Hong Kong. Sen. Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan had glorified the rioters as freedom fighters yet did not report on the rioters receiving foreign funding and training. Why should the US be allowed to be the official observer in our elections?

How do they incite revolutions? Aside from funding, training and organizing parties, western and NED-supported media will block almost all news unfavorable to the US and its allies, and will magnify criticisms of non-allies and create anger, hatred and ridicule. Examples?

The western media and Rappler demonizes Russia but won’t tell you that the Ukrainian government closed three TV stations and imprisoned opposition leaders, disallowed the use of Russian language, and attacked the Donbas region they were supposed to give autonomy to by the Minsk agreement signed in front of the European Union, killing some 15,000, mostly civilians.

The elected Ukraine government was overthrown with US support, including with US white supremacist-supported neo-Nazis, such as the Azov Battalion attacking and burning people and government buildings, using swastikas and similar symbols, marching with torches evenings in 2014, and honoring as hero Stepan Bandera, who had collaborated with the Germans including in the ethnic cleansing of the Poles and Jews.‌

The Ukraine war was warned against already years ago by Kissinger, historians and diplomats, building up for over a decade due to acts from the West’s five waves of NATO aggression. The US and NATO promised not to recruit and arm the European countries but entered over a dozen countries to the very border of Russia and refused to sign an agreement not to arm Ukraine against Russia, refusing to even put it on the agenda.

If Russia followed US methods, carpet bombing and missiles would have taken Kyiv in a few days after a bloodbath, or Ukraine leaders could have been assassinated with drones like the US did to Soleimani. But Russia is for now still leaving room and time for diplomacy, unlike the US executions of foreign leaders.

Russia and China immediately sent emergency weapons and bullets for our soldiers in the Marawi Crisis, when President Duterte requested for assistance after the US and Europe initially blocked much-needed arms delivery.

That Sabah, rich in gold, oil and agricultural resources, with actual territory and boundaries, clearly documented to be Sulu Sultanate’s territory, was acceded to Malaysia by the US and UK, and the Aquinos. Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. is acting as Twitter bird on this issue.

The US still is refusing to pay Philippine veterans, hundreds of thousands who died in guerilla war against Japan on behalf of the US on promise of Roosevelt… and many other cover ups too many to mention here but will share in another.

This is not to downplay that there are mostly peace loving Ukrainians, hardworking and fun, a talented and courageous leader in Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but why are the other extremist sides not being shown or reported? The same with not showing the regular Russians, even Putin, not really intent on conquest but legitimately concerned with their long-term security given the decades of invasions and strangulations of nations by the US.

These types of provocative one-sided portrayals raise anger and resentment, especially when stoked further by fake or biased news, now being used against Russia and Filipinos that are not pro-US, like the following:

– That Heroic Snake Island Ukrainians all died defending against Russia after telling it to “f*** off,” when in fact the 82 soldiers were abandoned by the European Union, surrendered, were given food and water and most were allowed to go home

– “Ghost of Kyiv” shown on video to have destroyed 6 to 10 Russian jets…was really just a ghost. The footage turned out to come from a Digital combat video game.

– Italian news showing war coverage of a rain of missiles actually also came from video games.

¬ German reporter with video of massive explosion supposed to be from Ukraine but was from a chemical plant explosion in 2015 in Tianjin.

Do these fake presentations sound familiar, with the Stratbase Albert del Rosario Institute (ADRi) using a US-based satellite firm Simularity portraying a human waste-releasing ship as Chinese, spread all over world media, when it turned out to be an Australian dredge boat picture from years back?

Isn’t this similar to portraying 3 million Chinese tourists to the Philippines as invaders taking over Filipino jobs?

Another threat to our elections, US-funded Rappler, with a record of biased news or selective reporting and foreign support in millions of dollars, being given an official role in the National Elections by the Comelec, should be unacceptable to any self-respecting country or even to an organization with any integrity.

Why are former associate justice Antonio Carpio, former Foreign Affairs secretary Albert del Rosario, UP professor Jay Batongbacal, DLSU professor Renato de Castro, et al. quiet on direct US meddling in our elections but raise a howl on unproven, “Possibilities” of a “Manchurian Candidate”? Why have Rappler, Inquirer and ABS-CBS not reported on the US embassy lobbying in Comelec to have an official poll watchers role in our elections — when the US involved itself in Egyptian, Venezuelan, Iraqi, Ukrainian and other elections; when these nations saw coups, color revolutions, “Arab springs,” “Ukrainian Springs,” and eventually collapse.

“Rappler is the ‘least trusted’ media entity in the country. This is like a ‘free-pass’ on Rappler to mold public opinion. And given their known bias toward other candidates, their participation can only heighten the public’s apprehension that the coming election would not be fair, credible and transparent,” argued National Press Club President Paul Gutierrez. How was the spokesman for Comelec James Jimenez able to get the Comelec Acting Chairman Socorro Inting to sign the memorandum of agreement with Rappler?

Rappler has never denied it received US funding and instead of addressing the conflict of interest, is painting Solicitor General Jose Calida as someone who is associated with the Marcoses. What about Rappler clear support of a candidate, CEO Maria Ressa hobnobbing with a particular candidate, reporting on 4,000 vehicles in the early caravans of the particular candidate with no credible picture and refuted by the people on the ground? Sponsoring an online poll that Rappler itself took down after netizens caught countless questionable Arab and Vietnamese accounts voting for Vice President Leni Robredo.

The petition that was reaching 150,000 signatories asking the Nobel Prize to rescind Ressa’s award was also taken down. Obvious achievements by Duterte or assistance by China are downplayed or ignored, even criticized further. US pledges, even unfulfilled, are magnified.

After Ukraine, the Philippines is next. We should avoid becoming the Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen of Asia.

Ukraine lessons for PH: Biolabs, financial warfare, nuclear leaks, peace prospects?
History, betrayals behind Ukraine invasion
The US and NATO promised not to recruit and arm the European countries but entered over a dozen countries to the very border of Russia and refused to sign an agreement not to arm Ukraine against Russia, refusing to even put it on the agenda.