SUMMARY: On June 15th, a court in the Philippines convicted one of the country’s most prominent journalists, Maria Ressa, of Cyberlibel. Advocates for press freedom quickly called the trial unfair, arguing it is part of a larger crackdown by Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte on his political opponents and media critical of him. Nick Schifrin talks to Ressa about an “ominous” global trend toward reporters.
SUMMARY: For some families, ensuring economic stability requires a wrenching choice, to leave children behind and find work abroad. Author Jason DeParle has written a book, “A Good Provider is One Who Leaves,” that traces three generations of a single Filipino family as they move across the globe seeking a path out of poverty. He joins Amna Nawaz to discuss meeting the family and telling their story.
SUMMARY: As smoking rates have fallen in the U.S. and Europe, tobacco companies have focused their advertising elsewhere, especially Asia. In the Philippines, 25 percent of the population smokes, and cigarettes are a leading cause of death. But one former smoker is cultivating a grassroots campaign to influence legislation and publicize the dangers -- especially to children. Hari Sreenivasan reports.
ACTIVISTS: We want the pictures now! Pictures save lives!
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): On the streets in Manila, demonstrators march against tobacco.
ACTIVIST: We want to make our voices heard.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Their cause is supported by the medical profession here.
DR. TONY LEACHON, Philippine College of Physicians: Smoking's the number one killer in the Philippines.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Dr. Tony Leachon is the president of the Philippine College of Physicians.
DR. TONY LEACHON: For the young Filipinos, smoking is considered a macho image for men.
SMOKER: I know it's bad — it's bad for our health, but this is to relax myself out from work.
RACHEL ROSARIO, Philippine Cancer Society: Culturally, smoking seems to be an accepted mode of socialization, an accepted mode of relaxation.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Rachel Rosario is with the Philippine Cancer Society.
RACHEL ROSARIO: There is that vision of holding a cigarette and smoking with makeup — it seems to be something that we have to fight against.
SMOKER: It's really hard to kick the habit. I try to lessen it down, cut it, but then you always have that urge.
SUMMARY: China is rejecting a ruling by an international tribunal that its claim to a huge expanse of the South China Sea is invalid. The dispute was a victory for the Philippines and other nations that also hold claims to the waters around the Spratly Islands, a major fishing, trade and energy production corridor. Judy Woodruff talks to Bonnie Glaser of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): A judgment was handed down today by an international tribunal that could have far-reaching effects in Asia. ('Related' above) It began as a dispute between China and the Philippines over a huge expanse of the South China Sea, and China's assertion of control there in waters claimed by many countries.
The area is a major fishing, trade and energy production corridor. And, today, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled against China.
For more on this dispute, on the case, and its implications, I'm joined by Bonnie Glaser of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Bonnie Glaser, welcome to the “NewsHour.”
Remind us, first of all, what was the dispute that this international tribunal was asked to resolve?
BONNIE GLASER, Center for Strategic and International Studies: Well, the Philippines brought this case against China in January 2013, and there are 15 requests that it made.
They're not about sovereignty over territory, because this tribunal is not empowered to rule on sovereignty issues regarding territory, but the Philippines was asking other things. It was asking, for example, that China's nine-dash-line claim be ruled invalid and that China be told that it doesn't have any historic rights that can be applied to waters that give it any special rights to have fishing or energy exploitation in waters that are in exclusive economic zone of the Philippines.
The Philippines also asked that the tribunal rule on the status of eight of the features. And the tribunal ruled on most of those and importantly found none of the features are full islands. So, none of them get a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone. They just get a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea if they're a rock, and some of them are underwater, and they get no maritime entitlement whatsoever.
(CROSSTALK)
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, let me just stop you there. What was China arguing was the basis for its territorial claim, then?
BONNIE GLASER: Well, China has argued, as have five other claimants, that they own many of the islands. Some of them, like China and Taiwan, claim all of the islands in the South China Sea.
This particular set of islands is in the Spratlys. It's the southern part of the South China Sea. And the Chinese rejected this ruling from the outset. They claimed that the tribunal didn't have jurisdiction on any of these issues. So, the Chinese refused to participate in the tribunal ruling. And they have claimed that it is not binding on China.
But, according to the Convention on the Law of the Sea — and China is a state party — it is binding on both parties, the Philippines and China.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, what does it mean, then? China, as you say, is rejecting the ruling. They're saying it's an invalid — was invalid for the court to even consider this. What does it mean, then? Is it enforceable in any way, this decision?
BONNIE GLASER: There is no enforcement mechanism, Judy, under the Convention on the Law of the Sea. And so it's really left up to the international community to encourage China to be a law-abiding citizen and for China to see that it's in its interest to not be an outlaw.
China wants to, I believe, rise peacefully. It doesn't want to have confrontation with its neighbors. So I think this is going to create some thinking, maybe rethinking in China about its approach to its neighbors, I hope. But in the short run, we're likely to see increased tensions, and I think that the Chinese might take some steps to reassert their claims, because Xi Jinping will face pressure domestically.
He has lost face on this issue, because this award, as they call it, the decision, was almost completely in favor of the Philippines. It was very one-sided.
SUMMARY: Sex tourism has long been a scourge in the Philippines. But now there's a disturbing new trend in the trafficking of mostly young women and children: vulnerable victims are being lured online and tricked into the trade. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO (NewsHour): Sex tourism has long been a scourge in the Philippines, an industry that thrives on trafficked human beings and deep poverty in this nation of 100 million.
Recent studies have shown that anywhere from 100 to more than 300 thousand Filipinos are trafficked each year; 80 percent, four out of five, are under the age of 18.
The government, under international pressure, has stepped up enforcement. Stings like this one to rescue young women are more common, as are arrests and convictions. But the sex trafficking industry, as always, seems a step ahead in the game.
It has expanded online.
IVY CASTILLO, Officer, Manila Police Cybercrime Center: That’s only one but there are a lot.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: At the police cyber-crime center, officer Ivy Castillo explained one of the many ways that vulnerable young women are tricked into the trade.
IVY CASTILLO: This is a fake account.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Modeling is a common lure.
So, they’re pretending that this is a real modeling agency to entrap the young girls?
It has all the trappings of a glamorous fashion model agency, especially to a young rural Filipina girl.
IVY CASTILLO: At first, they are requested to send this image.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: They’re asked to submit pictures that seem innocuous, facial shots, ostensibly part of the selection process.
IVY CASTILLO: The next requirement is with a two-piece.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: The next steps call for more revealing images, just the torso, not the face, they’re assured, giving the false impression that it’s unidentifiable. The young woman won’t make the connection that computer software will, until it’s too late.
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FRED DE SAM LAZARO: But it’s an industry fueled by First World demand, from pedophiles mostly in Europe, North America, and Australia, says officer Castillo.
IVY CASTILLO: These foreign perpetrators, they have contacts here in the Philippines, wherein these contacts are looking for children.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: And perhaps the most frustrating challenge with this cyber-sex industry is a social one. Cecilia Oebanda, who founded the Philippines’ largest anti-trafficking group, says many people don’t believe or don’t want to believe it’s that harmful.
CECILIA FLORES-OEBANDA, Director, Visayan Forum Foundation: Because they think that they’re — the girls are just actually performing in the computer, and there’s no contact, there is no touch. For them, it’s OK. There’s no harm actually put to the child.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: At a shelter her agency runs is living proof that it’s not just emotionally abusive, but also frequently escalates. The children are invariably inducted into traditional prostitution and its daily physical abuse.
These two 15-year-olds were rescued in a police sting from a cyber-porn racket. Their alleged pimp, a man named Jerrie Arraz began as a good samaritan neighbor.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Now to growing tensions in Asia over who controls contested areas in the South China Sea. China has recently tried to expand its claim by dumping tons of sand to build up small reefs into islands capable of holding military equipment.
MAN: China would rather use its bullying force against a small country like the Philippines.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Tough words in Manila today, and protests outside China’s embassy, in what’s become a big dispute over a small chain of islands in the South China Sea.
They’re called the Spratlys, about 1,000 miles south of China’s Hainan province. The archipelago is claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Brunei. But in recent satellite images, it is China that appears to have built up one of the islands, known as the Fiery Cross Reef, constructing an airstrip there. The island is reportedly large enough for a 9,500-foot runway, which could accommodate military aircraft.
Today in Beijing, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman defended the project.
HONG LEI, Spokesman, Foreign Ministry Spokesman, China (through interpreter): The relevant construction is conducted within China’s sovereign territory. It is reasonable, understandable and legal, and it is not targeting or affecting any other country.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The U.S. has weighed in on the dispute. The commander of American forces in the Pacific spoke at a congressional hearing.
ADM. SAMUEL LOCKLEAR, Commander, U.S. Pacific Command: The implications are, if this activity continues at pace, is that it — it would give them de facto control, I think, in peacetime, of much of the world’s most important waterways.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The U.S. has expressed concerns about China’s land reclamation, which has gotten so tense at points that Chinese ships have blocked vessels from other countries.
SUMMARY: Tensions among some Asian nations are growing after satellite images showed that China has been building up small islands in a disputed area of the South China Sea. Judy Woodruff talks to retired Adm. Dennis Blair, former commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, to learn more about the contested area and the U.S. response.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): Researchers believe they have found a way to add critical nutrients to rice, a dietary staple in countries like the Philippines. But those changes tap directly into concerns over genetically modified food.
Science correspondent Miles O’Brien has a look at the high stakes in this fight.
One note for eagle-eyed viewers: Miles shot this story earlier this year, before he lost his left arm in an accident.
MILES O’BRIEN (NewsHour): He may not be happy about it, but this megadose of vitamin A might save his vision or maybe his life. Vitamin A deficiency is a pervasive and silent killer of malnourished children and pregnant mothers in the Third World.
Each year, at least a half-million children and a few hundred thousand women go blind or die for lack of this crucial micronutrient. The best sources of vitamin A, meats and leafy vegetable, expensive and often unavailable, are rarely part of the daily diet here.
That’s why people here in the Philippines are working to add vitamin A to the daily staple, rice. But the rice they’re meticulously breeding has become the gold standard for a heated debate over genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.
JOHN IRVINE, Independent Television News: It's the last place outsiders have reached, the town of Guiuan, the eastern edge of this country, where the Philippines meet the Pacific.
We headed into what's left. The soldier with us was a guide, not a guard. The people here could not have been more welcoming as they showed us the horrendous destruction.
Guiuan's location, normally a blessing, was on Friday a terrible curse. There's nothing to the east of this town other than thousands of miles of Pacific Ocean, and it was from there that the typhoon came. The most powerful storm ever recorded by man first encountered mankind right here and dealt a terrible blow.
Several people were killed here in a sports center designated as a shelter, a refuge that became a death trap as the typhoon blew the roof in. The monster storm killed at least 85 people. And the survivors still can't quite believe that they lived through it.
SUMMARY: Relief supplies have been slow to reach typhoon victims due to physical obstacles slowing down delivery. The lack of aid and growing desperation have led to a "breakdown of peace and order" in the hardest hit regions. Gwen Ifill talks to Richard Gordon of the Philippine Red Cross about the challenges.
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): The devastation in the Philippines has overwhelmed that government's ability to provide relief to typhoon victims. One supplier, the country's air force, struggled today with limited supplies and access to remote areas.
We have a report from Alex Thomson of Independent Television News.
ALEX THOMSON, Independent Television News: It can be agonizingly slow. Brigadier General Quiapo is not happy. He wants more aid to distribute. There are remote areas, hungry people. Time is slipping by.
So they push out what they have got into the waiting helicopters, the 206th Tactical Helicopter Squadron of the Philippines air force now a lifesaving rice delivery service. Out over this shattered, saturated landscape, there are people who have still not been reached.
South from Roxas, the provincial capital, to a remote fishing village apparently cut off by flooding, desperate, hungry, they are alerted by the noise and come from nowhere. Smiles that say it all, but the payload is puny. This is over in seconds, even as others arrive in hope. At that point, we were ordered back on board.
Back at the civilian airport commandeered by the military, you soon realize, this air bridge is itself completely dependent on the incoming C-130s and the aid they can bring in from the capital.
BRIG. GEN. ARNOLD QUIAPO, Philippine Army: We cannot fail our countrymen. And we have to do our job. It's a very taxing job, but we have to help our countrymen.
ALEX THOMSON: We waited and we waited, but another expected delivery of rice simple didn't arrive. So the mission into the interior late this afternoon and the mountains was purely about water.
Our pilot made three passes, and still the ridge was too precarious to actually hit land. So a few seconds of hovering and vital water delivered, any way you can, so long as it's fast. So it is that the lifeline of drinking water comes not from the village wells anymore, but from the 206th Tactical Helicopter Squadron.
Today, President Aquino declared a state of calamity, essentially a way of stopping profiteering and looting and freeing up state funds to get aid where it is needed. Night has fallen and they have come down from their shattered villages in the mountains to live here now, in a primary school, four families in this one small classroom, no power, no running water. One mother has already come down with chicken pox.
Outside, Analissa Delgado cooks tuna donated by a charity.
WOMAN: They have no food to eat anymore. They have no water.
ALEX THOMSON: A few feet away, tiny Inista Bowlas. He was born the day before the typhoon, rendered homeless on the second day of his life.
Such is the scale of what is happening here, that these people will be considered fortunate by the standards of some in this region. Yes, they are homeless and destitute, but they are at least alive and unhurt.
SUMMARY: Typhoon Haiyan is the Philippines' fifth natural disaster in a single year, only adding to the relief challenges facing that nation. For insight on why relief efforts appear to be delayed and how Americans can help, Judy Woodruff speaks to Andrew Natsios, former director at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
SUMMARY: In some of the Philippines' most devastated regions, survivors of Typhoon Haiyan are returning to flattened communities with no food, water or sanitation, as officials struggle to provide relief. Angus Walker of Independent Television News reports from the city of Tacloban. Lynnette Lim of Save The Children joins Gwen Ifill.
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): In the Philippines, speed may have saved lives. The massive typhoon that ripped across that country moved at about 25 miles per hour, so fast, it decreased the impact of rain and landslides, which can be a major cause of deaths.
We begin with a report narrated by Angus Walker of Independent Television News.
ANGUS WALKER: With gusts of more than 230 miles an hour, Super Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines with massive force, houses torn apart. Huge waves crashed into the coast, almost a million people forced to flee from one of the strongest storms ever recorded.
There are reports of flash floods and landslides from many of the islands worst affected, but with power and communications severely disrupted, no one has an entirely confident assessment of the damage so far. At least seven ships have sunk in rough seas. Crew members from a barge forced to abandon their vessel were luckily spotted and rescued.
This is the main operations center of the Philippines Red Cross here in Manila, and they're working through the night trying to assess the extent of the damage, and one of the worst affected provinces is completely cut off.
JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): And now to the Philippines, a country struggling to cope with its rapidly growing population.
Tonight's story is part of a new project that looks at the challenge of feeding the world in a time of social and environmental change. It's a NewsHour partnership with the Center for Investigative Reporting, Homelands Productions and American Public Media's "Marketplace."
The project is called Food for 9 Billion.
The reporter for tonight's story is Sam Eaton of Homelands Productions.
