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Monday, December 2, 2024 9:57 pm
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Rodney Jaleco

Rodney Jaleco joined the Philippine Star in 1987, first as a correspondent and later as a desk editor – of the arts & entertainment section – for the publication’s afternoon paper, the Evening Star.

He was later reassigned to help cover the defense beat for the flagship Philippine Star, in time to report about the series of failed military mutinies. He also worked as a stringer for the radio station dzRH and later served as president of the Defense Press Corps, one of the country’s oldest press guilds.

In 1994, Jaleco moved to ABS-CBN, then the country’s largest broadcast company, to help man the assignments desk in the TV News & Current Affairs division.


In 2006, he immigrated to the United States where he worked as the Washington D.C. correspondent for The Filipino Channel, ABS-CBN’s overseas subsidiary. At about the same time, he was recruited to help and later become editor of the Manila Mail, then the Metro DC’s longest-running Filipino American newspaper.

Jaleco is currently a contractor at one of the US Commerce Department’s line agencies even as he continues to contribute articles and online commentaries.

 

Articles

The meeting comes on the heels of a massive $95 billion foreign aid bill signed by President Joe Biden. While the bulk of that assistance will go to Ukraine and Israel, it also provides more than $8 billion for Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific region to counter threats from China. 

The collision of Philippine and Chinese coast guard vessels – injuring four Filipino crew members in Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal on March 5 – underlined the growing perils of confrontations in the South China Sea, and the stakes to keep them from blowing up.

The treaty that binds the Philippines and the United States to each other’s defense is something the Philippine ambassador to Washington said the government wished “will never have to be invoked,” but the top US military commander in the Indo-Pacific region warned China might be pushing them to do precisely that.

With another funding deadline looming, the perception of a dysfunctional Washington is deepening doubts among America’s allies, especially those on the “frontlines,” about whether they can continue to rely on her promises.

Japan announced early this month it will be deploying F-35 Lightning VTOL fighters on its two helicopter carriers – the first time they’ll be flying fixed-wing aircraft from carriers since the end of World War II. 

 

Regional tensions are expected to spike again when William Lai (Lai Ching-te) takes his oath as Taiwan’s 14th president in a few days (May 20) from today as China, the United States, and neighbors like the Philippines watch warily how he would steer cross-strait relations that could impact them all.

A bipartisan immigration and security assistance bill faces a bleak future, just days after it was unveiled in the Senate amid stiff resistance from former president and leading Republican nominee Donald Trump. It’s another illustration of how American domestic political intramurals are affecting American security interests in an increasingly dangerous world.