By Victor Chi, Yahoo Sports

About 10 years ago, RadioShack ran a series of commercials that featured celebrity pairings of different ethnicities. Howie Long and Teri Hatcher were the Caucasians, Ving Rhames and Vanessa Williams were the African Americans, Alex Rodriguez and Daisy Fuentes were the Latinos.

There was no Asian edition, and for good reason. While Lucy Liu, who was starring in "Ally McBeal" at the time, or skating champ Michelle Kwan would have been no-brainers to cast in the female role, who exactly was available to be the male star? RadioShack could have gone for an overseas action hero like Jackie Chan or Jet Li, but there were no viable Asian-American men in sports or pop culture that the general population would've been able to pick out of a police lineup.

This is why the Jeremy Lin phenomenon has been so spectacular. While it does transcend race -- his story is the perfect storm of underdog elements being played out in the media capital of the world -- it does not exclude race. Lin is a breakthrough because the Asian American male has always lagged behind in cultural visibility and acceptance. There has been progress in other areas, particularly entertainment, but sports has been the final frontier. "If you look at it historically, the dominant group has always favored the female of a minority, seeing them as assets, commodities or possessions," says Ruth Chung, a USC professor who specializes in Asian American cultural identity. "Males are seen as competition, and for Asian American men, their greatest threat to white males was perceived to be their intelligence, so it was always easy to stereotype them as being geeky and socially inept."

Guys like Lin? Michael Chang and Dat Nguyen were inspiring pioneers. Chang was the youngest player to win a Grand Slam tournament when he captured the French Open as a 17-year-old and did get some commercial opportunities. Nguyen was an All-American linebacker at Texas A&M and led the Dallas Cowboys in tackles three times. But neither became a massive crossover star, nor have they been active in the past half decade -- a void that feeds into the Linsanity of the past two weeks.

But accentuating the ethnic angle with Lin is tricky. Once the games start, none of that should matter. Sports is the ultimate equalizer, and race should be irrelevant. You can either play the game or you can't. You get the job done or you don't. Your family tree can't help you blow by defenders or sack the quarterback. Lin should not have been given any sort of affirmative action to address what had been the absence of Asian Americans in the NBA. But he should not have been short-changed the opportunity just because he doesn't look the part. That dynamic has been part of Lin's narrative, and sometimes it's not even overt racism at work. It is human nature to question something that hasn't been done before.

"The greatest beauty in what Jeremy Lin is doing is that he fulfills an Asian American stereotype -- he is smart, he went to Harvard, he works hard -- and by doing so, he subverts another stereotype," Chung says. "If Asian men are going to be seen as intelligent, they have to be dismissed in other ways: Socially and sexually inept, not being masculine, and sports is often so wrapped up in a hyper-masculine identity."

About 20 years ago, I was playing basketball at a park. Four on four, me and seven African Americans. At the start of the game, I twice cut to the basket and received a pass for uncontested layups. After the second basket, one of the guys on the other team yelled at his teammates in exasperation: "Who the &$#@ is covering Bruce?!"

I wasn't offended. He wasn't talking to me, and being compared toBruce Lee is actually a compliment, despite the martial arts stereotype, because he exuded strength, confidence and sex appeal. I couldn't really fault the guy. At that time, Bruce Lee was probably his only frame of reference for an Asian male, even though Lee himself had been dead for nearly 20 years. Frankly it would've been a lot worse if he had decided to refer to me as The Donger of "Sixteen Candles" fame/infamy, and let's face it, that has happened to me and every other Asian American male of my generation.

It was a huge step forward when an Asian guy got to play the leading man alongside a sexy co-star as Chow-Yun Fat did with Mira Sorvino in "The Replacement Killers" (1998) andJet Li did with Aaliyah in "Romeo Must Die" (2000). In both cases, though, neither got to kiss the girl, which gets into the whole issue of negative or non-existent portrayals of Asian male sexuality. (Supposedly there is a kiss scene between Chow and Sorvino, but it was cut and is available only as a DVD alternate ending.)

But Hollywood is making progress. It no longer needs to lean on the overseas stars like Chow or Li to fill leading roles. "Lost" featured two Asian males. "The Mentalist" has one. Harold and Kumar both get the girl at the end of "Escape Guantanamo Bay."

So perhaps the biggest sign of progress is that if RadioShack were looking to cast those commercials again today with an Asian version, Lin -- despite splattering scoresheets and shattering stereotypes -- would have competition to nail down the male spot. John Cho (Harold) has been picked twice for People magazine's "Sexiest Men Alive" list.

Then again, Lin is playing with incredible confidence, and as Jack Palance once told us: "Confidence is very sexy."

Jejomar Binay Jr. is the political target of President Aquino and the Liberal Party’s imperious blitzkrieg to remove Chief Justice Renato Corona from the Supreme Court, sources close to the Vice President claimed.

“Everyone knows that the trial is a power game that has nothing to do with an anti-corruption crusade,” one source said. “If Corona is taken out and (senior Associate Justice Antonio) Carpio becomes chief justice, and with the rest of the justices terrorized, may laban si Mar maging vice president soon,” he said.

Startling as the claim may seem, the facts supporting it are unassailable.

Alleging massive cheating by Binay, vice presidential candidate Mar Roxas filed an electoral protest in July 2010 with the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET). Roxas alleges that Binay’s lead over him of 730,000 votes would have been wiped out and he would have won by a landslide if the optical-scan counting machines had not voided 3 million of his votes.  The PET has already secured the ballots in the areas where Roxas claims he was cheated, and its pre-hearing investigations are underway.

By: Rigoberto Tiglao
Philippine Daily Inquirer

The PET – many have forgotten – is the Supreme Court chaired by Chief Justice Corona.

If Aquino gets to control the high court, which he will if Corona is taken out, and with the rest of the justices frightened either by the prospect of their own impeachment or media demonization, he controls the PET, which would fast-track Roxas’ protest, declare him the winner, and proclaim him the Republic’s vice president.

To prepare public opinion for this, the Ombudsman, assisted by a new member of the Commission on Audit, would hurl a flurry of graft cases against Binay to demonize him.  This is the real reason, they said, why Aquino’s forces removed Ombudsman Mereditas Gutierrez and replaced her with his favorite justice, Conchita Carpio-Morales. Morales is a cousin of Justice Carpio, and the law firm he founded, now the Villaraza Cruz Marcelo & Angangco, is Roxas’ counsel for his electoral protest.

Told that no presidential or vice presidential protest has ever been won, my source replied: “But never has an administration dared to take out a Chief Justice, and even more justices if they don’t toe its line.”

The very recent case of Associate Justice Mariano del Castillo bolsters fears that the regime can browbeat justices to submission. Despite Corona’s ongoing trial, the House of Representatives’ justice committee still rushed Del Castillo’s impeachment February 7. Two days later, the embattled Del Castillo voted with Carpio and with Aquino’s three appointees – Ma. Lourdes Sereno, Bienvenido Reyes and Estela Perlas-Bernabe – for the Senate to scrutinize Corona’s dollar accounts.

Watch the impeachment trial and it is the four Liberal Party senators who unabashedly want to prove Corona guilty, even assisting bungling prosecutors.

Check out the people in the campaign to take out Corona, and it is a Liberal Party production:  from party chairman Aquino to vice chairman Franklin Drilon who has been accused of practically being a prosecutor in the trial, to executive vice president Feliciano Belmonte, speaker of the House of Representatives that filed the complaint, to Niel Tupas Jr. head of the prosecution panel, down to the prosecutors’ belligerent spokespersons.

This is not because of the party’s servility to Aquino, but because its future depends entirely on party president Roxas becoming vice president soon, which will be his jumping board for the 2016 presidency. But already, Roxas has been marginalized, with Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa and his gang having blocked his bid to be a high-profile presidential chief of staff, and maneuvering him instead into the labyrinthine and corruption-ridden Department of Transportation and Communications. When transport prices soar, and they will, Roxas will be the most unpopular Cabinet member.

The Liberal Party’s golden age was, ironically, when Diosdado Macapagal, the father of Gloria Arroyo whom it has been crucifying, won the presidency in 1961. After Macapagal, it has been downhill for five decades to near-extinction, losing consistently in presidential and vice presidential elections, and winning very few seats in Congress.

It has not been able to produce political leaders with gravitas who could be presidential timber. Even the new generation of Liberals are hardly poster boys for a holier-than-thou party: P50-million-mansion-owner Tupas Jr., the obnoxious prosecution spokesman Miro Quimbo, tainted by the alleged Globe Asiatique property scam; former deputy customs chief Reynaldo Umali, caught lying with his fictitious “small-lady-informant” yarn.

Aquino is the first Liberal to win the presidency since Macapagal, but this was due neither to his personality nor to the Liberal’s political prowess, but because of mass hysteria that Cory Aquino’s spirit lives in his son’s body. A Roxas win would have ensured a new, post-Aquino golden age for the Liberal Party. But he lost, and the Liberals are now trying to move mountains to reverse his defeat, with Corona’s impeachment as the most crucial phase of that campaign.

As in all major historical events, Corona’s trial has its economic element (to get P10 billion for Hacienda Luisita) and its political dimension (to get Roxas to be vice president). There is also a personal facet to it.

Corona’s term – if he is not taken out – ends October 2018. For senior Associate Justice Carpio, who was appointed by Arroyo five months before Corona, the scenario is sheer psychological torture. He will spend seven maddening years seeing his rival preside over the Court, and when he becomes chief justice, it will be for only one year, as he retires October 2019.

The South China Sea and its myriad disputes have spawned academic analysis on an industrial scale. But as an attention-grabbing international issue, the wrangling has an image problem: so many contested, arcane technicalities; so many conferences and research papers—in sum, so much talk; but so few shots fired in anger. That may be why commentators tend to paint the disputes in an almost apocalyptic light: “The South China Sea is the Future of Conflict” shrieked an article last September in Foreign Policy, an American journal. The author, Robert Kaplan, forecast that “just as German soil constituted the military front line of the cold war, the waters of the South China Sea may constitute the military front line of the coming decades.”

He may well be right. The disputes over the sea are no nearer a resolution than ever. But they have persisted for decades without threatening global peace and need not inevitably become the main focus of tension between China and America. There is a danger that putting the sea in the same sentence as the cold war too often is self-fulfilling. A recent publication (“Co-operation from Strength”) from the Centre for a New American Security (CNAS), an American think-tank, uses the sea to argue for an American naval build-up. And some Chinese observers seem all too keen to become maritime cold warriors.

Take, for example, some of the reaction in the Chinese press to the news at the end of January that the Philippines wants to “maximise” its mutual defence treaty with the United States, with more joint exercises, and more American soldiers rotating through. Explaining the decision, officials referred to threats arising from “territorial disputes”. America is not going to bully Malaysia over the Philippines’ historic claim to Sabah in Borneo, so this must have meant the South China Sea. Of all the claimants to islands, reefs, rocks and waters there, the one with which the Philippines is in active dispute is China. That was certainly how the news was taken by China’s Global Times newspaper, which called for sanctions against the Philippines.

Philippine governments also pay a political price at home for security ties with America. The current one may have felt provoked by China’s seeming to ignore its protest about the incursion in December of three Chinese vessels in what it calls the “West Philippine Sea”. Such spats are commonplace. China and Taiwan (as the “Republic of China”, and largely irrelevantly) appear to claim almost all the South China Sea, citing an old map showing nine disconnected lines around its rim. Vietnam claims the Paracel chain in the north, from which China evicted it in 1974, and the Spratlys in the south, where Brunei and Malaysia as well as the Philippines have partial claims. In the past there have been flare-ups—between Vietnam and China in 1988, and between China and the Philippines in 1995. In normal times, conflict is waged partly through the competitive building of structures on occupied islets and the harassment of fishing and oil-exploration vessels. But it is mainly waged through diplomacy.

The stakes are high, because of the enormous economic significance of the sea. It accounts for as much as one-tenth of the fishing catch landed globally; around half the tonnage of intercontinental trade in commercial goods passes through; and, in a phrase that haunts the academic literature like the ghost of Christmas future, it is the “new Persian Gulf”—a claimed treasure chest of hydrocarbons that China, anxious about the vulnerability of its own supplies, sees as its own.

With plenty to argue about there are three reasons why the arguments are becoming more strident. The first is that the America-Philippines “reinforcement” of their defence arrangement has to be seen in the context of the much touted “pivot” of American strategy towards Asia. Following the announcement in November of a permanent presence of American marines in Darwin in northern Australia, the shift fuels Chinese fears that America is seeking to contain its rise, both through its own military deployments, and through alliances with “small” countries such as the Philippines (population 100m-odd). Second, both the Philippines and Vietnam may soon start extracting oil. China will not want such facts under the water to set precedents.

Third and most important, China’s position continues to unnerve the other claimants. It is unclear, for example, what the dotted-line claim is based on. And, refusing to countenance serious negotiations with the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), to which four of the claimants belong, China appears to want to pick off its members one by one. Until recently, its fiercest rows were with Vietnam. That relationship seems to be going through a relatively mellow phase as it bullies the Philippines. And last July it did agree with ASEAN on “guidelines” for implementing a “declaration” on a code of conduct agreed on by the two parties back in 2002 to reduce tensions in the South China Sea. Last year ASEAN was under Indonesian chairmanship. Neither the new annual chair, Cambodia, nor the next two, Brunei and Myanmar, are likely to risk antagonising China by making the sea a multilateral issue.

How cold wars start

Already, last July’s “breakthrough” looks more like a stalling tactic. Not only is a settlement of the disputes not in sight; no mechanism that might eventually lead to one is even under discussion. China seems to calculate that, although all the countries involved are building up their armed forces, it has so much more capacity for military spending that it will soon be lording it over them all. So the chances are that America, with its mighty navy and abiding interest in the freedom of navigation and commerce, will become still more involved in what the CNAS report calls “the strategic bellwether for determining the future of US leadership in the Asia-Pacific region”. China, after all, seems determined to put that assertion to the test. Banyan/The Economist

Twenty years after they left their military bases here, the American forces may be back in bigger numbers. Philippine defense and military officials have confirmed a Washington Post report last week that Manila and Washington are negotiating a deal that would increase cooperation between the two militaries, owing to the tension in the West Philippine Sea over the disputed Spratlys as well as other considerations. Although Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said the terms of any accord would still be governed by the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), which allows the periodic visits of US troops for joint training and exercises with the Philippine military, the development is significant because any expansion of the VFA would effectively rebuild American military presence in the region.

Perhaps because of what the Post calls “political sensitivities,” both sides appear reluctant to highlight whatever accord would be made as tantamount to the full return of American military presence in a country that until two decades back had hosted the largest US overseas military base in Asia.

The welcoming of increased US military activity on its shores may be an indication that the Philippines has gotten over the old emotionalism that used to characterize its relations with its former colonial boss, an emotionalism that portrayed the abrogation of the bases treaty 20 years ago as something necessary as the cutting of the umbilical ties connecting infant to parent; a treaty seen in both psychological and postcolonial terms as servitude and an inordinate, even self-destructive, attachment. And the United States should likewise have gotten over its wounded feelings of having been shown the door 20 years ago, the better for it to forge a new relationship with its former colony.

Armed with the lessons of the old bases treaty and even of the VFA, including the Smith rape controversy, the two countries should be able to forge a mutually more rewarding accord that would take into consideration “political sensitivities” and social costs that come with heightened American military presence in this part of the world, while effectively responding to the security concerns that the two countries share. In short, Manila and Washington should come up with a more mature accord in which security threats and benefits are shared fairly and equitably.

Very important for the Philippines is to get the military assistance—and war materiel—that would help it better outfit its forces, in particular the Philippine Navy. In this connection, the statement of the US congressional delegation led by Sen. John McCain, a former Republican presidential candidate, made in a recent visit to our country, that it would be “unreasonable not to give” the Philippine request for a third weather high endurance cutter (WHEC), is most welcome. The Philippines last year acquired its first WHEC from the United States, a decommissioned 378-foot Hamilton-class cutter, The Philippines has since renamed it the BRP Gregorio del Pilar and classified it as a surface combatant ship or a warship. A second WHEC is in the process of approval.

McCain, a Vietnam veteran, emphasized the need for both countries to work for enhanced maritime security. Invoking the “long and friendly relationship” between the two allies, he told his hosts that the best way to avoid confrontation with China in the West Philippine Sea is to maintain freedom of navigation in the disputed waters. Last June, in fact, the US Senate passed Resolution 217, which called for a peaceful and multilateral resolution of maritime territorial disputes in the West Philippine Sea. In addition, McCain has been pushing for US military support for the Philippines as a treaty ally.

The escalating tension in recent months between the Philippines and China over the Spratlys has compelled a reassessment of the security situation in the region. Beijing’s irrational outbursts over the Spratlys have resulted in Manila’s loss of face and challenged Philippine sovereignty over parts of the disputed islands that are in fact within the Philippines’ economic zone.

Perhaps because they’re of Maoist orientation, Philippine leftists, who have been noisily protesting against the VFA in the name of nationalism, have been treasonously silent about China’s thuggery in the West Philippine Sea. It is high time they, as well as the public, came to grips with the situation:  China is flexing its muscle as a rising imperial power and its pretensions and excesses should be checked.

By: Patricia Evangelista
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Let's  believe the prosecution is correct. The respondent, one Renato Corona, is a scoundrel.

He is unethical, arrogant and ruthless. He manipulates the law to allow his patrons their crimes. He squanders public funds and condones deceit. His judgment can be bent in favor of his own interests. He is a man who trades favors for power, who refuses accountability and schemes against his colleagues, while enriching himself and his family with the spoils of his position. He has violated the highest laws with intent and purpose. He is incompetent. He is biased. He is neither fair nor just. His crimes are legion; his power is great.

This is the portrait of Renato Corona, Chief Justice of the Republic of the Philippines, as painted by 188 men and women who demand his impeachment. Never, they say, “has the position of Chief Justice, or the standing of the Supreme Court, as an institution, been so tainted with the perception of bias and partiality, as it is now: not even in the dark days of martial law, has the chief magistrate behaved with such arrogance, impunity, and cynicism.”

If they are correct, as they claim they are, repeatedly and consistently, then the country is at the precipice of a crisis of monumental proportions. It is the wisdom of the Judiciary that interprets legislations and tempers the Executive. The chief justice, the guiding hand of the Supreme Court, whose judgments are final and whose power is vast, has destroyed the citizen’s last altar of appeal in a country buried in poverty and corruption. The danger is clear and present. If Corona remains at the helm of the Judiciary, every verdict is suspect, and every justice is tainted with his command.

This is what is at stake in the impeachment proceedings, the menace that confronts Philippine democracy.

The prosecutors believe Corona is guilty, the President believes it, the whole band of howling would-be heroes believe it, or they say they do every time a microphone wanders in their vicinity. They are servants of the people, and a threat like this demands the unleashing of phalanxes of angels with burning swords, intent on casting out the devil named Renato Corona.

“We will not shirk our duty, we will not deviate from the path of principle, and we will not betray the people,” says His Excellency Benigno Aquino III.

And yet, in spite of all the chest-beating and manly claims to action, the prosecution sends in Niel Tupas.

Tupas, the 41-year-old gentleman from Iloilo, he of the waving arms and grand speeches, half of whose 12 years as a lawyer was spent in politics, tangling against his cousins in congressional elections. Son of a former governor now government executive, brother to various siblings ranging from mayor to government directors, Tupas, who walks into the session hall defending articles of impeachment whose haphazard formulation appears every day on national television.

The impeachment court’s rules were never set in writing. The senators themselves are struggling with questions of procedure. The defense is a band of highly organized courtroom veterans whose one goal is to acquit the Chief Justice. The situation is already predictably difficult, and it is assumed that the prosecutors would have girded their loins at the prospect of battle, had spent their time gathering their witnesses, confirming their statements and preparing for one of the most important and difficult challenges facing Philippine democracy. If they did, perhaps they would have had to defend more vital issues than the placement of a paragraph.

And still, the honorable Tupas, who has been permitted his 15 minutes of fame, demands “the honorable tribunal to be liberal in the asking of questions,” after he complained of over 30 objections by the defense. The Senate president questions him.

Are you suggesting that we should allow hearsay evidence?

No, Your Honor.

Are you suggesting that we allow argumentative questions?

No, Your Honor.

Are you suggesting that we should allow hypothetical questions?

No, Your Honor.

Are you suggesting that we should allow leading questions teaching the witness what to say?

In the end, after his tirade on liberality and truth, Tupas did what Tupas does, and backed down.

It was Tupas, after all, whose obvious unpreparedness earned him a whaling by Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, whose demand for a witness count resulted in little more than a head shake. It was Rep. Romero Quimbo of the prosecution who admitted that the hero of the house was asking for aid. And it was Rep. Erin Tañada who applauded Tupas in one of the oddest of statements, saying it was Tupas’ demand for flexibility that hastened the process.

“The impeachment,” Tupas told the Inquirer, “is more than legal technicalities. It involves the search for the truth, making our democratic institutions work and our officials accountable.”

It is as if the prosecutors shined their shoes, ironed their shirts, called their drivers and by all that decided they were ready for the impeachment of the highest magistrate of the land. It is odd to demand a loosening of what appears to be all legalities while in a room with a judge and jury. Tupas was certainly not selected for his legal prowess, and he may not be alone, as the haphazard articles of impeachment were supposed to be the product of the entire prosecution bench. And yet this is supposed to be a high stakes trial, with the President behind it and the future of the country in the balance. Truth does not matter so much as the proving.

Let us give the prosecutors the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps they believe Corona is guilty so sincerely that the details do not concern them. Perhaps they do not realize their actions trivialize the nobility of the cause they claimed. Or perhaps they forgot the man they call a scoundrel is not the only one being judged.