Tag: Philippines

It was only a matter of time before small businesses that cannot stay profitable due to increasing minimum wage requirements used technology to replace overpriced labor:

This allowed employees living in the Philippines to take store orders, adjust delivery orders, answer store calls, and even manage restaurant reviews.

Happy Casher expects more than 100 New York-based restaurants to use the service by the end of this year.

The hourly wage for Filipinos working in this job is $3 (about 4,100 won), which is quite cheap considering New York’s minimum wage of $16 (about 22,000 won).

There is a 12-hour time difference, but employees of Happy Casher communicate with visitors through Zoom and take orders.

The manager of the Japanese restaurant said, “It is a way for small business owners to survive.”

Maeil Kyeongchae

You can read more at the link, but I think something that customers will appreciate is that by ordering through a Zoom worker they likely do not need to leave a tip making the meal more affordable.

Another win for South Korea’s defense industry:

This photo, provided by Hanwha Systems Co. on May 12, 2023, shows a Jose Rizal-class frigate of the Philippine Navy. 

Hanwha Systems Co., the defense and ICT unit of South Korea’s Hanwha Group, said Friday it has won a US$34.5 million contract to supply its combat management system (CMS) to the Philippine Navy. 

Hanwha’s indigenous combat system will be installed in six 2,400-ton offshore patrol vessels, in a deal valued at $29.5 million, the Seoul-based company said in a release. 

The contract also includes the export of the standard digital communications system, known as the tactical data link, worth $5 million. 

A CMS works as the brain of a vessel and is designed to integrate all equipment, like sensors, weapons and communications systems, into one single system to help counter threats more efficiently during combat.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This would be a huge development if it comes to fruition:

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. says he’d consider a reciprocal military access agreement with Japan to guard his country’s fishermen and sea territory amid tension with China.

“If it will be of help to the Philippines in terms of protecting, for example, our fishermen, protecting our maritime territory, if it’s going to help, then … I don’t see why we should not adopt it,” Marcos said, according to an official transcript of an interview with reporters on his flight back Sunday from a five-day official trip to Tokyo.

Philippine officials are assessing whether such an agreement would help their country or worsen tensions in the South China Sea, Marcos said.

“We have to be careful also because we do not want to appear provocative,” he said. “That instead of calming the situation in the South China Sea, we would heighten it, right? That’s not what we want.”

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida “briefly” discussed the concept of a defense pact when the two leaders met on Thursday, Marcos said. That day, the pair signed an agreement that allows Japan to deploy its forces for humanitarian missions and disaster response in the Philippines, The Associated Press reported Friday.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but any military agreement the Philippines signs with Japan will be taken as provocative by China However, isn’t the Chinese forcibly claiming Philippines territory even more provocative?

It looks like President Duterte has finally come around and realized that the CCP not about to make concessions to a country they consider poor and inferior to them:

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has withdrawn a longstanding threat to cancel a defense agreement that allows U.S. military forces to train in his country.

The decision on the Visiting Forces Agreement, or VFA, was announced by Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana at a joint press conference Friday with his U.S. counterpart, Lloyd Austin, in Manila.

“The president decided to retract or rescind the VFA termination,” Lorenzana told reporters during the conference, which was streamed online. “We are back on track.” (……..)

Its reprieve is the latest swing for an alliance that has been on shaky ground since the strongman took office in 2016.

Duterte began his presidency by insulting U.S. leaders and stating his intention to move closer to China and Russia.

That hasn’t gotten much traction with China, which has continued to occupy and enlarge artificial islands in the South China Sea that belongs to the Philippines, according to a 2016 international court ruling.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Here is another example of the Chinese using their auxiliaries to push around a weaker neighbor in the South China Sea. The Philippines is in a tough spot because if they send in Coast Guard and Naval assets to remove the auxiliaries than that gives the Chinese military the excuse to move in and protect them. This is a fight the Philippines cannot win thus why they are turning to the international media:

The Philippine defense chief on Sunday demanded more than 200 Chinese vessels he said were manned by militias leave a South China Sea reef claimed by Manila, saying their presence was a “provocative action of militarizing the area.”

“We call on the Chinese to stop this incursion and immediately recall these boats violating our maritime rights and encroaching into our sovereign territory,” Lorenzana said in a statement, adding without elaborating that the Philippines would uphold its sovereign rights.

A government watchdog overseeing the disputed region said about 220 Chinese vessels were seen moored at Whitsun Reef, which Beijing also claims, on March 7. It released pictures of the vessels side by side in one of the most hotly contested areas of the strategic waterway.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.