Free Republic

In a reversal from their earlier position, the Catholic bishops of the Philippines have endorsed an LGBT non-discrimination bill, with only one reservation. Earlier this month, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines sent a pastoral guidance letter to dioceses endorsing non-discrimination as a “Christian imperative,” reports Gay Star News. Archbishop Socrates Villegas, the conference’s president, said further: ” ‘Insofar as the proposed piece of legislation renders illegitimate the relegation of persons with sexual orientation and gender identity issues to citizens of a lower category enjoying fewer rights, the CBCP cannot but lend its support to this proposed legislative measure.’...

MANILA: Philippine President Benigno Aquino has called on lawmakers to pass a bill endorsing a pact aimed at ending a decades-long Muslim separatist rebellion, warning them they would otherwise start counting “body bags.” Aquino had wanted the bill, which would give autonomy to the majority Catholic nation’s Muslim minority in the south, passed this month. But Congress suspended debates on the proposed law in the face of public outrage over the killings of 44 police commandoes by guerrillas in a botched anti-terror raid in January. “This is the crossroads we face: we take pains to forge peace today, or we...

U.S. counterterrorism personnel played a hidden but key role in a bungled commando operation in the Philippines that resulted in dozens of deaths and a political scandal, according to a government investigation released Tuesday in Manila. At least six Americans were present at a Philippine command post during the ill-fated January raid and supplied Philippine forces with surveillance data collected by U.S. aircraft, the investigation found. One of the Americans went so far as to order a Philippine army general to call in artillery fire, though the general angrily refused, investigators found.

A Philippine army offensive against a Muslim rebel faction has forced 70,000 people from their homes, a district governor said on Friday as he appealed for an end to the fighting, saying he was running out of money to feed the displaced. The predominantly Christian Philippines has been battling Muslim rebels in the south of the archipelago for decades and while negotiations with the biggest group have raised hopes for peace, fighting with smaller factions erupts regularly. The latest clashes are between the army and a faction known as the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) in a marshy region of...

I used to be a tin can sailor. Great book. Like most books, it reinforces how the admirals were wrong. But that's easy to say 60 years after the fact. As Nelson DeMille said, anyone can be a military genius with the benefit of hindsight. I continue to be amazed that the Yamato and Musashi were able to shoot 3,200 lb. shells a distance of 26 miles. In my day, we did that with missiles.

Sunk without trace in what some historians consider the greatest naval battle ever fought, the mightiest battleship ever built has been found off the Philippines by one of the world’s wealthiest men. Paul Allen, the multibillionaire Microsoft co-founder, on Tuesday posted photographs of the wreck of the Musashi, a second world war Japanese battleship that, with its sister-ship the Yamato, was the largest and most heavily-armed warship ever launched. “WW2 Battleship Musashi sank 1944 is FOUND,” Allen announced on Twitter, beneath a ghostly underwater photograph of the mammoth vessel’s rusting, coral-encrusted bow clearly bearing the chrysanthemum crest of the Japanese...

Microsoft's co-founder has used his own submarine to find the wreck of the Japanese Navy's biggest warship - which has lain undiscovered at the bottom of the ocean for the past 70 years. Paul Allen revealed his amazing discovery to the world on Tuesday, by posting a photo to Twitter of the World War II battleship Musashi's rusty bow, which bore the Japanese empire's Chrysanthemum seal. The Musashi - which, along with its sister ship Yamato, was the heaviest and most powerfully armed battleship ever constructed - was sunk by the U.S. Navy in 1944, taking with it more than...

. The Musashi was one of a trio of vessels built by Japan during the war that, at 263 metres (863 feet) each, were its biggest battleships ever. American warplanes sank the Musashi on October 24, 1944, at the height of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, regarded as the largest naval encounter of the war in which US and Australian forces defeated the Japanese. Dozens of Japanese warships that were sunk during World War II have since been found in the Philippines, with some of them now popular dive locations. The Sibuyan Sea where the Musashi was reportedly found is...

Economic growth in the Philippines will overtake China's by 2016 as the former country continues to be an outperformer due to a strong domestic upswing in businesses and industry, growing foreign direct investments and record-high remittances from Filipinos working abroad, according to GDP forecasts in the recently released "2015 Annual Outlook" by Citibank. In turn, China, long time among the fastest growing countries in Asia and worldwide, is cooling down its economy to make GDP growth "more sustainable" as it is suffering from high public debt, reduced domestic consumption, over-investment in housing and infrastructure and regional economic imbalances. China will...

**SNIP** The 11,000 strong rebel group, which dates back to the 1960s, aims to carve out greater autonomy in the Philippines for the Muslim minority in the South of the archipelago. The group was cited extensively in a federal case made against Yee and dozens of other defendants last March following a four-year investigation. Yee, ironically known for his gun control legislation, was arrested then on a host of charges including plotting to smuggle guns into the country to be obtained through MILF contacts brokered by his associate, Dr. Wilson Lim . In an affidavit unsealed last year, Yee spoke...

I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life. The life of toil and effort, of labor gold strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph. A life of slothful ease, a life of that peace which springs merely from lack either of desire or of power to strive after great things, is as little...

Radical Islamist group Hizb-ut- Tahrir which cleverly avoided global scrutiny while spreading its ideology may become a more dangerous terrorist group than the ISIS and it's presence in South Asia should be a cause for concern for India, according to a report. "While ISIS runs amok in Syria and Iraq, demanding media attention through acts of barbarous cruelty, HuT (Hizb-ut- Tahrir or the Party of Liberation) is quietly building a global infrastructure of radicalised youth and deep-pocketed Arab support in preparation for the global Khilafat," said the report published in the latest edition of CTX Journal. The group has cleverly...

THE WISDOM OF KNOWING YOUR ENEMY  "In the years preceding World War I, General Pershing was commander of the American forces in the Philippines.  The small Moslem community on the island nation began to wreak havoc against the Philippine government and American forces.  The American troops captured a large group of these terrorists.  During the interrogation by the Military Court, the fanatics were heard to repeatedly shout, 'Allah Achbar!  Allah Achbar! Jihad!  The Philippines are the lands of Islam!'    "Pershing ordered the Amalekites executed one by one in the presence of the whole group. (The author is referring to ...

A long, slow procession of coffins draped in the Philippine flag poured out of military transport planes in Manila on Thursday, as the country mourned dozens of policemen killed in a botched anti-terror operation. Marching to muted drums, uniformed commandos bore the numbered coffins of comrades brought home from the southern island of Mindanao, the scene of the worst loss of life by the country's police or troops in recent memory. President Benigno Aquino has declared Friday a day of mourning for the 44 men slaughtered in a cornfield Sunday when their top-secret mission -- to catch or kill one...

The U.S.-Mexico border may someday see a high-profile crosser – Pope Francis. The intrepid pontiff raised the possibility that among his future trips could be entering the U.S. border from Mexico. The pope, who made the comment while flying back recently from the Philippines, said he would do it to show solidarity with immigrants, according to the Latin Post. "To enter the U.S. from the Mexico border would be a beautiful sign of brotherhood and help for immigrants," the pope said, according to the Post and other outlets. There are some logistical factors, however, that the pope indicated he would have...

Not a week goes by these days in which we are not reminded that there is a global Jihadist insurgency. It is not homogenous; the various Islamic insurgent groups are not united. But they do all possess the same basic goal: to see to it that allah’s law rules supreme on earth. Yes, we’re in a world war. Our enemies know it, but we continue to deny it. For example, the Jihadist insurgency in the southern Philippines, which has been going on for many years, continues to flare up periodically. It’s a bloody war that most of the world knows...

MANILA, Philippines – More than 30 police commandos were killed in a clash with Muslim insurgents Sunday in the southern Philippines in the biggest single-day combat loss for Philippine forces in many years, officials said.

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- A story that sounds like a movie script is slowly grinding its way to trial. All of the 29 defendants in the massive corruption case involving suspended State Senator Leland Yee and reputed gangster Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow appeared in federal court Thursday. With so many defendants, lawyers, and documents, the judge is trying to set up a system to manage what could be an unwieldy trial. What makes it even harder is that not everyone's on the same page. The frustration is beginning to show. There are 29 defendants, even more lawyers, a 137 page...

"Between 6 to 7 million" attended the final big mass in the Philippines on the feast of the Santo Niño. In his homily, the Pope said: “the devil hides behind the allure of being ‘modern’, ‘like everyone else’. Francis also met the father of the volunteer who died in Tacloban yesterday “God created the world as a beautiful garden,” “but man has disfigured that natural beauty”, creating social structures which perpetuate poverty, ignorance and corruption”. Rain poured down on the millions of faithful that gathered in Rizal Park in Manila to attend the mass celebrated by Francis on the final...

On a recent busy evening in one of the Philippines’ top malls, shoppers wandered through luxury brand shops while prostitutes sat expectantly at a bar and a priest gave a sermon at a chapel. The scene may appear an unlikely combination but in the Philippines the Catholic Church has successfully set up shop where millions increasingly spend their leisure time. As a visit by Pope Francis to the Philippines this week shines a spotlight on the nation’s vibrant brand of Catholicism, local Church leaders said he would endorse the mixing of faith with consumerism. “It was Jesus who went to...