A Hong Kong journalist was under fire in the Philippines yesterday for calling the Southeast Asian country a “nation of servants” in a column about disputed areas in the South China Sea.
In his Friday column for HK Magazine titled “The War At Home,” Chip Tsao denounced the Philippines’ claims to the Spratly Islands, which are also claimed in whole or in part by China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Brunei and Malaysia.
“As a nation of servants, you don’t flex your muscles at your master, from where you earn most of your bread and butter,” he said.
Tsao said he gave his Philippine maid a “harsh lecture” on the issue and “sternly warned her that if she wants her wages increased next year, she had better tell every one of her compatriots … that the entirety of the Spratly Islands belongs to China.”
The magazine said Tsao is a best-selling author and columnist. He is a former reporter for the BBC.
The Blas F Ople Policy Center, a Manila-based non-governmental organization providing assistance to migrant workers, called on the Philippine labor department to blacklist Tsao as an “undesirable foreign employer.”
Susan Ople, the center’s chairwoman, said Tsao should not use his Philippine maid as a “pawn” in the dispute over the Spratly Islands.
“The household is not the place to resolve multiple claims to the Spratly Islands, and Philippine domestic workers should not suffer because of it,” she said.
Ople added that Tsao’s maid “deserves a sane and more humane employer while he deserves to clean up his own filth.”
Congresswoman Risa Hontiveros Baraquel, a representative of a left-wing party, condemned the column and lamented that Tsao’s “disgusting, derogatory and vile remark can only come from dim-witted and mediocre writing.”
“The article reflects the attitude that promotes intolerance and abuse against Philippine domestic workers,” she said.
On the magazine’s Web site, Tsao has received numerous negative comments.
“There is a point where irony done in very poor taste becomes not humorous, but crass, bigoted and stupid,” one commenter said.
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency and the Pentagon on Monday said that some North Korean troops have been killed during combat against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk border region. Those are the first reported casualties since the US and Ukraine announced that North Korea had sent 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to help it in the almost three-year war. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said that about 30 North Korean troops were killed or wounded during a battle with the Ukrainian army at the weekend. The casualties occurred around three villages in Kursk, where Russia has for four months been trying to quash a
FREEDOM NO MORE: Today, protests in Macau are just a memory after Beijing launched measures over the past few years that chilled free speech A decade ago, the elegant cobblestone streets of Macau’s Tap Seac Square were jam-packed with people clamouring for change and government accountability — the high-water mark for the former Portuguese colony’s political awakening. Now as Macau prepares to mark the 25th anniversary of its handover to China tomorrow, the territory’s democracy movement is all but over and the protests of 2014 no more than a memory. “Macau’s civil society is relatively docile and obedient, that’s the truth,” said Au Kam-san (歐錦新), 67, a schoolteacher who became one of Macau’s longest-serving pro-democracy legislators. “But if that were totally true, we wouldn’t
SUPPORT: Elon Musk’s backing for the far-right AfD is also an implicit rebuke of center-right Christian Democratic Union leader Friedrich Merz, who is leading polls German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took a swipe at Elon Musk over his political judgement, escalating a spat between the German government and the world’s richest person. Scholz, speaking to reporters in Berlin on Friday, was asked about a post Musk made on his X platform earlier the same day asserting that only the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party “can save Germany.” “We have freedom of speech, and that also applies to multi-billionaires,” Scholz said alongside Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal. “But freedom of speech also means that you can say things that are not right and do not contain
TRUDEAU IN TROUBLE: US president-elect Donald Trump reacted to Chrystia Freeland’s departure, saying: ‘Her behavior was totally toxic, and not at all conducive to making deals Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland on Monday quit in a surprise move after disagreeing with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over US president-elect Donald Trump’s tariff threats. The resignation of Freeland, 56, who also stepped down as finance minister, marked the first open dissent against Trudeau from within his Cabinet, and could threaten his hold on power. Liberal leader Trudeau lags 20 points in polls behind his main rival, Conservative Pierre Poilievre, who has tried three times since September to topple the government and force a snap election. “It’s not been an easy day,” Trudeau said at a fundraiser Monday evening, but
RSS