Leo Cloma posted a photo:

At an antique shop in Manila.

MANILA, May 15 — The Philippines vowed today to stop the chief enforcer of ex-president Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war from fleeing the country to evade an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant.

Fugitive Senator Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa barely escaped arrest on Monday when he sought refuge in the Senate building, but left unannounced for an unknown location on Thursday.

Justice Secretary Fredderick Vida confirmed Manila has received the arrest warrant for Dela Rosa from the ICC, but was waiting for the Philippine Supreme Court to resolve the senator’s petition challenging its legality.

“The Department of Justice will treat any attempt of Senator Bato Dela Rosa to leave the country as a mockery of justice,” Vida told a news conference.

Law enforcers and border officials were instructed “that if Senator Bato Dela Rosa would try to leave the country, that the appropriate arrest should be made”.

The ICC on Monday unsealed an arrest warrant against Dela Rosa, 64, accusing him along with Duterte and other “co-perpetrators” of the “crime against humanity of murder”.

Senate president Alan Peter Cayetano prevented government agents from arresting his political ally Dela Rosa on Monday, giving hime refuge in the building.

Dela Rosa served as national police chief from 2016 to 2018 during the early phase of Duterte’s anti-drug campaign and was elected to two successive six-year terms in the Senate in 2019 after retiring from the force.

The crackdown left thousands dead, many of them drug users and low-level narcotics peddlers, according to human rights monitors.

Dela Rosa has asked the Supreme Court to stop the government from enforcing the ICC arrest warrant and expressing preference to stand trial in a Philippine court if he were charged.

His boss Duterte was arrested in March last year, flown to the Netherlands on the same day, and is detained in The Hague awaiting trial. — AFP

MANILA, May 15 — Widespread power cuts struck the Philippines Friday, leaving millions without electricity in the tropical nation’s hottest month of the year.

The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) said rolling one-hour power outages hit parts of the capital Manila and the rest of the main island of Luzon from mid-afternoon.

These were due to “major grid disruptions” that affected transmission lines, as well as a maintenance shutdown of several major power plants, the NGCP and the Department of Energy said.

The disruptions are scheduled to spread to the central islands, leading to seven-hour power cuts, NGCP said.

“The public deserves a complete accounting of incidents of this magnitude,” Energy Secretary Sharon Garin said in a statement.

“We will ensure that all operational, technical, and compliance dimensions are fully examined and that appropriate actions are taken where warranted,” she added.

Garin did not say when the power supply will return to normal.

Luzon accounts for almost half of the Philippine population of 116 million, as well as economic output.

The outages are occurring in the hottest month of the year, when demand for air conditioning ramps up.

The power cuts occurred even though Philippine government agencies are observing a four-day work week, imposed shortly after the start of the Iran-US-Israel war. — AFP

Leo Cloma posted a photo:

At an antique shop in Manila.

Leo Cloma posted a photo:

At an antique shop in Manila.

Prinsipe Royce PH posted a photo:

MARTELINO HOUSE, QUIAPO, MANILA

From Lugares Historicos en Filipinas -
"The Martelino House is located on a corner lot, sharing the block with the Padilla and Zamora Houses. The name “Martelino” is believed to have originated from records at Ateneo, which mention the property.

The house is often featured in historical photographs of Hidalgo Street, showcasing its role in the iconic lineup of grand mansions that the street is famous for. In the 1960s, parts of the house were repurposed into a billiard hall and bowling alley, catering primarily to nearby students. Local folklore also suggests that the legendary pool player Efren “Bata” Reyes honed his skills at this venue during his youth."

I took this photo during the Quiapo Heritage Walk of Renacimiento Manila last January.

Medium: Canon EOS 4000D (taken in auto-creative mode)
Date Taken: January 24, 2026

Copyright 2026. All Rights Reserved.

A Taiwanese government minister has made a rare visit to a Taiwan-controlled island in the hotly contested South China Sea, as the coast guard held drills including a simulated boarding of a suspect vessel.

Taiping island, also known as Itu Aba, is the largest in the disputed Spratly archipelago, which is also claimed by China, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling visited Taiping on Tuesday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement on Wednesday.

Kuan is the first Taiwanese government minister to set foot on the island in seven years, Taiwan’s Central News Agency reported.

Taiwan’s coast guard held exercises during Kuan’s visit, including armed special forces practice boarding a suspicious cargo ship that had failed to respond to calls.

In another drill, coast guard personnel carried out a humanitarian emergency rescue operation.

The defence ministry also dispatched a C-130 transport aircraft to join the exercises.

To assert its claim on Taiping, Taiwan has installed a solar-powered lighthouse, an airstrip and a pier.

The island covers about 0.51 square kilometres (0.19 square miles) and most of its inhabitants work for the coast guard.

Taiwan has rejected a 2016 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, which was brought by the Philippines against China over the South China Sea.

The tribunal found China’s claims to almost the entire waterway had no legal basis.

It also stated that Taiping was legally a “rock” and not entitled to its own exclusive economic zone, undermining Taiwanese claims to waters surrounding the island.

Taiwan’s government rejected the court’s ruling, saying it “severely jeopardised” Taiwan’s rights.

It said the judgement has no legally binding force since the tribunal did not formally invite Taipei to take part in its proceedings or solicit its views.

Thousands of American and Philippine troops, joined for the first time by a significant contingent of Japanese forces, began annual military exercises Monday set against the backdrop of the Middle East war.

The war games will feature live-fire exercises in the north of the Philippines facing the Taiwan Strait, as well as a province off the disputed South China Sea, where Philippine and Chinese forces have engaged in repeated confrontations.

In one drill, the Japanese military, which is contributing about 1,400 personnel, will use a Type 88 cruise missile to sink a World War II-era minesweeper off the coast of northern Luzon island.

More than 17,000 soldiers, airmen and sailors are taking part in the 19-day Balikatan, or “Shoulder to Shoulder,” exercises — about the same number as last year’s edition, including contingents from Australia, New Zealand, France and Canada.

Balikatan comes as Iran and the United States, along with Israel, edge towards the end of the two-week ceasefire that halted the Middle East war, ignited by surprise US-Israeli strikes on the Islamic republic.

“Regardless of the challenges elsewhere in the world, the United States’ focus on the Indo-Pacific and our ironclad commitment to the Philippines remains unwavering,” US Lieutenant General Christian Wortman said at Monday’s opening ceremony.

Without providing precise numbers, Wortman, commander of the Marine Expeditionary Force, later told reporters that approximately 10,000 US personnel would take part in the exercises.

Philippine military chief General Romeo Brawner added that US Indo-Pacific Command chief Admiral Samuel Paparo had assured him at the war’s outbreak that this year’s Balikatan would be “the biggest ever”.

Among the high-end weapons expected to be used is a US Typhon missile system that has been in the archipelago since visiting US forces left it there in 2024, provoking outrage from Beijing.

“We anticipate that it will be incorporated at some level during the course of the exercise,” Wortman said.

‘Playing with fire’

While both militaries insisted that no exercises would take place “near Taiwan”, coastal defence drills are set fewer than 200 kilometres (120 miles) from the island’s southern coast.

Beijing has ramped up military pressure around self-ruled Taiwan, which it considers part of its territory and has threatened to use force to seize.

China slammed the joint exercises on Monday, saying the United States, Japan and the Philippines were “playing with fire”.

“What the Asia-Pacific region needs most is peace and tranquility, and what it needs least is the introduction of external forces to sow division and confrontation,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told a news briefing.

“We wish to remind the countries concerned that blindly binding themselves together in the name of security will only be akin to playing with fire — ultimately backfiring upon themselves,” he added.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos warned in November that given his country’s proximity to the island democracy, “a war over Taiwan will drag the Philippines, kicking and screaming, into the conflict.”

See also: Philippines accuses China of cyanide poisoning in contested waters

In February, US, Japanese and Philippine aircraft patrolled over the Bashi Channel that separates the Philippines from Taiwan to test what Manila called their “ability to operate seamlessly together in complex maritime environments”.

Japan’s first Balikatan as a full participant follows the signing of a reciprocal access agreement approved by the Japanese Diet last June.

Colonel Takeshi Higuchi of Tokyo’s joint staff told Japanese media the drills would “contribute to creating a security environment that tolerates no attempt to unilaterally change the status quo by force”.

Marcos has been building up security ties with Western nations to deter China. Over the past two years, Manila has also signed visiting forces or equivalent agreements with New Zealand, Canada and France to facilitate joint military exercises.

Outside the Manila base where Monday’s opening ceremony was held, a group of about 50 people protested against the exercises, holding aloft signs branding US President Donald Trump an “imperialist terrorist” and demanding US forces leave the country.