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TEB · Oct 4, 2019, 12:30 AM

“It sees the Senate provision as part of a larger package that calls for the same action against officials of Turkey, Egypt or Saudi Arabia.

Even the world is now seeing the sinister undercurrent in the US Senate amendment to the foreign relations appropriations bill initiated by Democrat senators to deny entry to American soil the Philippine officials considered having a hand in the detention of Sen. Leila de Lima.

De Lima is, of course, being prosecuted for drug trafficking charges that has no bearing with her political conviction.

Difference Group, an international financial advisory firm, connected the moves of the US Congress minority to “the continuing political backlash following the 2016 Duterte election triumph, and the consequent meltdown of the Liberal Party (LP).”

The Democrats are strong backers of the LP as part of the global liberal democratic order and have common sources of funds such as US billionaire George Soros and his Open Society Foundations which has its own geopolitical agenda.

The report stated “heavy losses trigger reassessment, which can rejuvenate a political party and renew its leadership but that did not happen.”

It said that as LP “failed to attract voters in the Philippines, some of its leaders began pressure campaigns in the US and the European Union to raise their diminished political capital at home.”

“The (US) senators behind the Philippines amendment, in particular, get their political money mainly from lobbyists, defense contractors, finance and especially large individual donors, according to congressional research,” the report noted.

It also linked another Democrat, “the ultra-conservative Marco Rubio” as being behind the move.

Rubio has claimed that De Lima has been in prison on “bogus charges.”

Coup plotter Antonio Trillanes IV met with Rubio sometime in October 2017.

The disgraced senator is also apparently under control of the powerful overlords in continuously badgering President Rody Duterte of unsubstantiated allegations and the filing of a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC).

After his comical friction with Jude Sabio, the lawyer who filed the ICC case, over shares in their vilification efforts, the ICC case is considered doomed.

The ICC, however, is now looking at an expensive movie production on the war on drugs for evidence in the case against Rody.

The Difference Group report noted that after the failed 2016 presidential campaign, “Rubio has recently profiled himself as a conservative human rights defender and democracy promoter. He is for regime change in Venezuela, Hong Kong and China, Iran and Russia.”

Rubio’s key financial backer is investment banker Paul Singer, another billionaire, who sees himself as a philanthropist, who promotes the rule of law, democracy and LGBTQ rights.

As a pioneer “vulture capitalist,” he buys up sovereign bonds on the cheap and then goes after countries for unpaid debts, according to the report.

“In the past, Singer has targeted countries mainly in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. As prosperity levels are rising in Asia, Singer seems to be looking at targets in the East,” the report stated.

The ongoing political moves in the US Congress “may be paving new ways for controversial financial interests to exploit rising Asian prosperity,” it added.

It sees the Senate provision as part of a larger package that calls for the same action against officials of Turkey, Egypt or Saudi Arabia over “wrongful detention of locally employed staff of a US diplomatic mission or a US citizen or national.”

The provision protects US citizens and dual citizens such as Rappler founder Maria Ressa and some other key figures.

Seeing the whole picture, the target it seems would be to reestablish the domination of the US and Western hegemony that was weakened by the rise of strong governments such as that of President Rody Duterte.