Although the national government told the local government of Palawan that Palawan needs to be opened up .. nothing has really changed yet. We still have curfew from 8pm till 4am and planes are still not flying. Which makes it hard to leave the island.
The nice thing is we have more freedom to move around and are not being checked anymore. However, while nothing is really changing within Palawan a lot of things are happening close to us. About a few hundred miles away China is entering Philippine waters.

At the moment it doesn’t look like the Philippine President Duterte is going to do anything against China. During his candidacy (2016), he famously promised to ride a jetski to the Spratly Islands and plant a Philippine flag there. In 2017, he repeated that promise, saying he would do it on Philippine Independence Day. Two months before the occasion, President Duterte his plan, admitting China asked him not to do it.
It rather looks like the opposite. It feels like the President has received some bribe and therefore is not taking any actions. The President keeps speaking positive about China as if they are not doing anything. A big mystery.

While China doesn’t seem to have plans to move yet it sounds like other countries are starting to respond. UK has send ships to Chinese Sea. Australia has done the same and US has said that if any vessel of Philippines will be harmed, that could be reason for counter attack. So while the President is not doing anything, it looks like some countries are starting to send us some help. So happy about that .. very uncertain times. We are all a little surprised that the President doesn’t seem to show any interest in doing anything .. so we are a little confused here in the Philippines.

Please keep the Philippines in prayer, that there will be no war and that China will pullout their 200-300 vessels and leave the Philippine waters.

Lots of love from the Philippines,
Arthur Peter