🇵🇭 Duterte on the edge as impeachment looms

Hello friends!

Everything chugs along and then suddenly! Not quite so smooth sailing. 

Today, a look at yet another egregious assault on press freedoms in Cambodia — is there a minus option for the RSF rankings? — the incredible news from Manila where Sara Duterte is staring down being booted from office and Thailand’s Paetongtarn Shinawatra leads the charge on a China visit.

Let’s see how it all plays out, I guess.

Erin Cook

🇰🇭 Environmental journalist barred in latest attack on press freedoms

Gerry Flynn, a longtime environmental journalist with Mongabay, was denied entry into Cambodia in January after attempting to return from a holiday. Flynn has been based in Cambodia for years and has done some very heavy-hitting reporting on the country’s dark illegal logging operations and other environmental issues. 

It’s a “blatant attack on journalism,” Human Rights Watch said. It comes after a horror year for press freedoms in Cambodia, including the locking up of beloved journalist Mech Dara and the murder of Chhoeung Chheng, who was also an environmental journalist. 

“We’ve seen more arrests, more lawsuits, more harassment, both physical and online. We’ve even had journalists killed. The government’s intolerance towards anything that they deem critical has made it very risky for all journalists in Cambodia to continue operating,” Flynn told the Guardian. 

Mongabay’s statement shows a publication both going to bat for one of its employees, but also highlighting how bizarre the move is: “[Flynn] has consistently held a valid government-issued press pass during his five years in Cambodia, was elected president of the Overseas Press Club of Cambodia in 2023 and 2024, and frequently interviewed public officials.” He was hardly an unknown quantity. 

Coverage has noted the decision comes just days after Flynn was featured in a France 24 report on carbon credits and deforestation. 

“The timing of the Cambodian government’s decision to blacklist journalist Gerald Flynn just after release of the deforestation report leaves no doubt: he has been deliberately targeted in retaliation for his reporting on environmental issues. We call on the Cambodian authorities to allow him to return to the country and urge them to end their harassment of environmental Journalists,” Cédric Alviani, director of Reporters Without Border’s Asia-Pacific bureau, said in a statement. 

🇵🇭 History in the making as Sara Duterte stares down impeachment

Sara Durterte is on the ropes. The Vice President is on track to be the first-ever Vice President removed from office in Filipino history (not that it hasn’t been tried before) after the House last night voted for her impeachment. There was a swirl of impeachment petitions recently, this one points to corruption as part of the Office of Vice President funds and the threats to have President Bongbong Marcos, his wife and the Speaker assassinated if anything were to happen to her. 

The House needed a one-third vote to send it along to the Senate for the final say and they got there easily with 215 Representatives voting it up. Gabriel Pabico Lalu over at the Inquirer really knows his stuff. His report includes a lengthy look at how this all works constitutionally

The Senate will convene an impeachment court, the BBC reports. A date has not been set at this stage and I will spend the next few days frantically refreshing news sites for analysis on how Manila thinks the vote there will break down. In an excellent explainer, Inquirer reports that a replacement VP would be tapped by the president and come from the ranks of the Senate or the House and must be approved by a majority of most chambers. Depending on the timeline, this could be high drama. Midterms are set for May and that churn will be an enormous factor, but many will have their eyes set on Malacanang once Marcos’ term expires in three years. Never has a chalice been so poisoned! 

I’m also desperate to see how Rodrigo Duterte responds. As of Thursday morning Canberra time, he’s been quiet but the allies are already at work. Duterte Snr’s very flamboyant former presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo warned Wednesday night that this only ‘galvanises’ supporters “and will fan the flames of disgust and rage against their willful and brazen violation of the guarantees enshrined in the Constitution,” he said in a statement as per the Inquirer.

Uniteam — the super successful ticket shared between Marcos and Duterte — was already dead and buried. Now it’s being blown up. Brace ourselves, I don’t think we’ve seen such a huge upset in the Philippines for years.  

🇹🇭 Paetongtarn, just about everyone else, heads to China

A big visit for Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra this week after she arrived in China yesterday. This is no joke. She’s taking with her dang near the whole cabinet and both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang will be in attendance as the two countries sign an expected 15 memoranda of understanding. Seven of these MoUs require cabinet approval, the Nation reports, and ‘involve cooperation in fish product exports, artificial intelligence, higher education, postal services, investment in the digital economy, and green energy.’

The timing is tricky. It comes after one very high-profile scam victim incident (and one of a lower profile a week or two later). Actor Wang Xing flew to Bangkok from China last month on the promise of a casting call, only to find himself smuggled across the border into Myawaddy, Myanmar, where he was forced to work in a scam centre. He was freed four days later by Thai authorities. 

Wang Xing is certainly not the first Chinese victim of this horrendous practice and outrage over the industry has bubbled away in China for years. But this case has struck a cord. The Bangkok government has repeatedly tried to reassure would-be visitors from China that Thailand is still a safe bet, including issuing Mandarin language statements last month. That didn’t really stop a tide of cancellations across the Lunar New Year holiday, DW reports.

And this visit will likely include working out a way for Thailand and China — nationals of which largely run this industry — to get to work clearing the compounds out of the region. 

Bangkok gave itself a headstart yesterday after cutting off electricity to Shwe Kokko, a town in Myawaddy district, just across the border from Mae Sot. Both Thai and Chinese authorities have long maintained the town is home to large scam compounds. Some power supply had already been cut off last year, Nikkei Asia reports, but this has fully cut the town off. Nikkei notes that most of the power had been going to compounds (and casinos) with local residents receiving only minimal power.  

Paetongtarn will also swing by the opening ceremony of the 9th Asian Winter Games in Harbin, Heilongjiang province, tomorrow. 

Still, I want to flag a discrepancy here because it comes up in the Cambodia reporting too. Thailand is deeply concerned about the impact of these stories on tourism and while the case of Wang Xing has been so high profile with statements about cancelled trips, it hasn’t really played out in the data (yet). Bloomberg reports 3.97 million tourists visited Thailand in the first month of the year, with 710,687 of those coming from China. According to the Ministry of Tourism and Sports this is a huge 22% increase on the same period last year.