‘Who shall cosplay Sharon Carter, Everett Ross, Dinah Madani, or Valentina Allegra de Fontaine at the next Cosplay Mania?’
AND of course, the countless hours that we have spent binge-watching our favorite Korean dramas and listening to K-pop. These highlight how the Filipinos love Koreans and your culture.” [https://pco.gov.ph/presidential-speech/speech-by-president-ferdinand-r-marcos-jr-at-the-philippines-korea-business-forum/]
No wonder then that at least one guy (Kendrick M. Samson of UP Manila) cosplayed Song Joong-Ki from “Descendants of the Sun” at the Cosplay Mania held at the SMX Convention Center last 4-6 October 2024. Cosplay is not just anime.
President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. also told the Philippines-Korea Business Forum: “Similarly, with over one million Koreans coming to visit the Philippines’ tourist attractions last year, I can see that many Koreans also love everything that is Filipino.”
Filipino culture, unfortunately, was not prominent at the Cosplay Mania 2024, although Filipinas like C.J.G. Soriano dressed as Donya Karay, a character from Kenkoy Komiks, representing a piece of forgotten Filipino pop culture. The BSPT freshman chose this character because of her connection to early 20th-century Philippine society, where she symbolized the wealthy elite: “While many attendees were focused on anime and Western characters, I felt it was important to introduce something uniquely Filipino to the event.” Her classmates (Kristianna Garcia, Redgina Zaidel M. Presas, Danielle Tan) opted to channel Aiah, Maloi, and Sheena of the Filipino pop phenomenon BINI. Another freshman from the same university cosplayed Choi Namra (최남ë¼), the female deuteragonist of the South Korean Drama “All of Us Are Dead” Season 1: “Cosplayers temporarily step outside their usual roles to adopt alternate personas, challenging norms and exploring different aspects of themselves. The event reflects how subcultures form, creating a sense of community and belonging through shared interests.” [Pia Alessa Villareal] In that K-drama, one of the actresses playing a Korean coed (Noreen Joyce Guerra) was actually a student of my Masters of Management program in UP Manila.
Cosplay sensations from Italy (Taryn) and Vietnam (Byoru), among others, joined the “Ascending Revelries into the Skies” with Tailah Elysse Ronquillo (Kenkoy’s wife, Rosing), Julianne Ryce Uy (investment banker Patrick Bateman, American Psycho 2000), Cassandra Nicole Asuncion (Pacifica Elise Northwest, Gravity Falls), Rhain Eduardo (Detective Rosalita “Rosa” Diaz, Brooklyn Nine-Nine), Shandee Mae Buce (Margo Gru, Despicable Me), and hundreds of other attendees.
The best “cosplayers” in the world, however, are the professional spies. Recently, the US CIA launched a new drive to recruit informants in China, Iran and North Korea (adding to what it says has been a successful effort to enlist Russians) and posted instructions in Mandarin, Farsi and Korean on Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, LinkedIn, X, and the Dark Web on how to contact it securely. [Jonathan Landay, Reuters, October 3, 2024; https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/topstories/world/922404/us-spy-agency-cia-expands-online-recruitment-to-china-iran-north-korea/story/]
Wait! There’s more: The US government indicted Sue Mi Terry (who had previously served as an employee of the CIA and a senior official on the White House National Security Council) for having worked as an agent of the South Korean government. “In return, the South Korean intelligence officers allegedly provided Terry with Bottega Veneta and Louis Vuitton handbags, a Dolce & Gabbana coat, dinners at Michelin-starred restaurants, and more than $37,000 in ‘covert’ funding for a public policy program on Korean affairs that she ran.”
[https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24816201/terryindp1_merged.pdf]
[https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ex-white-house-official-indicted-acting-south-korea-agent-2024-07-16/]
1. “About 80 percent of all economic espionage prosecutions brought by the US Department of Justice allege conduct that would benefit the Chinese state, and there is at least some nexus to China in around 60 percent of all trade secret theft cases.” [https://www.justice.gov/archives/nsd/information-about-department-justice-s-china-initiative-and-compilation-china-related]
2. The US government (via the FBI) indicted Linda Sun (also known as “Wen Sun,” “Ling Da Sun,” and “Linda Hu”) for having acted as an undisclosed agent of the Government of the People’s Republic of China and the Communist Party of China. [https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25085215/linda-sun-and-chris-hu-indictment.pdf] [https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/former-top-hochul-aide-linda-sun-arrested-by-fbi/5758592/]
3. And the Bamban mayor? She Zhijiang: Discarded Chinese spy or criminal mastermind? 101 East Documentary, Al Jazeera English, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls8Y-2HmvHI [Tolentino — Senate must observe rules on admissibility in ‘Chinese spy’ claim vs Guo, http://legacy.senate.gov.ph/press_release/2024/0930_tolentino2.asp]
4. “In the case of Southeast Asia, the biggest threats come from Jemaah Islamiyah, the al Qa’ida offshoot whose leader, a man known as Hambali, has claimed responsibility for the Bali bombings and is an old pal of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (known in Agency parlance as ‘KSM’). That link to KSM shoots Jemaah Islamiyah to the top of U.S. concerns, for reasons even more deeply rooted than the destruction of the World Trade Center. KSM’s nephew, Ramzi Yousef, is currently cooling his heels at ADX Florence–America’s most secure prison–for executing the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He was caught after fleeing to the Philippines, but not before planning a subsequent attack in which eleven airliners would simultaneously be hijacked, with one plowing into a skyscraper in Manila, killing the pope during his visit from Rome, and another crashing into our very own headquarters building here in Langley, Virginia. The plot was foiled after Yousef’s apartment caught fire and emergency workers discovered his plans, but the possibility of using commercial airliners as missiles had been lodged in his uncle KSM’s brain.” [Amaryllis Fox. Life undercover: coming of age in the CIA. NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2019, pp. 66-67]
5. “Our first conference was in Southeast Asia, where we had helped our local partners disrupt a growing Hezbollah menace. We were also concerned by AQ’s links to affiliates in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. AQ operative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had sponsored attacks in Manila.” [Henry A. Crumpton., The Art of Intelligence: Lessons from a Life in the CIA’s Clandestine Service, p. 139]
Who shall cosplay Sharon Carter, Everett Ross, Dinah Madani, or Valentina Allegra de Fontaine at the next Cosplay Mania?
