Category: china
Which country is the ‘hoodlum’?
Was that Beijing blogger who labeled the Philippines “a hoodlum country” serious when he urged his government to “use force” to settle the territorial dispute in the South China Sea? And wasn’t Manila entertainer Jim Paredes being facetious in saying that Filipinos should claim Hong Kong’s Statue Square?
Do the overheated exchanges between the two countries’ bloggers border on the infantile? Are Chinoy media commentators and Pinoy columnists overdoing the threats and pontification? Why did I think of a Marx Brothers scenario when the Philippines yanked out the Chinese flag that had been planted on the Spratly Islands some months ago? Isn’t the wrangling over a bunch of shoals (defined in the dictionary as sandbars) a fatuous tit-for-tat game? Isn’t it reminiscent of that kid’s game where one person slaps a hand over the back of his opponent’s hand while the other slaps his over it, with the hand-over-hand slapping continuing until one party tires?
Did announcer He Jia of state-run CCTV in Beijing, who declared early this month that “We all know that the Philippines is China’s inherent territory,” misspeak on purpose, or was she parroting the claim by Chinese officials that the islands in question are “an indisputable part of China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”? Did her muted apology evaporate into space?
Did Beijing’s pronouncement that China is “prepared to respond to any escalation if Manila engages in more provocations” confirm suspicions among Pinay helpers in Hong Kong that they’re gradually being eased out because more Indonesian women are now being hired as servants in the territory?
Will Hong Kongers and mainland Chinese fulminate forever over President Aquino’s refusal to apologize for the deaths of eight Hong Kong tourists during the 2010 bus hijacking at Rizal Park? Was that a reverberating raspberry response across the sea to his admission that “things could have been handled better”? Are there really “bacteria problems” in Philippine fruit, as Beijing’s quarantine department claims, which is why they’ve stopped banana imports?
Isn’t this territorial imbroglio somewhat reminiscent of the war Britain waged against Argentina over the Falkland Islands in 1982, when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sent her country’s mighty fleet to crush the Latinos? Was Thatcher in the wrong because the Falkland Islands are right next door to Argentina, with Britain half a continent away? Or was that formidable prime minister right in that all of the Falklands’ inhabitants said they preferred to remain British? Wasn’t there a joke then about that war being like a squabble between two bald men fighting over a comb?
Now that Manila commentators are using “West Philippine Sea” instead of South China Sea, can China be stopped from altering its maps? While it’s obvious that the Scarborough Shoal lies just to the left of Luzon and the Spratly Islands are right next door to Palawan (and closer to Vietnam than to China), where is the United Nations’ Law of the Sea now that it’s needed? Does the wrangling just boil down to the possibility of finding oil in the disputed areas?
Is anyone concerned that the Philippine Navy is puny compared to China’s? Aren’t most of our ships and military hardware second-hand stuff, courtesy of the US government? Is the Pinoy dream of being a plucky David to China’s greedy giant realistic?
Wasn’t it another Chinese blogger who said that if every Chinese person spat, the Philippines would drown? Didn’t that remind me of finding, when I first came to Hong Kong in the early 1980s, the locals spitting everywhere? Didn’t the British colony then seem like one big spittoon? Wasn’t it the late writer Anthony Burgess who described hawking and spitting as “the national sound” made by overseas Chinese?
Didn’t my late mother tell us stories about her Chinoy lolo who washed up in Tayabas from impoverished Amoy, cut off his queue, changed his name to Samson and learned to speak Spanish? Didn’t he do well by marrying a savvy Pinay, setting up a business and producing 10 children—one of them my grandmother who spoke and sang beautiful Spanish?
Will the verbal assaults keep ricocheting across the ocean while politicians on both sides ignore more pressing problems on land? Is the issue more about human perversity than nationalist pride? Who knows?
Isabel Escoda is a freelance journalist based in Hong Kong.
national defense
DEFENSE Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said Wednesday the United States seemed more interested in showing off its military might than helping the Philippines build up its capability for territorial defense through their 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty.
“My only request which I have conveyed to him [Panetta] is that the cutters be upgraded,” Gazmin said, noting that the first ship, the BRP Gregorio del Pilar, had been stripped of all its weaponry except for one 76mm gun.
“We requested that the second cutter be given with its weapons system [intact],” Gazmin said.
He said the Defense Department, with a P70-billion budget for military modernization, was eying a third gunboat from Italy.
Earlier, Vice Admiral Alexander Pama acknowledged that the cutters that the US had sent to the Philippines came without their weapons.
meanwhile, senators enrile and honasan are practically saying that we should look out for ourselves and prepare vs. China:
“We must prepare. We better buy war equipment. We better buy our weapons, our means of defense,” Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, a former defense minister, told reporters.
Enrile issued the statement after Chinese vice foreign minister Fu Ying on Tuesday accused the Philippines of being responsible for escalating tensions over the disputed area in the South China Sea (also called West Philippine Sea).
“The Chinese side has… made all preparations to respond to any escalation of the situation by the Philippine side,” Fu reportedly told a Philippine diplomat.
Enrile said the Philippines should be prepared to face this head on.
“China is grabbing the place from us. Nagiging grabber na ang China. Anong gagawin mo kung ang kapitbahay mo, malayo ang bahay niya pero pupunta sa iyong kapaligiran at mayroon siyang espada, tampilan at pana o javelin. Di bumili ka rin ng tampilan. Maghasa ka rin ng gulok,” said Enrile.
Senator Gregorio Honasan, chairman of the Senate committee on public order and illegal drugs, supported Enrile’s sentiment but said the country should first pool its resources.
“Tama si Senate president [pero] alamin muna natin kung meron tayong pambili, importante yun,” Honasan said in a separate interview. Honasan is a former Army colonel who had served under Ernile at the Defense Ministry then.
since money is the problem, it is clearly a job for congress, to find the funds, and to do it fast. in case diplomacy and non-violent protests fail. and before we lose more territory. parang this is just as, if not more, important than the corona trial, or the 2013 elections. mag-multi-tasking sila.
“special” relations
Will You Support the Global Protest vs China on May 11? asks gel santos relos:
Amidst rising tension between China and the Philippines, National Chair of the US Pinoys for Good Governance(USP4GG) Loida Nicolas Lewis called on Filipinos to organize rallies and demonstrations in front of China’s embassies and consulates throughout the world on May 11 to protest China’s recent aggressive encroachments on the Philippines’ Scarborough Shoal.
Lewis especially reached out to the Global Filipino Diaspora Council representing 12 million Filipinos in 220 countries throughout the world. The planned protest actions will take place in major cities like Washington DC, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Vancouver, Sydney, Singapore, Rome and Hongkong.
“The most important thing is that they see that the global community led by Filipinos is going to stand up to their bullying. They should be shamed for bullying a tiny country like the Philippines,” Lewis said on The Filipino Channel’s daily newscast “Balitang America” last week.
it does seems like the patriotic thing to do, assert our sovereignty over scarborough shoal and call out china for “bullying” our tiny country. i can already see cnn and bbc and aljazeera covering these worldwide protests, complete with celebrities and ofws, tampok na naman tayo, pinoys of the world, unite!
of course it’s the right thing to do. because if we don’t, who knows how much closer china’s claws will reach the next time. better to stop them now by all means possible.
but please let’s not delude ourselves that we are stunning the world by standing up to beijing. if anything, i would think the world is snickering at our david-vs-goliath dramatics, especially now that america has unequivocally declared its neutrality vis-a-vis PH-China disputes over the spratlys and scarborough.
The Philippines received standard assurances that the United States will help build its sea patrol capability, but with the caveat that the most powerful country in the world will not take sides in its ongoing territorial dispute in the West Philippine Sea — which even the US Secretary of State called by its internationally recognized name.
now we know. all america cares about is keeping those sea lanes open. america doesn’t care that the rejection makes us look, and feel, like fools. pinaasa tayo, e basted pala. pumayag tayo sa “visiting forces” kasi kabalikat daw natin sila in security matters. now these “visitors,” these guests, are quibbling and refusing to back us up over sea matters. what kind of guests are these, medyo bastos, di ba? and what kind of hosts are we, to tolerate such inappropriate politics? medyo suckers, di ba? kung overstaying bisita ‘yan sa bahay ko, at di pala maaasahan to sympathize with and protect my family’s interests, i would have no qualms about asking them to leave, mga walang utang na loob.
i know, i know, it’s not that simple, getting rid of america, even if we wanted to. sana lang we become a little more critical of the “special” relationship. it’s supposed to be good for us, but is it, really?
read gina apostol’s In the Philippines: Haunted by History
On the Philippine side … the relationship with America looms like Donald Barthelme’s balloon, a deep metaphysical discomfort arising from an inexplicable physical presence. In Barthelme’s story “The Balloon,” a huge glob inflates over Manhattan, affecting ordinary acts of puzzled citizens for no apparent reason. American involvement in Filipino affairs sometimes seems like that balloon, spurring fathomless dread. Bursts of anxiety over the bases’ return pop up every time America finds a new enemy.
… When George W. Bush declared his war on terror in 2001, many Filipinos wondered whether a new airport on Mindanao, where American soldiers had increased so-called training operations, was big enough to land an F-14. Nations see global affairs through amusingly paranoid lenses, but as Filipinos joke, just because one is paranoid doesn’t mean no one is out to plant a huge airstrip that might conveniently land a fighter jet.
When Raytheon, the defense contractor, repeatedly consulted with visiting American forces last year about making “dumb” bombs “smart,” and in February actual smart bombs fell on Mindanao, killing alleged jihadists from Malaysia and Singapore, editorials came up with a familiar specter. “Forward base,” one pundit said.
The bases haunt us because they emerged during a dreamspace, when we still believed in our capacity for revolution. America “friended” the Philippines during our 1896 war against Spain then “unfriended” us when it paid Spain $20 million dollars for the islands in 1899. The building of military installations began apace, in step with the trauma of our sense of betrayal.
… American policy has always benefited the Filipino elite — the Marcoses, the Macapagal-Arroyos and the current presidential family, the Cojuangco-Aquinos, are among the handful who have reaped a bonanza. The interests of the oligarchy are the ties that bind. Our spectral angst is not so immaterial: our dread is drenched in military dollars and haunted by civilian blood.
After Mr. Bush declared the Philippines “a major non-NATO ally,” his government gave the last president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid. Mrs. Macapagal Arroyo famously boasted in 2004 that she “inherited” United States military aid of “$1.9 million only” but that “our military support is now $400 million and still counting.” She crowed, “We are No. 1 in East Asia and No. 4 in the whole world.”
The State Department’s Human Rights Report notes that security forces under Mrs. Macapagal Arroyo’s rule were responsible for “arbitrary, unlawful, and extrajudicial killings, disappearances, physical and psychological abuses,” and that the Philippine National Police force was “the worst abuser of human rights.”
She is now under house arrest. And her Ampatuan allies on Mindanao are in jail for their roles in the brazen 2009 election massacre of 57 people, including about 30 journalists — digging pits with a government backhoe and gunning victims down point-blank. When the bodies were found, the backhoe was still running, spewing dirt from shallow graves. Corazon Aquino’s son, Noynoy, is now president, and Mr. Marcos’s old defense minister is the Senate president, prosecuting corruption in Mrs. Macapagal Arroyo’s government, whose military reaped the rewards of Mr. Bush’s “global war on terror.”
Raytheon’s smart bombs were sold under a confidential treaty and Mr. Aquino says that American troops “are here as advisers.” But hands are being wrung: when drones start dropping by, who will need a military base — or even a constitution? As psychiatrists say, repetition is the site of trauma. And in the Philippines recursion is our curse. Mount Pinatubo is still trembling.
Gina Apostol is the author of “The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata” and “Gun Dealers’ Daughter,” and an English teacher in Massachusetts.