Category: china

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Disturbed by a thread where some good and respected friends are somehow engaging in intellectual masturbation on whether the Philippines was in default in 1983. The entire point of the relevant discussion is whether and to what extent the Chinese loans contain potential risk of seizure of our assets, in case we’re unable to pay. WE WERE UNABLE TO PAY CREDITORS IN 1983. And we economists and lawyers dance around what to call that event — either as a technical or a de facto default (since we couldn’t pay), or as some now claim, a non default since the creditors didn’t press for their pound of flesh (and they allowed for a debt rescheduling). Does that cop-out somehow make us feel better about the original point? DO CHINESE LOANS CONTAIN POTENTIAL RISK OF SEIZURE OF OUR ASSETS, IN CASE WE’RE UNABLE TO PAY? DO YOU SERIOUSLY THINK THIS CREDITOR WILL ALLOW US NOT TO PAY, OR ALLOW RESCHEDULING (LIKE IN 1983)? Sabi ng lolo ko, ang hirap gisingin ng nagtutulug-tulugan.

Ronald U. Mendoza 
Dean, Ateneo School of Government

For whom the bells toll

Amelia HC Ylagan

… When Amb. Kim made his speech for the turnover of the bells, he made no apologies, no explanations for the confiscation of the bells by the US. He simply said, “In World War II and in Korea, our soldiers fought, bled, died, and sacrificed side by side. Together they made possible the peace and prosperity we enjoy today… Our relationship has withstood the tests of history and flourishes today. And every day our relationship is further strengthened by our unbreakable alliance, robust economic partnership, and deep people-to-people ties” (usembassy.gov, Dec 11, 2018).

Somehow, Amb. Kim’s careful diplomatic allusions to “our relationship” cannot but call back Pres. Duterte’s oft-repeated open disdain for the US (specially for past US President Barack Obama and for immediate-past Ambassador Philip Goldberg). Duterte’s rejection has progressively been made more painful to the US, juxtaposed to his open and gushy declaration of love for Chinese President Xi Jinping and all things Chinese. In the current heightened US-China global trade and political war, the suddenly rushed return of the Balangiga bells might plaintively ring: but we two — the Philippines and the US — we are friends, are we not?

… And insistently, triumphantly, the bells will toll again at Balangiga. But for whom, and for what will the bells toll?

The once-silenced Balangiga bells must peal and boom even more urgently now than in the chilling wars of betrayal and treachery for dominance and power in the early 1900s. The jubilation for national pride redeemed by the return of the symbolic bells is confused by the sickening feeling in the pit that the horned specter of dominance and greed still hovers, in the appearance of the Filipino’s own skin and mien. For colonization and dominance, and its treachery and betrayals can also be by our own leaders.

So many issues in our country that overwhelm us at yearend: is there really democracy guided by the rule of law, in the insuppressible and persistent “rumors” of extrajudicial killings and transgressions of human rights, protested and called down locally and by foreign observers?

Have we not observed and experienced first-hand how the constitution and the laws have been turned upside down in shockingly unorthodox little-known legal trickeries like the quo warranto to remove a Chief Justice; and the revocation of amnesty granted to one particular ex-putschist senator and present critic of the administration? Why are other politicians accused of plunder and other high crimes pardoned? What about the fate of another senator languishing in jail for alleged drug involvement? And are we not chilled by the continuous extension of martial law in Mindanao, justified by an Armed Forces who should have been doing its job as it is supposed to be competently doing?

Are we not aghast and terrified at the blatant dishonesty and corruption that are dismissed lightly for “friends” of those in power versus the persecution by evidently trumped-up charges for the vulnerable non-friends or those “unfriended” for lost utility? And we are overwhelmed in anxiety for a 2019 budget not yet approved, discovering in painful bits and pieces the self-serving “insertions” and allocations of “savings” in hidden pork barrel that was already deemed unconstitutional in the previous administration. Players in the controlling “team” seem to be fighting each other in sibling rivalry for opportunistic control of the resources of government — nay, the resources of the people.

But the unkindest cut of all by the “new colonizers” that we may call those who want to perpetuate themselves in economic and political power, is rushing the charter change for federalism to be transfused into our life veins. We will not be a free people anymore if the Hadean concepts are installed and institutionalized of unlimited terms for government positions, allowed political dynasties forever, and the divide-and-rule over federal regions controlled by a president practically for life, with a convenient vice-president of the president’s own party and personal subservience — among other self-serving and opportunistic insurances of control and impunity by those already in power.

The Balangiga bells must toll for freedom and democracy in the Philippines.

Ideas that divide the nation

Acting Chief Justice Antonio T. Carpio

Speech to the graduates of the National College of Public Administration and Governance, University of the Philippines, on June 22, 2018

Our nation today is facing radical proposals to change its historic identity, its grant of regional autonomy, and its foreign policy. Because these proposals are radical and divisive, they require the deepest examination from all sectors of our society – from lawyers, public administrators, historians, political experts, businessmen, scientists, farmers, NGOs, and all other sectors in our society. I call these proposals “Ideas that Divide the Nation.

We should be wary of new concepts imported from foreign shores and alien to our history as a people, which could divide the nation and even lead to the dismemberment of the Philippine state. Let me point out a few examples of these divisive ideas that have been introduced into our national discourse.

Read on…

Worth dying for

Jose Ma. Montelibano

… Our Presidents want to defend our sovereignty, but they also want to save our lives. They are in a quandary but they will always be unless we, the people, show them a way out of their dilemma. China is a given, and so are its more than a billion people, its land area, it economic and military resources, its level of technology. Before, and China itself was proud of saying this before, China did not invade other nations while it itself was invaded several times. Today, the perspective of the leadership of China is vastly different. Today it has a Nine Dash Line, its own idea of what in the world belongs to it. And it is willing to flex its military muscle to get it.

Maybe it is time to count if there are Filipinos who are afraid of dying but may still choose death over a shameful life. There may be only a few, that that would make our President avoid a war at all costs. But there may be enough, a million or so, who would freely choose the possibility of death rather than endless submission to an invader whose limits of aggression we still cannot measure.

I had proposed to some friends of my generation the idea that those 60 years old and above can volunteer to be the first to offer our lives. Then, a second wave can be comprised of those who are 50 to 59 years old – and so on. If the future is about our children and grandchildren, then we of the older generations may choose to die for them.

When millions of people are slaughtered, the rest of the world will react. History has repeatedly affirmed this. If we want the rest of the world, including many among the Chinese people, to react against the aggression of the Chinese leadership against Filipinos, we must give them basis to do so. The power of the rest of the world, plus a brave Filipino people, will be greater than China’s. But first, we must conquer our fear of death.