Building, building, building

While we are all kept agog over sensational headlines about continued killing of “nanlaban” suspects, “anti-tambay” arrests, corruption in high places, Dengvaxia damage and denials, the contentious TRAIN law and the rising cost of everything, politicians’ bickerings, celebrity squabbles, and trending presidential antics (just a fortnight ago, it was a scandalous kiss in Korea, now it’s his “stupid God” remark), China is still stealthily building, building, building fortresses on reefs in our territory.  In, our, territory!

For more photos, visit:  http://www.inquirer.net/specials/exclusive-china-militarization-south-china-sea

Photographs released exclusively by the Philippine Daily Inquirer in February this year are alarming, to say the least, and if they fail to make you seethe with righteous anger, chances are you’re one of those ashamed to sing our national anthem at movie houses.  The authenticated photos, taken from an altitude of 1.5 km., clearly show such islands now studded with naval bases and military installations, but sadly the expose could boast of only 41, 213 shares.  Mocha Uson’s 5.3 million blog followers could have done something to make a difference—if they only truly cared.

According to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI), 2017 proved to be a bumper year for China’s base building in the heavily disputed South China Sea.  The three-kilometer runways for the three biggest reefs—Kagitingan, Zamora, and Panganiban (which the UN-backed Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague has ruled as belonging to the Philippines)—were apparently ready for use as of November 15, 2017, complemented by hangars, radars and high-frequency antennas, lighthouses, missile shelters, and multi-story buildings.  Photos of the smaller reefs Burgos, Calderon, Mabini, and McKennan revealed the presence of helipads, observation and communication towers, radomes, and wind turbines.  In the waters, the ubiquitous cargo ships (transporting construction materials), coast guard patrolers, and military ships were photographed so clearly their ID numbers were legible.

“With its construction unrestrained,” the report said, “China will soon have military bastions on Kagitingan Reef, known internationally as Fiery Cross Reef; Calderon (Cuarteron), Burgos (Gaven), Mabini (Johnson South), Panganiban (Mischief), Zamora (Subi) and McKennan (Hughes) reefs from which to project its power throughout the region.”  To see for yourself, go to: http://www.inquirer.net/specials/exclusive-china-militarization-south-china-sea#ixzz5Jb2LLm5S

For videos of what China is doing in disuted waters, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YPFGRkI4XQ

From the days when our biggest territory-related problem was shooing away Chinese fishing vessels from Panatag shoal and jailing the poachers for loading their dynamite equipped boats with marine turtles, corals, and giant clams, China has certainly come a long way.  In 1974 the Philippine government built an airstrip on Pag-asa, the biggest island of the Kalayaan group; the airstrip was the first ever constructed in the Spratly archipelago, and it was big enough for use by C-130 transport planes.  Pag-asa then also boasted of a fully-armed army and marine detachment, but as the winds of politics blew hither and thither, securing Pag-asa was pushed down the priority list of succeeding administrations.  Meanwhile, the Chinese fishermen continued to brave the Philippine coast guard’s patrol boats and to doggedly harvest goodies from our rich marine resources.  And now, looking at the photos of China’s military installations in the region—wouldn’t you even suspect that those Chinese fishermen were actually spies?

I wouldn’t wonder.  Years back, we at the FOCAP (Foreign Correspondents’ Association of the Philippines) were almost sure that the correspondents from Xinhua News Agency, a nice, well-mannered husband-and-wife tandem, were spies in disguise.  It wouldn’t be impossible, we were told, that their hotel room was bugged, and that they were also under oath to spy on each other!  That’s Chinese espionage for you—but, given China’s determination to become the number one imperial world power, its espionage methods have grown so sophisticated through the years that its cyber espionage has been considered a threat to national security by their enemies.

But lest we fear that we are the only one being bullied by China’s powers-that-be, let us look at the bigger picture in the hope to see the real root behind China’s land-grabbing binge.  Would you believe local authorities in China bully even their own farmers?  Here’s just one instance of farmers tearfully protesting land seizures and being beaten with metal pipes by their own countrymen, filmed by Al Jazeera:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBO8UL-INXA.

China has also been eating up the Himalayan borderland it shares with India—“bite by kilometer-size bite.”   As reported in The Wall Street Journal in September 2014, there have been 1,171 Chinese transgressions from January 2012 to June 2014 along the 2,500-mile-long border.  One of India’s foremost strategic thinkers, Brahma Chellaney, likens China’s land-grabbing strategy in India to its tactics in the South China Sea.  In India, China first sends civilians like herders, farmers, and grazers to settle the land.  (In the Philippines, these “civilians” would be the fishermen.)  Once the civilians are in place, says the report, the People’s Liberation Army comes in to provide protection, allowing them to establish a more permanent presence in the area.  When a foothold is gained, Chellaney says China begins “cutting off access to an adversary’s previously controlled territory and gradually surrounding it with multiple civilian and security layers.”   While no single action may be construed as an alarming aggression, over time, the territorial grab expands.  Sounds familiar, right?

Just last April, the Pentagon expressed concern for the US over China’s reported massive land grabbing in Maldives, which is in India’s backyard.  “We have seen concerning developments in Maldives as far as the Chinese influence is concerned,” said Joe Felter, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia, in a report in the Hindustan Times, corroborating the allegation made by a former foreign minister of Maldives, Ahmed Naseem, that China was meddling in the island nation’s internal affairs and appeared to be keen on building a base which one day may house warships and submarines.  Maldives’ former president Mohamed Nasheed last February also revealed in an interview with the Times of India that the Chinese who have taken control of 17 islands in the Maldives, are “talking about investing $ 40 million in each of the islands but we don’t really know what is the purpose for that.”

And who could forget how China in 1950 invaded Tibet for its natural resources, seized the Potala Palace for its treasures, and drove Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, out of their sacred land and into exile, in order to militarize the strategically important border with India?  The Dalai Lama—speaking of the atrocities the Chinese invaders inflicted upon his people then—told me in 1981, when we met in Bali, Indonesia, “No other people on earth could be more charming than the Chinese, just as none could match them in their brutality.”  The whys and wherefores of that land-grab could fill volumes, and it could show us that China will stop at nothing to expand its territories—plans for which at present include the Moon and Mars. 

Remarkable strides in China’s space program seem to show that the Chinese Communist Party is bent on making its mark on the space race.  In 2013, president Xi Jinping promised his people that China will send a taikonaut (Chinese astronaut) to the moon by the 2030s, but now they are speaking of sending colonies to the moon and Mars, targeting to beat the US and Russia to it.  Those planets are no man’s territory as far as China is concerned—thus, the first one who gets there gets to own it, and to make maps to subsequently prove their ownership.  China announced last April that it would send late this year a lunar probe that would conduct biological experiments unprecedented in space history, such as planting potatoes and cultivating silkworm.  Huh?  From military installations on reclaimed islands in the South China Sea to planting potatoes in the moon—what’s China up to?

A 73-year old Party official, aerospace engineer and head of the Chinese lunar exploration program, Ye Peijan, sums it up when asked (at the CCP’s annual plenary sessions in Beijing last year) why China is going to the moon: “The universe is an ocean, the moon is the Diaoyu Islands, Mars is Huangyan Island. If we don't go there now even though we’re capable of doing so, then we will be blamed by our descendants. If others go there, then they will take over, and you won’t be able to go even if you want to. This is reason enough.”

Does that sound Confucian or confusing?  The Diaoyu Islands Ye Peijan speaks of refers to Senkaku in Japan, and Huangyan Island is Panatag Shoal.  Why Ye should cite such names when the topic is lunar occupation mirrors the CCP’s stand that China goes into space not as a matter of national pride or scientific achievement, but simply to beat their competitors in wresting control of new land from other nations.

Where does that leave us now—supposedly God-fearing people who love fiestas in a country whose president calls their God “stupid” and is playing dangerous footsies with China?  It's more obvious than obvious that it's not just siopao or hopia factories China has been building in territory that is legally ours.  War is out of the question—our weapons are but blowguns compared to China’s, but how can we really rely on diplomacy with a control-obsessed Leninist leadership that acknowledges no authority above itself?

Many see our situation as helpless.  But are we, really, that helpless?  These are times to go down on our knees and invoke the mercy of our God, the One who led His people out of slavery and parted the Red Sea for their safe passage (Exodus 14:21-31)— the same Living God who sent fire upon Elijah’s sacrifice in Mt. Carmel for all to see that his God is God (1 Kings 18:16-45).  In spite of their best intentions, our politicians are never saviors; even the most brilliant among them cannot stand up to a fire-breathing dragon.  But we have God and His promise to rely on:  “If my people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”  Mr. President, call me stupid, but I do believe this, with all my being.  And that’s the truth.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

After kissing a married woman on the lips in public, what will Chief Executive Digong do next?  I didn’t get the details when I first heard of that “historic kiss” over the radio, and so I dismissed it as just another Du30 gimmick.  He was probably fishing for approval from the OFWs during his visit to South Korea, so what’s new?  But when station after station rattled on about “the kiss”, and I learned soon after that the kiss was on the lips, and that the woman was married, and that our showman-of-a-president demanded the kiss in return for a scandalous book, I thought, “Uh-oh, that’s material for a my next column.”

And then came the videos, and the blasts from social media, pro and con.  I had to watch the video before I could judge the act (without being judgmental).  I saw the lady’s reluctance, the president’s insistence, and the kiss which, truth to tell, wasn’t intimate enough to spread a virus, but why did it go viral just the same?   Why did CNN, BBC, Time, CBS, Washington Post among others think it was newsworthy?  The head of state who is known for getting into hot water because of his mouth has done it again—this time not because of cussing but because of kissing; caused not by a joke, but by a joke of a kiss.     

The uproar was like thunder rolling from east to west, north to south—why?  Because—as the song goes, “You must remember this, a kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh… The fundamental things apply, as time goes by…”   A kiss is a kiss is a kiss, and a kiss on the lips is big time in our culture.  See how a lips-to-lips kiss caps our wedding ceremonies, where the groom waits until the priest/minister says “You may now kiss the bride” before lifting her veil and kissing her lips?  Suddenly you have this mischievous president soliciting a kiss from somebody else’s wife.  What the ….!  That would have constituted sexual harassment in the corporate world!

But besides the fact of the kiss, it’s the public reaction to the president’s intention that needs examination.  The audience shrieked and hooted their approval of the act—why?   Was it okay that their country’s leader turned a kiss into live entertainment?  Is it more important to be “made happy” than to be made proud of your well-mannered president?  True to form, Digong said of his critics, “Inggit lang kayo!” while his spokesman said that kiss is an “act of endearment” to show the president does love the OFWs.  (OmG, roll your eyes and chuckle, it’s Mediocrity Unlimited.)

I’m sorry for the lady—Bea Kim, married to a Korean national, mother of two—who seemed to think she had no choice.  There were two Filipinas on stage reportedly; the first one offered her cheek which the president kissed without a fuss.  But Bea, upon Digong’s insistence, relented and allowed him to do as he’d wanted.  That’s what’s pathetic.  Well, maybe she is not old enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with the president.  She could have said, smiling, “No way, Mr. President, my husband will divorce me!  Sa pisngi na lang po!”  Or she could have given her hand to be kissed instead.  I wonder what Mr. Kim feels now, or how that viral video of his wife being kissed by a notoriously womanizing president will affect their marital life from now on.  I also wonder what Sarah Duterte or Honeylet or ex-wife Elizabeth think of it?  Or what Kitty feels among her schoolmates talking behind her back.  What’s even more regrettable is how Mrs. Kim apparently felt obliged to defend the president’s temerity by telling media that there’s “no malice” in that kiss which “didn’t mean anything except to entertain and make other Filipinos in the gathering happy.”

Okay, “no malice” then.  But is anyone asking about the choice of the book the president gave away to Overseas Filipino Workers in South Korea?  “Altar of Secrets: Sex, Money and Politics in the Philippine Catholic Church”—a pathetic rehash of the author’s previously published articles which didn’t quite make the cut due to its glaring lack of depth.  Why did the president choose to spread this “book” instead of giving the overseas Pinoys something really useful and constructive?  Like maybe a coffee table book about the beauty of the Philippines to show off to their non-Filipino friends.  Or maybe a volume on Workers’ Rights to educate and empower the OFWs.  Or perhaps an Etiquette Book that may help them deal smoothly with their employers and other people they meet abroad?  Why of all books, this one?  No malice?  Giving that book to people and then asking for a kiss in return—hello, presidential advisers, do you love your country?  It’s like giving rotting fish for people to eat and then ordering them to pay a steep price for it.  All in the name of “making them happy”?

And so the fuss over the kiss went on, overshadowing much more important issues.  On the same day of “the kiss”, June 6, Beijing must have bristled as a US military ship—the USNS Milinocket, which can transport troops, boasts of a helipad and has loading ramps for military vehicles—was reported to have docked in Palawan, which faces the South China Sea.  On top of that, two nuclear-capable US bombers flew near Spratly Islands, in the wake of the accusation by US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis of China’s “intimidation and coercion” in the South China Sea.  Do Pinoys care about that? 

On the same day, a 64-year-old Catholic priest, Fr. Rey Urmeneta of St. Michael the Archangel parish in Calamba was on his way to a church meeting when two would be assassins shot him.  He sustained two gunshot wounds but survived the attack.  More shootings: also on June 6, police gunned down two suspected robbers in separate incidents in Cavite—the first was one of two motorcycle-riders who tried to steal from a convenience store in Silang; the second was a trespasser in a subdivision in Tagaytay. 

Because we Pinoys love circuses, we seem to have become deaf to the gunshots around us, or even to the threat of war.  A kissing here, a shooting there—made me title this piece “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang”, although this has nothing to do with the Hollywood black comedy bearing that name.  I’d like to echo the women’s sentiments during their Independence Day march last June 12.  Enraged over the kissing incident in South Korea, the marchers—bearing a huge streamer that said “Babae Ako, Lumalaban!”—protested Duterte’s “misogynistic” ways and challenged him to step down.  Recalling his unabashed admission of his womanizing, his rape jokes, and his order for soldiers to shoot rebel women in their private parts, the over a thousand women said “We have had enough”.   For your own good, Mr. President, enough of kiss kiss bang bang—and do be careful.  Next time you kiss a woman in public, they might just take you down with a bang.  And that’s the truth.