"This is the worst offense of its kind."
"This is the worst offense of its kind."
If we feel like we are being raped by China in the West Philippine Sea and violating our territorial integrity, the Philippines only has itself to blame.
Our splayed-legs foreign policy-vis-a-vis Beijing has given it the license to treat us like its province.
Our fishermen are being driven away by Chinese gunboats from fishing in Bajo Masinloc off the coast of Zambales.
Complaints reported to the Philippine Coast Guard and Navy are dismissed and not given credence by naval authorities. The Coast Guard, instead of protecting our fishermen’ right in our own waters, tell the locals to stay away from Scarborough Shoal to avoid Chinese patrol patrol boats.
Mainland Chinese workers are displacing Filipinos from jobs in the online gaming industry even as these foreigners are also allegedly operating shabu labs with Filipino connivance. This is the worst offense of its kind because the illegal drug trade is the scourge that destroys the very fabric of Philippine society.
It is rather strange that the three mentioned Chinese transgressions are not being brought up by candidates in the May 13 midterm elections There’s an unverified report China would attempt to influence the outcome of the elections to favor certain candidates. If the Russians were able to influence voters into voting for Donald Trump as president by providing derogatory information on Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, there’s no saying China cannot do it here.
Accepting campaign money donations and buying voters during elections is de rigueur in our political process. There’s an old joke in Philippine politics that goes like this : Some candidates are running for the fun it while others are there for the funds of it.
There are those, however, who are running because their delusion that only they can give deliverance from the political, economic and social ills plaguing this benighted land.
Just look at the roster of candidates. Some are unqualified non-entities who are not household names even in their own households. One of the leading senatorial bets who could win is one whose last stint in the Senate was his distinction as chairman of the committee on silence. But in a way, he was better off than his colleagues who delivered privilege speeches only to expose their own inadequacies.
But what can you expect of voters from a populace fed daily with a surfeit of stupid shows featuring Vice Ganda and gossips of which film celebrity is dating or has just broken up with whom?
So much for illuminating important issues of the day. Entertainment, it seems is the panacea to all the problems facing Filipinos. No wonder we have the kind of leaders we have today. In the turnstile of power, problems like unemployment, high crime rate, monstrous traffic, and high cost of living go in and out with the change of leadership. Still, the problems remain with us. It’s a vicious cycle that sadly Filipinos have come to accept.
A revolution is not also the answer. Unlike the tectonic shift that went with the upheaval in the French Revolution, in Indonesia and South Korea, there was no change in the political structure in the vents that followed People Power at Edsa. It was just a revolving door and a a change in leadership with oligarchs replaced by another set of cronies who controlled the economy.