We are not talking of rape of the carnal kind here. The title of this column deals with the most recent violation committed by China on Philippine territorial sovereignty.
Not content with its encroachment into the Philippine Sea, China’s tentacles are now reaching out to Benham Rise, renamed Philippine Rise when the United Nations declared it in 2012 as part of the country’s continental shelf. China has renamed five of the seabed features in The Rise with Chinese names. Are they feeling lucky because it’s the Chinese Year of the Dog ?
Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III, like other Duterte officials, said there is nothing to be alarmed about China’s latest violation of Philippine territorial sovereignty. Earlier, Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque also allayed Beijing’s aggression by saying “we have to trust in the good faith of China” in the territorial dispute. Yeah right, it’s like telling a woman already being disrobed by an intruder in her bedroom to relax and not make a sound.
Pimentel, however, explained his calm remark. “We were not afraid when American explorer Andrew Benham and his expedition team discovered the Rise in 1933 and named it Benham Rise. Yes, Koko, but then in 1933 the Philippines was still an American colony and didn’t know the difference between a Rise and rice. Roque, on the other hand, told Filipino reporters the Philippine Embassy in Beijing has already protested the Chinese renaming of undersea features in the Rise.
Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, the arch critic of President Rodrigo Duterte, took matters more stridently with his statement “ we are already being raped and our officials are still laid back.” He was joined by Magdalo Representative Gary Alejano and lawyer Camilo Sabio who urged the government to be more vigilant against Chinese transgressions.
Senator Panfilo Lacson, in a separate statement, said the government should be wary against the Chinese building artificial islands in the area which they could convert again into military installations, alluding to what Beijing did in the Spratlys and the Paracels.
On another front, the Kuwaiti government condemned the offensive language of President Duterte and his order to stop the deployment of overseas Filipino workers to the oil-rich country. This is an instance I would have to agree Digong’s actions. It’s the Kuwaitis who should be condemned for their cruel treatment of Filipinos at the hands of their employers. The Kuwaiti government has been been hedging in signing an agreement with Manila to protect and safeguard Filipino workers there.
Metro subway
Finally, Metro Manila will have its first underground mass railway system even as the decades old Metro Railway Transit Line 3 has yet to be fixed. Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez announced the P356-billion loan agreement with Japan for the landmark project. The first tranche of the loan will be signed and delivered this March. The subway will be partially operational by 2022, at the end of President Duterte’s term.
That’s the good news. But the bad news is more diggings along the route of the subway system will certainly make Metro Manila’s monster traffic problem even nightmarish. Previous administrations didn’t think it could be done because the metro area, particularly Manila, is below sea level and flooding in the underground tunnel is a dreaded possibility. But then, other cities have done it including Hong Kong with Victoria Bay alongside it.
The underground train running across the English Channel connecting London to Paris is a reality and has since taken the romance out of the ferry crossing from Dover to Calais. I used to take this when I was a young press attache assigned to the Philippine embassy in London. I would load my Mercedes Benz into the ferry load the Benz in to the ferry and then from the deck watched the white cliffs of Dover disappear from the distance.
