“How about our embassy in Beijing?”
THROUGHOUT the history of warfare and conflicts, there are always people selling their country to the enemy and we are no exception.
We experienced this during the 2nd World War where many of us including our political leaders collaborated with the enemy.
There are many reasons why people do this because it is a complex phenomenon and there are no easy answers.
But some of the reasons could be because of greed, revenge, blackmail and a misguided or perverted notion of patriotism.
There are many examples of traitorous individuals during World War 2 in Europe as well as in our country.
For us, the local term for those who collaborated with the Japanese was Makapilis.
After the Japanese surrender on Sept. 2, 1945, many of these collaborators who were detained in Palawan were eventually granted amnesty by President Manuel Roxas in 1948 and later executive clemency by President Elpidio Quirino in 1953.
Some people now may be shocked to know that many of those granted amnesty were the most prominent Filipinos at that time that included Emilio Aguinaldo, Jose P. Laurel and Benigno Aquino Sr., the father of the late Ninoy Aquino.
Many of the lesser personalities numbering about 323, however, did serve time in Muntinglupa for collaboration.
We should therefore not be too surprised that in our standoff with China with regard to the WPS, a lot of people which include top politicians, academics, business personalities, journalists and others are parroting China’s position sometimes coaxed in a way that it will not be seen as outright collaboration.
Some like FPRRD, however, just went ahead and said we could become a province of China only to backtrack and say it was only a joke.
But even if it was only a joke, as President of the land, he should not even joke about such issues.
As we already know, it was FPRRD who tried to move the country away from our long standing relationship with the United States and move us closer to China.
Not surprisingly, given his political clout and strength, his political allies and followers still subscribe to that position even if he is no longer president.
We can see this at work in the effort of the Senate leadership to come out with a resolution condemning some of the actions of some Chinese embassy personnel in Manila.
With only 24 of them and considering that the effort was for the country, most if not all of the political allies of FPRRD did not sign – shocking to say the least.
Recently, Senator Ping Lacson warned about the presence of modern day Makapilis or traitors in our midst.
Being a former man in uniform, he must have been alarmed by what he has been seeing.
But is he right about his warning because the word traitor is ordinarily used only when there is war and since we are not at war, perhaps we should be careful in using the term.
This, however, is no longer so.
One can indeed be a traitor even when there is no active conflict going on if one “undermines sovereignty, jeopardize national security and provide aid to foreign adversaries.”
Actions like “promoting foreign narratives, spreading disinformation and public officials advocating for or allowing powers to occupy or control national territory could all be construed as traitorous acts.”
That Senator who said we should simply give up the Kalayaan group of islands should never have said those words, being a ranking public official.
Under normal circumstances, he should be facing serious backlash to what he did but he appears to be nonchalant.
Unfortunately, our politics is unique and altogether a different banana and the good senator might simply get away with making such dangerous and controversial remarks.
We have been condemning the actions of some Chinese embassy personnel here but at least they are fighting for the interest of their country even if it was not the proper way to do it.
But how about our embassy in Beijing?
Have we even heard a word from them?
It is as if there is no Philippine embassy there.
If our officials here cannot even be united and our diplomats are not seen or heard, how do we expect to win or get our message thru?
The government should act on this issue decisively and not allow it to linger.
