"The senator should look at her own circle of friends and supporters."
"The senator should look at her own circle of friends and supporters."
Opposition Senator Risa Hontiveros on Tuesday, September 1, called for a Senate investigation into a possible “collusion” among Philippine officials or entities in the construction of China’s artificial islands and military installations in the West Philippine Sea.
In filing Senate Resolution No. 509, which called on the appropriate Senate committee to conduct the investigation on the matter, the solon noted that the US government has sanctioned a number of Chinese companies and their officials for undertaking what the Americans described as “illegal construction of artificial islands in disputed areas in the South China Sea (West Philippine Sea) and unduly militarizing the whole area.”
It would have been next to impossible, Hontiveros said, for these things to happen without the collusion and active participation of Philippine government officials and private contractors including mining companies, especially since it has long been suspected that most of the materials used in these construction activities came from the Philippines.
There is a need to really get to the bottom of these reported operations on grounds of national security, sovereignty and, of course, misuse of state resources.
As Hontiveros correctly pointed out, using these artificial islands just a short distance from our shores as base of operations, China practically makes us hostage us to military attacks, either by some of its own rogue forces or from its declared rivals like the United States and its allies. That threat thus directly affects our own control and sovereignty over vast areas in the disputed region. Obviously, if the reports are true, by allowing the foreigners to extract huge amounts of sand and other reclamation materials from our shores under various guises, we have deprived the treasury of much needed funds and other benefits which could have been generated from such activities.
The question is this: Will Hontiveros proceed with such vigor and passion calling for penalties left and right if she realizes that these “illegal operations” happened before President Duterte’s time? That these were undertaken during then President Noynoy Aquino’s watch and that if there are any officials and private companies and individuals who should be penalized for “colluding” with the US-blacklisted Chinese companies, they would be those she happens to be friends with or at the very least having worked with before she got into the Senate.
Truth be told, it was precisely because of the belated “discovery” of those newly minted islands which prompted then Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario and his group to file that arbitration case in The Hague. But even before that right after the very unfortunate “stand off” when we lost Scarborough Shoal due to what then-Senator Antonio Trillanes described as “del Rosario’s treasonous act” by green lighting the early departure of our ship instead of the agreed simultaneous exit with the Chinese vessel, the Aquino administration was told that the Chinese were slowly but surely cementing their stay in the disputed areas.
And then, all hell broke loose. Right after The Hague ruling was issued, coupled with the continuing anti-China sniping using the ruling as platform, China proceeded to occupy other rocks and islets within the area.
Even the Chinese companies Hontiveros identified as having engaged in these operations and blacklisted by the US may have actually been doing business here in the Philippines even before Duterte came to power. I have received reports that a number of these companies actually won bids and did construction works for projects funded by the ADB and World Bank. One such company, China Harbor, has been doing business in the country for at least two decades. It worked with various government agencies during the Noynoy Aquino years.
Now, it will be interesting to know whether there are still some Filipino companies and officials who are supporting the Chinese in their “cementing operations” in the disputed regions, if any. If there are any such subterfuges being conducted, we will join Senator Hontiveros in denouncing these acts and even possibly bringing those involved to court. As for her call for the rescission of any contracts entered into by the government with any of the Chinese companies in the US blacklist, she must prepare to be disappointed: President Duterte has said “no way.”
In the meantime, if Hontiveros is so engrossed with investigating the culprits and bringing them to justice, she need not look very far. She can simply look around her close circle of friends, supporters and enablers to find out and proceed with her plan to get them to answer for their acts. The earlier, the better.