It’s sometimes a wonder how Filipinos can try anything, even to the point of publicly putting down their own country, just to achieve their propaganda objectives.
Whoever thought of that tasteless gimmick, festooning some pedestrian overpasses with tarpaulins proclaiming the Philippines as a province of China, just showed the world how un-patriotic we can be.
I wonder if that “genius” would rush towards those West Philippine Sea rocks in defense of our sovereignty if PNoy and his New York-bred Albert Del Rosario declared war against China. Or if he or she would instead shout for “peace” amid entreaties to his beloved US of A to come succor their little brown brothers in the Orient.
If you are older than a millennial, you probably would recall that popular movement called Philippine Statehood USA launched by a Boholano named Bartolome Cabangbang. The guy was a former military man who was once elected to Congress. He proclaimed that the only solution to poverty and corruption was to enlist the country as the 51st state of the Union.
This was before martial law when the Philippine economy was not yet the near basket case it had descended into, and when the population was in the 40 millions before we literally took the biblical admonition to “go forth and multiply” as command to procreate like rabbits.
And guess what? Thousands upon thousands enlisted into that statehood movement! They did think it was the ultimate solution to the economic “doldrums” they were experiencing. They established chapters in major Philippine cities and even among Filipinos abroad.
They were greeted with stony silence in Washington DC and even the US ambassador went “deadma.”
Katawa-tawa.
Those American legislators could never countenance having 40-million Filipinos dictate their political fate in elections where only some 30 percent of their then—160-million Americans voted for their president. Imagine adding 20-million Filipino voters to that mix. Why, Ferdinand Marcos could become their POTUS long before an African-American could even dream of such a possibility.
And even in this day and age, we still think of America as our greatest friend. Just read every survey on which country our people trust most.
We distrust China probably because the Chinese- Filipinos in our midst are by dint of hard work and frugality more prosperous than their brown-skinned neighbors in our midst. “Inggit,” “inis,” whatever.
Now because China has occupied those West Philippine Sea rocks because we allowed them to due to our own inadequacy or inaction in the past, we chide our country as a province.
Yet so many of our people would still love to be “Americans’’ and get us to be a state of their Union.
What a country.