“We cannot simply allow those people to surrender the country before any fighting could even start”
We have to take seriously what the Chinese are doing at the Philippine Rise.
The Philippine Rise, formerly known as Benham Rise, is an extinct volcanic ridge in the Philippine Sea approximately 250 kilometers east of the northern coastline of Dinapigue, Isabela.
The reported presence of the two Chinese research vessels there was not the first time.
Chinese vessels have been visiting the place on several occasions in the past in the guise of conducting research. Why they keep on going back, we do not know but they may be up to something.
Who knows, we might just wake up one morning to find China making another historical declaration about ancient Chinese mariners having been there in antiquity and start claiming the place as they did with the Scarborough Shoal.
We must not forget that China is claiming almost the entirety of the South China Sea and wants every country to accept it.
Prudence, therefore, dictates that we should not take anything for granted.
And with respect to the WPS situation which continues to simmer, there appears no single agency designated to issue statements on what is going on.
The DFA, PCG, and the DND apparently can issue statements without any restrictions.
Even embassies can.
Common sense will tell us that this is not a good policy.
This gives the appearance of a shotgun approach which could further complicate an already volatile situation.
The Palace should designate just one agency to speak for the government on all WPS issues and this should be the Department of Foreign Affairs.
All other agencies should just provide the DFA with all the necessary information about an incident and let the DFA be the one to do the talking.
The other area is that we do not seem to be paying much attention to what is going on in the home front.
This is because our focus is what to do with the encroachments being done in our EEZ in the WPS. But what if the people we want to keep out are already embedded among us?
Unbeknownst to the public, there is this disturbing report that out of 3,900,000 Chinese nationals who have entered the country as tourists in the past few years, almost 900,000 of them cannot be accounted to have returned to China.
What this means if this report is true is that there are now hundreds of thousands of overstaying Chinese nationals among us, most of whom are maybe of military age.
It is a staggering number and we have to ask the question how this could have been allowed to happen. And who are the officials responsible?
Since the problem is about overstaying foreigners, the finger would normally point to the Bureau of Immigration and rightly so.
A few weeks back, corruption allegations were labeled against the BI regarding the issuance of visas to hundreds if not thousands of fake corporations but after a day or two, the news suddenly disappeared. But not before the Secretary of Justice issued a statement about how deep rooted the problem is within the BI.
The Secretary admitted this kind of cases are no longer simple cases of corruption but already deeply engrained in the culture of the agency.
It is scary what is going on because it involves national security and could mean the very existence of the Republic considering the number involved.
Why do we even bother modernizing our Armed Forces so we can defend our country when the people we want to keep out are already in our midst with the help of corrupt officials?
There seems to be limit to what corrupt officials are willing to do.
Just look at what the NFA just did to our rice stock.
But an entire agency willing to sell the country for 30 pieces of silver? It makes one wonder what else these corrupt officials are capable of.
Here we are with a President fighting hard for our territorial integrity and recently authorized about $34 billion to modernize our military which is the largest budget ever allocated for military modernization. All these, however, will be for naught if we do not get our act together or do something to those corrupt officials willing to do the country grievous harm.
We cannot simply allow those people to surrender the country before any fighting could even start.