What
will be the result of the chinese taking over of a peripheral territory like Panatag Shoal to us filipinos in the future?
Yet
today, have we ever been alarmed by the fact that as of 2007, between 80,000 to
100,000 chinese have already been moving covertly inside our main homeland? These
do not include those who have already gained access to having legalized their
status. They have been able to continue taking over of our banking
system, building construction system, rice distribution system, real estate
development, airline industry, retail industry, etc.. They have been rendering us impotent in
solving the chronic rice shortage for decades. Henry Sy, Lucio Tan,
including Danding Cojuangco, have been able to continue unchecked in displacing
us filipinos of access to our own economic resources and control of our
development. Now they have been taking
over development of our education thru Asia Pacific College, UE, Centro Escolar
University, etc.? What has been the
result?
They have developed a situation where in our military, police, and political officials have been locked in under their social and economic influence to provide them protection and access to having legal status of control of our resources and development.
Lives of millions of us, filipino families have already been damaged caused by our having been displaced from access to economic resources and by their destruction of environment as a result of whatever mode of their operations to gain huge profits. We have been so unable to have access to our very own rich resources that while the chinese are gaining strength here and are the ones enjoying such resources, we are forced to leave our own country to work or migrate abroad and have our human resources benefit foreign countries
They have developed a situation where in our military, police, and political officials have been locked in under their social and economic influence to provide them protection and access to having legal status of control of our resources and development.
Lives of millions of us, filipino families have already been damaged caused by our having been displaced from access to economic resources and by their destruction of environment as a result of whatever mode of their operations to gain huge profits. We have been so unable to have access to our very own rich resources that while the chinese are gaining strength here and are the ones enjoying such resources, we are forced to leave our own country to work or migrate abroad and have our human resources benefit foreign countries
Compare
this with the status of development of nations whose people are the ones in
control of their own development like the israelis, french, germans,
vietnamese, australians, and the japanese today. How is the direction of their economic,
political, defense, and educational development compared to that of ours? Compare this with the defense system of these
nations who are able to sustain and protect their own people.
Compare
our developmental status today with that of ours when we were a newly born
nation in 1898 up to the early 1900s when our national identity and our control
of our political, economic, defense and educational system was still strong
even when they were being wrested away from us by the most powerful nation in
the world- the north americans of the United States. Inspite of our being a newly born nation
then, the invading forces of the U.S. were unable to catch, lock and control
our defense system for years until they resorted to massive hostage taking and
extermination of the civilians among us.
Despite of these, our moves were still instructed by our organic national developmental code we inherited from the fathers of our nation.
Despite of these, our moves were still instructed by our organic national developmental code we inherited from the fathers of our nation.
The
Father of the Philippine Army, Gen Artemio Ricarte and hero in the
Filipino-American War, "...envisioned...the country divided into twelve
'confederate states', the islands of Guam included as well as Jolo 'and its
adjacent islands'. Manila, as soon as
seized from the Americans, would be the federal capital; the official language
would be Spanish; the death penalty and all prisoners would be abolished; the
Chinese would be barred from business and banking;..."
We
also inherited the code of Jose Rizal. In
1895, while he was in exile in Dapitan in Mindanao, in the southern Philippines.
Rizal was filled with righteous indignation at the “exploitation” of the natives
by the Chinese traders, and appealed to the local residents to boycott the
Chinese shops. He also opened a small sari-sari
store to compete against the Chinese.
(Wickberg, E. The Chinese in Philippine Life 1850-1898). Nick Joaquin said: “And because Chinese
financiers had a stranglehold on native agriculture, Rizal set up the
Cooperative Association of Dapitan Farmers, a pioneer in economic nationalism…”
Compare
our alarm level over the chinese in the Philippines today compared to that of
ours in the 1900s when we conducted defense actions mostly at the developmental
level against the chinese creeping invasion.
Unfortunately, the chinese government provided support in complement
with the US government dismantling of the defense set-up we have established
against the chinese invasion here and their taking over of our economy.
If
even our fathers and heroes who were alarmed by the chinese creeping invasion
of our nation already in the very centers of control of our development in our
main homeland which stimulated an appropriate response of resistance then are not
anymore stimulating any response from us today,
why should a chinese invasion of our peripheral territory like the
Panatag Shoal stimulate an alarming response from us?
Before
we get alarmed with the invasion of our peripheral territories in the near
future, let us review our present situation today and examine if the chinese
has not already applied to us today what the famous Chinese General Sun Tzu
said something like, “Therefore, the skillful leader subdues the enemy's troops
without any fighting; he captures their cities without laying siege to them; he
overthrows their kingdom without lengthy operations in the field.”
If ever we have to commit lives for our fatherland, whose lives will we commit? Then, let it be commited for a reason based not on Hollywood, but on our real situation and needs.We should not be manipulated into engaging a physical military confrontation with the chinese just because of their invasion of our peripheral territories like Spratly Islands or Panatag Shoal. What benefit will this give us?
This will only give the north americans of the United States an even stronger justification and on whom we filipinos perceive to be our savior, for an even increase in extent and intensity of their presence here. This will give them an excuse being a perceived ally of the Philippines, to engage China in a military confrontation for an opportunity to reduce the threat of a looming takeover from the U.S., world military dominance. This seems inevitable as China is already overtaking U.S.A. from world economic dominance.
If ever we have to sacrifice lives for our fatherland, let it not be ours but those of who are invading our land and displacing us filipinos from our source of sustenance and control of development of our nation.
3 comments:
This issue is getting harder for us as time goes by. There are also some countries that are claiming Panatag shoal even though they don't have an evidence that it's legal.
In as much as we would like to avoid WWIII, unfortunately, there's no way out of it not unless all people come together and change the existing order. We'll be dragged into this like what happened before. US is feeding fuel to the fire, giving us arms, and somewhere down the road some stupid guy in sitting power would be emboldened to stand up to the provocation and that's when we get crushed. This are all part of the script, we have to understand that this is beyond regional politics, this is global geopolitics and some groups aim to manipulate countries to their advantage. The fire that would ignite everything is the Iran situation, when it get attacked, Russia and China would likely get involved, they're already politically and militarily committed to do so anyway. Remember Armageddon in the bible? that's where we're headed my friend.
apple and withonespast:
I agree that this issue is getting harder by the week. I also agree that unless the existing order is changed, we will be pulled down deeper into trouble created by foreigners around us. That is why there is a need to look at this issue from a wider and developmental perspective instead of from a reactionary point of view.
First, on the practical side: Let us answer this question: We cannot even handle or worse, care to even settle the chinese and american occupation and control issue inside our very main homeland already marginalizing us, filipinos, so why do we want to get into further trouble of settling foreign invasion of our peripheral territories? Let us even assume that moral ethically and legally, we have the right of ownership of these areas. Let us even assume wildly that militarily, we can drive away the chinese invaders of those peripheral areas.
Second, is on the longer term and more fundamental level: The conclusion and recommendation in the aforementioned situational report on the Panatag Shoal is not a knee jerk nor an escapist reaction to the situation. As you can see, it has a historical and developmental basis. It is to recover our authentic independence and original national developmental code we did have in the past. This is the only way we can have a genuine defense of our nation. It is compatible I think, with the insights and information you two share here through your comments. Above all, these information we share is based on an independent mind set free of foreign interest manipulation.
Thanks for your valuable inputs.
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