Pass or fail?

What’s happening to our government? Everything wrong is happening. The President always wants to come out strong and fearless to a point of becoming ferocious, but nothing has changed. We continue to live confused, concerned and crucified.

Why can’t they resolve things? They have too much on their agenda, the tables have turned and now we are doomed. As the old saying goes, what goes around, comes around – but now at the expense of the people.

Let’s first talk about the Chinese vessels seen in the Julian Felipe Reef in the West Philippine Sea. Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the “incursion” violates the Philippines’ maritime rights as the vessels encroach into Manila’s sovereign territory. The Chinese embassy denied claims of militia presence, saying the ships sighted were merely fishing vessels that took shelter near the area due to rough sea conditions. But according to retired Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, it is a “complete lie.” But are they truly Chinese fishing vessels? They surely don’t look like fishing vessels.

Justice Carpio in a television interview reminds us to be “very wary” of what’s happening at the Julian Felipe Reef. The 183 Chinese vessels moored at the reef may be a prelude to occupation and building of a naval base. China cannot park its militia vessels at the Julian Felipe Reef “because that is not their exclusive economic zone.” There are also no storms around the area during that time as was previously claimed by the Chinese embassy.

This is not the first time that such a situation happened. The same time last year, hundreds of Chinese ships also parked at the reef. In ANC’s Headstart interview, Justice Carpio said that this is just like what they did to Mischief Reef in 1995. They started with saying that they were just building fishermen’s shelter on Mischief Reef. But look at Mischief Reef now. It has become their air and naval base. In fact, the Chinese call it their Pearl Harbor in the South China Sea. The structure they have built is huge.

The Julian Felipe Reef is within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. As such the resources there are for Filipino citizens only. Under the Constitution, the government is mandated to protect our marine wealth in the reef. In an interview with “The Chiefs” on One News/TV 5 last week, Justice Carpio said the Department of Foreign Affairs’ filing of diplomatic protest was correct and should be the first thing to do. However, Carpio said the Philippines should not stop there because China would just ignore the protest. This is true because despite the Philippine diplomatic protest filed on March 21, 2021, the Chinese vessels remained at Julian Felipe Reef. In fact, the Chinese envoy told the President that it is just fishermen seeking shelter in the area.

Justice Carpio added, “We have to do something more and the options are either we bring this issue to an arbitral tribunal at The Hague under UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) or we send our patrols there.” Although sending a warship is an option, Carpio is not recommending it.

What makes China so bold and so adamant in this issue? Why is it strongly holding on to the area? They want to control Julian Felipe Reef simply because it is very close to their biggest air and naval base in Mischief Reef.

Now here’s the take: when Duterte accepted the COVID-19 donations from China, he put our country in a compromise. Sure he can tell us that we are poor and that we cannot afford and that we should be thankful. But isn’t this just creating roads toward an entrapment? Sanamagan!

Don’t forget that a total of 400,000 more doses of the coronavirus vaccine, manufactured by Chinese biopharmaceutical company Sinovac Biotech Ltd., arrived in the country last week completing the one million doses that China promised to donate to the country. Justice Carpio pointed out, “China knew that it would deliver that vaccine and timed it with the presence of the ships in Julian Felipe Reef, so what is the effect now? So they are there. Now what becomes the effect of a protest? We protest but we accept the vaccine of China, so it softens the blow.”

Now let’s see how things turn out. The armed forces just deployed more naval vessels to the area. Armed Forces of the Philippines spokesperson Major General Edgard Arevalo said the military ordered the deployment to beef up the country’s presence in the area. He said, “By the increased naval presence in the area, we seek to reassure our people of the AFP’s strong and unwavering commitment to protect and defend them from harassment and ensure that they can enjoy their rights over the country’s rich fishing ground which is the source of their livelihood.”

Is this just a show knowing the President’s friendly position toward China? According to presidential spokesperson Harry Roque, President Duterte has raised the Julian Felipe Reef incident with Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian and has insisted that the issue be resolved according to the rules of the UNCLOS. Roque said that it was a personal visit between two very close friends. Susmariosep!

By the way, the Julian Felipe Reef is part of a bigger group of islands called Union Banks. Union Banks is located in the area being claimed by China, Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines. The Julian Felipe Reef is a rightful territory of the Philippines because it lies within the country’s EEZ. As a matter of fact, the United States, Japan, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada have expressed concern over the presence of hundreds of Chinese militia vessels on Julian Felipe Reef, which is within the Philippines’ EEZ and continental shelf.

Justice Carpio said, “The President should say that friends do not seize, do not occupy the backyard of each other. If the Chinese are friends, it should not seize our territorial maritime zones. If there’s a dispute with us, settle it through third party arbitration. They should not unilaterally just seize our territory and maritime zones in the South China Sea. Friends do not do this to each other.”

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Now let’s talk about the sharp increase of COVID-19 cases in the country. Is this a case of mismanagement? Or karma? With the availability of COVID-19 vaccines, why is the government wanting to control all the influx of vaccines coming in? Clearly, we will achieve our vaccination program at a snail’s pace. While other countries including our Southeast Asian neighbors are halfway through their vaccine programs, we actually haven’t started. It has been three weeks now and we are still in the first level of innoculating frontliners.

In 2020, why did the government ban the private sector from procuring their own COVID-19 vaccines? Then, early this year they allowed the private sector to purchase but under the DOH control and with a 50-50 deal that the private sector must donate 50 percent of their vaccines to the public. Why all the controls when they cannot even handle their own? Sanamagan!

Mr. President, stop downplaying the problems. They exist and we must confront them. This is not a “small thing.” It is killing the people and pulling our economy down. Don’t sugarcoat our problems, please correct your men, we are not “excellent” in our response – we have failed.