The remaining detractors and critics of President has again
made this an opportunity to gang up on him, hoping that because of constant
media barrage of being “too soft” to China it may sway sentiments of the “masa”
as against the President they have put in Malacanang three years ago.
The former Davao City Mayor knows better in this ever
changing geo-politics in Asia, he needs to be at the forefront of the situation
which involves the country.
With the South China Sea just in our backyard, it is doubly
hard to be on the top of things all the time.
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| Pres. Rodrigo Roa Duterte (photo credit to owner) |
The veteran columnist Mr. Rigoberto Tiglao of The Manila
Times made a very insightful article regarding the President Rodrigo Roa
Duterte in all the things that is happening in the Recto Bank titled “Now, this is a leader, and not a populist one”, published last June 19, 2019.
For purposes of informing the public, understanding, and
transparency we are quoting in full the said article of Mr. Tiglao below for all
our subscribers.
Now, this is
a leader, and not a populist one
TO be honest, my admiration for
President Duterte went up a few notches with his principled stand on the Recto
Bank incident, despite the hysterical screams of the Yellows and even of people
you would have thought were sober, for him to bash China for the Reed Bank
incident.
A columnist presented the supposed
calculus, that polls show that Filipinos mistrust the Chinese, that Duterte
better read the writing on the wall — a steep fall in his popularity. “So,
what?” I bet Duterte would say.
I nearly fell off my seat in
astonishment over a Philippine
Star column the other day that implied that the military might just
decide to topple Duterte because of his stance on the Recto Bank incident. That
that “column feed” appeared in that paper isn’t really surprising.
I suspect that’s the line being
spread now by China-bashing fire-eater, Aquino 3rd’s foreign affairs secretary
Albert del Rosario, who lost for us Scarborough Shoal and allegedly
unsuccessfully, shamelessly begged for US military might to recover it for us.
After all, the Philippine Star is controlled by
the Indonesian Anthoni Salim, for whom del Rosario has worked for decades and
to whose conglomerate he owes his vast wealth. Another column in that paper was
as ass-licking to him, claiming that Duterte’s stance is such because “China is
his benefactor.” What?
Incident
I use the term Recto Bank incident because the detailed facts haven’t been determined at this point. I can’t call it a “maritime accident” as information could surface that it might either be a hostile ramming, or alternatively an unintentional collision.
It is sickening how mainstream
media’s inaccuracies, their bias, could persist, as many in the press now —
even a colleague with academic background — refer to the incident as “the
ramming and sinking of a Filipino fishing vessel.” (How inflammatory can one
get?) The dictionary defines “to ram” as to drive into (another vehicle or
vessel) “in an attempt to stop or damage it.” Is there information that
established this?
That description of the incident is
totally false, at least going by the facts and testimonies so far made
available to the public. How can the fishermen call it a ramming, when by their
account they were awakened in the night by the collision? How can it be a
sinking, when, as is very clear in the photos of the vessel, it hasn’t sunk,
has arrived at its destination, and unloaded its cargo of fish?
Duterte certainly isn’t taking the
easy road in this issue.Brainwashed by the Americans, Filipinos really have always
had an anti-Chinese bias, mitigated only in the past few decades as they were
awed — as we always are by power and wealth — by the Chinese-Filipino taipans.
Del Rosario will use to the hilt the
Salim media empire, which includes not only the Philippine Star, but BusinessWorld, Philstar, TV5 and even the
anti-Duterte Philippine Daily
Inquirer, in which Manuel V. Pangilinan still has a 20-percent stake in.
Intent on avenging his humiliation, del Rosario now has his ADR Stratbase
Institute and got nearly all of the Filipino China-experts from the academe
(most probably paying them way above university rates) to churn out propaganda
against China, disguised as academic research papers.
Biding its time
After all, the owners of PDI have been merely biding their time to help Duterte’s opponents in a crisis the paper has been praying would break out. ABS-CBN of course is now frothing at the mouth in its anger at Duterte, with the renewal of its franchise fading every year under this president. The US-funded Rappler is ecstatic over the issue that it thinks has put Duterte in a bind.
Indeed, the observations of a 2012
research study on press coverage of the Scarborough Shoal stand-off that year
still describes the media coverage on the recent Reed Bank incident: “Almost
all of the articles spoke negatively of China, with very few exceptions. The
adjectives used to describe China include “arrogant,” “aggressive,” and with
the word “bully” appearing most frequently. Others said that China is
“overwhelming” or “intimidating” the Philippines, while yet another simply said
he was “upset by the action of the Chinese government.” Most of the articles
also show lack of trust in China in different aspects. In relation to the
Scarborough Shoal stand-off, one columnist suggested that “…there is every
indication that the Chinese provocation has been orchestrated…”
People get their views mostly from
media, and less and less from the schools and churches. With that kind of
coverage it certainly isn’t surprising that most Filipinos mistrust China.
The huge problem in our relationship
— or tiffs — with China, which isn’t a factor in our relationships with other
countries and which we should be well aware of, is this: The US, especially
since its “Pivot to Asia” policy started by President Obama in 2011, is a
diabolical participant. The Filipino term for it is “nangsusul-sol.”
High in the US foreign-policy agenda
— even explicitly discussed in Washington circles — is to stop China’s rise as
a superpower in Asia, where it is logically the hegemon. The US is actually
handicapped here as it has no business at all in the South China Sea, since it
has absolutely no territorial claims in the area. The only excuse it can give
for its fleet of warships patrolling it as if it were an American lake, is to
ensure all countries’ “freedom of navigation” there. Well, China is quickly
building its blue-water fleet, will the US allow it to undertake its own
freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea?
In contrast to the US, China has
sovereignty claims against littoral states in the South China Sea, flashpoints
the Americans want to ignite into a conflagration against the superpower.
Pivot to Asia
A big part of the US “pivot to Asia” involves the molding of public opinion, especially in Southeast Asia, for the nations there to view China as an expansionist power. It would throw all its media and political resources to exploit any incident involving China and other Southeast Asian countries to portray the superpower as the Asian Evil Empire.
A prime example of this is the
innocuously named Asia Maritime Transparency Institute (AMTI), run totally by
Americans. It was set up to follow through the US success in demonizing China
in the Scarborough Shoal stand-off, by the Washington-based Center for Strategic
and International Studies, one of the most powerful and influential American
think-tanks.
AMTI has been the conduit of the US
in releasing to the public satellite photos of the contested areas in the South
China Sea, which the local press has been relying on. Like del Rosario’s ADRI,
it regularly churns out articles against China disguised as academic works.
One columnist the other day wrote:
“The President must realize that there is now a growing sentiment even among
his supporters that he has been too soft on and cautious with China.”
While that certainly sounds like
another case of writers claiming to have a privileged insight into the minds of
Filipinos, Duterte would likely reply to that kind of argument: “E, ano?”
Now that is leadership. A leader
doesn’t simply obey the mob or bow to surveys. He does what the cold facts, and
his experience, tell him to do.
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Report from Manila Times
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