Missing the vital concern

“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.” It’s a quote from the movie Cool Hand Luke that I cannot forget. The captain who was pursuing Luke (played by Paul Newman) said it, repeating it shortly before he was shot, and the movie abruptly ended.

The failure to communicate finds relevance in the present discourse on the Philippines and China conflict over the Ayungin Shoal and the West Philippine Sea.  Only this time, we talk of the failure to listen to the people’s plight and the impending disastrous severance of our vital economic lifeline.

There are various sides involved in the debate, which, in the course of the clash of opinions, suddenly gave rise to a crop of “analysts” and “experts” as what ABS-CBN TV Patrol anchors present to buttress their “news.”

On one side is President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who, at the start of his term, flew to America and, on his return, proclaimed that he would defend every inch of Philippine territory — obviously referring to the contested Ayungin Shoal. 

Yes, Marcos Jr. had his own agreement with President Joe Biden, and part of this was to part with not an inch, but to expand the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) to include four new sites: Naval Base Camilo Osias in Santa Ana, Cagayan; Camp Melchor de la Cruz in Gamu, Isabela; Balabac Island in Palawan; and Lal-lo Airport in Cagayan, in addition to the original five which was agreed on by the late President Benigno Aquino III and US President Barack Obama.

On the other side, of course, are the pro-China who assert China’s sovereignty, maritime rights, and interests in the South China Sea, a part of which is known to us as the West Philippine Sea. But you need to study China’s ancient history. I doubt whether Google and ChatGPT will be sufficient tools to obtain quick and easily comprehensible answers. 

Then there are the bystanders, like one who looks like Ka Tonying Carpio. He hates past president Rodrigo Duterte, whom he recently faulted for losing Ayungin Shoal. He advanced an absurd opinion that FPRRD wanted to sink the rickety Philippine battleship grounded on Ayungin—preposterous postulates from a former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. 

The failed convenor of the 1Sambayan coalition cannot free himself from the man from the boondocks who became president, who was accorded red carpet receptions in Russia and China, and shocked a US president with a flurry of expletives. Ka Tonying’s prejudice against Digong went overboard when he had the gall to say that then-Mayor Inday Sara Z. Duterte-Carpio had no place in his 1Sambayan cabal. Inday, of course, went on to be Vice President.

As I write this piece, Bongbong is back from America, where he played second fiddle to Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. With nothing new to report, he refreshed his tirade against Duterte over what he insists is “a secret agreement’’ between his predecessor and China’s President Xi Jinping.

However, realizing that the refrain no longer entertains, he tried another absurd story of a van loaded with 1.8 tons of smuggled shabu, which was apprehended at a checkpoint. No one was shot or killed in the process, he said, an apparent slur at Duterte’s bloody drug war. But the story became ridiculous as some observant quarters started to ask how the volume of 1.8 tons of methamphetamine could be contained in a van. There is more to this than meets the eye.

We all have heard these potpourris of discourses ranging from the cerebral to the absurd.  They’re all missing the big issue. Like it is with this government, nobody listens to the rumblings on the ground, of the voices of discontent arising from unfulfilled promises from political leaders and warmongers who are so focused on the evil scheme of extending their terms and their insatiable greed for power and wealth.

This government has succeeded in steering a virtual tsunami toward the West Philippine Sea.  We have to brace ourselves for the stoppage of trade and investments from China. The storm surge will wipe out the gains and calm that the Duterte administration achieved in its bilateral talks with China.

Already, the peso has lost steam, and the stock market is chipping off some vital gains. The Marcos-sponsored maritime games and military exercises have threatened to cut whatever is left of the communication link with China.

When it snaps, the Philippines will lose its economic lifeline.