Fear doesn’t travel well

Losing the dead weight of fear was the striking theme of several events last week.

At the start of the week, Philippine officials refused to back down in the aftermath of last Monday’s intentional ramming of two Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) vessels off Sabina Shoal by China Coast Guard (CCG) ships.

Despite sustaining damage, the PCG’s 44-meter BRP Bagacay and BRP Cape Engaño succeeded in delivering supplies to the Philippines’ military outposts on Patag and Lawak islands, two of the nine Filipino-occupied outposts in the Spratly chain of islands.

While it was the first violent confrontation between China and the Philippines in the vicinity of the usually sanguine Escoda Shoal, security officials reacted quickly, routinely condemning the Chinese aggression and then calmly seeing what China’s strategic intentions were in her latest provocative act.

Intentions which retired Navy Rear Adm. Rommel Jude Ong, whose listening post is the backroom chatter of active security officials, revealed before a security forum. He said the Escoda incident was the same “mission kill” tactic China used in similar incidents at Ayungin Shoal.

“China doesn’t aim to sink our ships, just destroy them. Those two (Philippine) coast guard vessels will eventually return to harbor and undergo repairs. It will take maybe six months of repairs and they will be out of commission. We have only 10 of these ships and we could run out of [vessels], the way we ran out of Unaizah May (resupply) boats in Ayungin,” Ong said.

China resorting to physically disabling PCG vessels sounds ominous, as it may well mean that it might employ even more violent tactics in making us kowtow to her.

But, at the same time, severe aggressive tactics indicate that China has realized, to her immense frustration, that the Philippines hasn’t lost its nerve nor its resolve to stand up to her bullying.

What we have then is the Filipinos’ indomitable courage blunting the potency of China’s power to instill worry and fear.

Meanwhile, other notable variations of losing the dead weight of fear came courtesy of Vice President Sara Duterte and the Lower House defending its ongoing probe into the previous regime’s brutal war on illegal drugs.

In Ms. Duterte’s case, she tumbled down from her lofty perch as a result, of all things, of her out-of-bounds request for public funding of a mediocre children’s book she authored.

She is now the subject of hilarious social media memes, sarcastic jokes and book critics panning her book. All of which effectively means the political fear she inspired as the country’s next paramount leader is now a thing of the past.

Her dreadful Senate appearance too was a precursor of what she’s expected to face when she puts herself before her forever bête noir, the Lower House.

Speaking of the increasingly anti-Duterte lower chamber, the House, particularly its newest members, vowed last week they’ll probe deeper into the rights violations committed during the Duterte regime’s drug war.

As an unresolved political issue, first-term congresspersons admitted their intensive drug war probe came late because of overwhelming fear.

A fear which one freshman lawmaker said paralyzed many previous House members who were afraid that if they had spoken out then they’d have been branded as drug lords or protectors, or worse, jailed or killed for their efforts.

“How can you oppose a policy that was repeatedly imposed by the highest leader of the land during the last administration? How do you go against a stated policy? Maybe this was the fear that prevented past Congresses from doing a review, checking on alleged extrajudicial killings,” said one congressperson.

Of course, we haven’t forgotten the awesome fear the truculent brawler from Davao, brash and ill-mannered but allegedly authentic and true to many, once spread.

But Duterte is now nervously awaiting his date with the ICC, proving the adage that fear and the warped judgments it inspired don’t travel well.