Anyone but Bongbong

Let’s be fair to you, Sen. Robin Padilla. You’re loyal. Incredibly loyal. Loyalty pouring out of your ears. No doubt. No thinking required.

The problem: the loyalty ate the brain. Clearly your recent remarks about China are someone else’s voice using your mouth.

Every time you take a stand, you don’t ask “Is this smart?” You ask: “Is this loyal enough?” “Does it sound like I belong?” like a grown man holding up a drawing to Tatay Digong, waiting for a star.

And now you’re pretending China is one polite Jay Tarriela away from launching World War 3.

You’re terrified that, if we speak up, just one straight-backed sentence, the tanks will be next. So it’s yes sir, sorry sir, eyes down, voice low, please forgive us for hurting the embassy’s feelings, sir.

You’re truly adorable. It’s basic. “Let’s be careful” like bullies don’t love careful. Careful is their favorite type. A country that keeps asking if it’s OK to sound like a country eventually forgets how.

China starting an actual war over the West Philippine Sea would be spectacularly stupid. Ridiculously expensive — markets collapse, the allies, the treaties — and for what? Water. Rocks. Rocks they already sit on.

You’re defending China so hard you’re basically calling them idiots for not knowing this already. You’re underestimating a super power thinking they can’t handle a statement.

Right now, China has the perfect setup. War--no need. Just have to shove ships. Spray water. Exhaust everyone. “Wait. Why shoot when intimidation already works, especially when sovereign governments helpfully say, ‘Maybe we shouldn’t upset them?’”

War would destroy that advantage, Robin. Think of it slowly. Take your time. You’re flattering the new ambassador. They yell because they don’t want to shoot. You whisper because you don’t understand the game.

And your Duterte bloc in the Senate? They don’t care what you think. Your value is automatic obedience. You sign. That’s it.

Nine senators. Always saving their seats. Never taking a stand. One of them proudly contributing nothing but loyalty. Nine who wouldn’t even back a mild Senate statement telling a foreign embassy to stop lecturing Filipino officials.

We used to worry about doing the wrong thing. Now we worry about doing anything. Stand up straight or stay seated? You chose seated, and now you’re shocked everyone’s looking down at you?

That resolution was never a war vote. Nary a sanction. There were no slurs. Only one line any serious country should be able to muster: “Don’t bully our officials.”

You knew 15 senators across parties had already signed. Knew the Defense Department condemned the behavior. Aware that the Armed Forces said they would not be silenced.

You were not preventing war because there was no war to prevent. Or protecting diplomacy because diplomacy has already been stepped on so what are you protecting?

China didn’t even win an argument. It only had to watch one. Incredible efficiency. Barely lifted a finger and the government divided itself. And Robin here is afraid of invasion?

This is not about China as an inside-the-building issue that happened to blame Beijing. The real calculation was simpler: “If I sign this, Bongbong looks right.”

And some senators decided they’d rather hate the President than love the country.