Soon, China won’t insult us anymore

Jing Quan came to the Philippines. Beautiful country. Amazing potential, everybody says. They’ve been saying potential for 50 years.

He spoke about how easily China could beat the Philippines.

What a terrible thing to say! But look at China’s military. Huge! Ships everywhere. Ships behind ships. We don’t need a Chinese ambassador to tell us about the difference.

Now Filipinos are furious. What did they expect Jing to say? He represents China! Supposed to look after Chinese interests. Or have we changed the rules? Make up your minds! Does he represent the Philippines too? Because that would be an amazing deal!

The politicians are angry. And, I’m thinking, this is fantastic! Jing is lucky. When he complains about the Philippines, the entire government listens. Filipinos have been trying for years.

Maybe we’re using Jing Quan all wrong. Maybe Jing should insult our roads. “The potholes are bigger than the cars!” The potholes will remain, but they’ll be patriotic potholes.

“Your flood control is a disaster!” Suddenly, everybody is defending the flood control. Not fixing it. Defending it. Very different thing.

And don’t insult our corruption. That’s a national institution! We can say our country is a mess. Jing says it, suddenly we’re Switzerland.

Now, even people who hated one another are furious about the same thing. Jing Quan has united the Filipinos. And China is paying his salary! What a bargain.

Perhaps we should keep Jing Quan. Every Monday, he could insult us. Tuesday, we could all be patriots. On Wednesday, we could remember that we have a country to protect. Thursday, of course, we’d be fighting about Bongbong and Sara again. So Jing would have to insult us on Friday too.

And now we want to send the ambassador home? When someone finally delivers results, we want him fired! Home! Off you go! To China! That’s where he came from! What a punishment. Like scaring a fish by telling it you’re going to throw it into the ocean.

Why should Jing Quan be scared? Seriously. He’s watching us. Certainly heard about the balde. And what must he be thinking? That we’re demanding respect from a superpower while demanding water from the sky.

And Jing Quan is the one who’s impossible?

Who can turn a balde into a national scandal and a national scandal into absolutely nothing? Who’s fighting harder for politicians than politicians are fighting for them?

So the politician gets defended, the voter gets flooded; what’s strange is the voters are furious, not about the flood, but about what somebody said about the politician.

So please stay, Mr. Jing. Keep reminding us.

Sometimes it takes an unpleasant guest to make a family notice the holes in the roof. Of course, there is another way to fix a leaking roof. One may simply give the house to the neighbor.

And when that day comes, Mr. Jing, we will invite you to visit again. You’ll love it. We’ll welcome you with a song. We trust you will excuse our dialect. The children are still learning Mandarin. Very bright children. They will know every word. They have to.

We will show you our schools. Every classroom will have a portrait of the chairman.

We’ll take you to the shore. The children will ask why there are so many Chinese ships. We’ll tell them China is ours now.

They’ll clap, Mr. Jing! Everybody clapping! Everybody crying! Even the people crying are clapping. Especially the people crying. Nobody knows if it’s tears of joy; nobody will have to tell them when to start. Only when to stop.

And, for the first time, there will be absolutely nothing insulting left for you to say, and nobody left who would dare disagree.