Jun Ledesma
The fools in and out of the government bureaucracy have been gearing out for war. The tenant in Malacanang had made the rounds around the globe with two agenda. The first was to woo investors the next to seek support in case of an armed conflict with China over Ayungin shoal and if Taiwan is attacked. Accompanying him is an entourage who luxuriates from the junkets at the expense of Juan dela Cruz who has to cough out his dwindling funds.
As a trade-off Pres. Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. opened limitless territories for additional military bases. He started with this expedition from day 1 of his presidency. Amphibious military hardwares, troopers and choppers have arrived. Thinking he and his defense advisers have enough weapons in the arsenals they drumbeat their chests like KingKong ready to crush the enemy.
Their propagandists did not spare Vice President and DepEd Secretary for her silence over the conflict between the Philippines and China over the West Philippine Sea. Marcos Jr. made a 180 degree-turn from the bilateral talks that then Pres. Rodrigo Duterte and China’s leader Xi Jinping had opted which defused the tension that had heightened during the late Pres. Noynoy Aquino’s regime. The attempt to drag VP Sara into the issue is actually another ploy to character assassinate her if she meddle in an affair which is solely the exclusive domain of PBBM.
Anyway the recent developments that unfold before us make veritable fools of our leaders. As I write this item a big delegation of American businessmen arrived in Beijing and was accorded a red carpet reception by no other than President Xi Jinping himself. That’s realpolitik anywhich way you look at it.
In a separate development, while foreign troops and war machines are landed in EDCA bases in preparation for armed confrontation in Taipei, its former President Ma Ying-jeou with a group of young Taiwanese visited mainland China for cultural exchange and expectedly to warm up their bond of kinship.
These twin developments militate against the belligerent stance of our incumbent leadership to include the nebulous ex-senator Antonio Trillanes, the secret “negotiator” with the Beijing leaders of President Aquino. How can we ever forget what then Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile described him: “This guy is a fraud, a phantom of the opera in Philippine politics.”
But the most searing commentary which should hit our leaders in the solar plexus came from Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong: “Are you sure you (Filipinos) want to get into a fight where you will be the battleground?”. He aired the caution in a forum in Singapore on the heels of the simmering tensions in the South China Sea.
Despite the warming up of the business climate between American business and China, the bonds of kinship among the Chinese people and the wise counsel from Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is the stark contrast of what President Marcos Jr. and Defense Sec. Gilbert Teodoro and their subalterns are gearing for.
I wonder whether our foreign policy is affected by the scorching weather that our country is enduring these days. (Jun Ledesma)