A friend of mine shared the following graphic apparently making the rounds on Facebook. It was posted on the Carlos Celdran page along with the caption “Love this map. Northwest Philippines. Haha. Kiss our 98 million asses, China. #China — with John Joey Ramos, Jason Alinsunurin, Jojo Garcia Dula, Michael Judd Rico and Emil Yap.”
Text embedded within the image reads at its upper left corner reads [NB: Grammar, spelling, and capitalisation all verbatim]:
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Concept by Nadz Balingasa, an artist’s expression and insight on current events involving the bullying of China to territories they don’t own. An open protest against occupying islands without formal permission or ground and a call to ponder for fellow filipinos. This may be a fictional illustration but remember… “No empire lasts forever.”
Charles P. “Carlos” Celdran (born November 10, 1972) is a Manila tour guide, cultural activist, and performing artist. He is an activist for HIV/AIDS awareness and reproductive health, organizing and appearing at events to promote HIV/AIDS awareness and reproductive health in the Philippines. On September 30, 2010, Carlos Celdran staged a protest action against Church opposition to the reproductive health bill. Dressed as José Rizal, Celdran entered Manila Cathedral during a mass, carrying a sign and shouting “Stop getting involved in politics!” before he was taken away by the police.
As a result of that stunt, Celdran has gained a large following and, as such, has become quite influential — which makes his endorsement of such thinking and imagery quite notable.
China and the Philippines are currently locked in a territorial dispute over the Spratly Islands and the Scarborough Shoal; small island groups in the middle of the West Philippine Sea off the coast of Palawan. The situation, suffice to say, is not exactly one that offers bright prospects for the Philippines on account of its economic dependence on China and its weak military capability to defend its territory…
Let’s face it, when it comes to protecting our sovereignty, our chances of succeeding using our existing military forces is slim. But mind you, this hasn’t stopped some overzealous Filipinos from holding protest rallies against China due to the ongoing Scarborough Shoal standoff. These Filipinos might consider what they are doing a show of Filipino patriotism but they are also risking angering China and giving them a reason to retaliate by withdrawing trade deals. That would be bad for the Philippine economy because China is now the Philippines’ number one trading partner in imports and exports according to Trade Undersecretary Cristino Panlilio. In fact, in response to the indignation rallies, major Chinese travel agencies have already suspended travel tours to the Philippines and they have warned their citizens already in the country to keep a low profile. Let’s just hope that Beijing will not send us a stronger message using their military.
The government of Philippine President Benigno Simeon “BS” Aquino has, for its part, not demonstrated any consistent approach to managing the crisis, often issuing statements that inflamed rather than contained fallout as it stumbled from one development in this affair to another…
Unfortunately, reports say that President Noynoy Aquino is actually supporting the rallies because he wants international attention to the ongoing dispute. According to PNoy, “it is the Philippines’ best ‘weapon’ against Chinaâ€. Here’s part of what he said:
“They have relations with other nations around the world which would make other nations think, if we are being treated this way… there might come a time when they would also be treated the same way.â€
PNoy’s decision has unsurprisingly divided the sentiments of Filipinos again. Most rational thinking Filipinos know that antagonizing China is not a wise move. Senators like Antonio Trillanes, Loren Legarda, and Manny Villar also think that the standoff should be resolved through diplomatic means.
We cannot make our problem everyone’s problem. We cannot start something that we cannot finish on our own. PNoy may not be thinking straight. He obviously lacks the diplomatic skill to handle such a crisis. Senator Sergio Osmenia even said that the Ambassador to Beijing, Domingo Lee, President Aquino’s family friend is “absolutely not qualified†for the position.
Indeed, the Philippines increasingly finds itself in situations that require military responses rather than the half-witted social media campaigns its “patriotic” citizens have instigated from the country’s teeming cyber cafes. Yet, in the last several decades, the Philippines has all but failed to build fighting capability commensurate to the length of its coastline, the size of its population, and the hubris of its offshore claims. When one considers the pompous and cocky persona it exhibited back in the early 1990’s when twelve senators duly elected by the popular vote (and as such presumably representing the Filipino people’s “willâ€) voted to boot the American Military out of Philippine shores, the situation would have been laughable if it weren’t for the direness of the situation today…
Thanks to the 12 bozos who voted against US military bases in the Philippines in 1991 — Senate President Jovito Salonga, Sens. Wigberto Tanada, Teofisto Guingona, Rene Saguisag, Victor Ziga, Sotero Laurel, Ernesto Maceda, Agapito Aquino, Juan Ponce Enrile, Joseph Estrada, Orlando Mercado, and Aquilino Pimentel — Filipinos have, right in their faces today, a sad lesson twenty years in the making in what it is like to languish outside the American sphere of what is globally relevant.
Like people like government. The trouble with an inept government is that its constituents tend to take matters into their own hands. But in an intellectually-bankrupt society such as the Philippines, that’s never been a good thing. Look back to Philippine history over the last quarter century and try to take stock of any results that match the loud bravado. One is likely to be left scratching his head.
[NB: Parts of this article were lifted from the Wikipedia.org article “Carlos Celdran†in a manner compliant to the terms stipulated in the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License that governs usage of content made available in this site.]
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
Tsk, tsk, tsk. Bad move, Celdran. Bad move… (although I did applaud you for having the guts to do that thing you did in Manila Cathedral a year ago.)
As for you, Noynoy, stop counting on other countries, especially the US, for help and resolve it on your own. They have other problems as well.
China and the rest of our neighbors are laughing at us. Why? We cannot even show a decent, organized, competitive and the will to win in the region’s sports event. If it becomes a shooting match, the most disciplined, well equipt and organized of course wins. Sadly, we can’t say the same of our armed forces and the whole government bureaucracy.
Bad move? As if I have any diplomatic weight. Don’t gimme too much credit dude. It was a joke meme. Trust me. China doesnt give a shit about this cartoon. Much less the bozo like me who posted it. This meme will fade in around fifteen minutes. :o)
How classless.
Regardless of whether you have any diplomatic weight or not, you are an ordinary citizen or not, your act is what it is…and essentially this one is classless.
@Carlos
If you use that excuse everytime someone calls your attention over something you did or say, no one will take you seriously anymore.
I think that since you have a lot of followers, you should be more careful and responsible with your posts. Most Pinoys cannot tell the difference between a joke and a serious post.
Maybe you ought to give yourself a little more credit, because apparently other people do, and stay away from pointlessly childish stuff like this. Things like this just make the country look pathetic.
The kabobohan available on this blog is absolutely enthralling. :o) Hee hee.
As a fellow troll like you, if you ever consider yourself to be one, please read this infographic. You might learn a thing or two.
http://cdn.overclock.net/8/83/83d840f6_Argument-pyramid.jpeg
dont worry, this blog isnt powerful enough to influence the public because it has the same charm as their goddess Gloria which is double negative!
@Fishball
If you really believed in what you are saying, you wouldn’t even be here. Your boss in Malacanang actually considers GRP a threat to his dictatorship.
@fishball
Your puny little brain is failing you if you think this blog isn’t a threat to your pathetically incompetent president.
Think again fool, more and more people are starting to see the truth about this sham of a government. Your president will not be able to finish his term if his incompetence continues.
I echo dude and anonymous below me except for one difference. You are here not because you are paid but out of your duty to your Kuya. Why not find him another decoy… I mean date. BTW Kris Google “Noynoy” + plus a certain 3 letter word that is a synonym for happy or merry but in today’s times means something else to do with orientation. The first blog that shows up shows you the power of GRP writers to all the illusion and spin your family and the palace try to put on us Filipinos. Idiots believe you but not all of us are that idiotical. Go play dress up with your kuya.
No wonder why most Filipinos are gullible because of the likes you. Intellectually bankrupt to be exact.
Don’t worry, this blog is only for intelligent people, not DUMB people. At least we care for our nation is a more sensible way than your illusions and lies. But that’s expected from a Yellow Zombie so you won’t get everything what we say since you prefer a chaotic Philippines due to most people have an angry mob mindset.
Have fun. 😛
But… “double negative” is a positive. 😛
yup, even fishball fails at simple logic like his precious pweh-sident.
Arche,
You’re forgetting that Fishball and his/her ilk are the types who will believe that “1+1=5” just because BS Aquino says so.
Think about it. What you’re doing is not really helping our country at all. It might just aggravate it (I guess more so if we assume that Chinese have the same butthurt attitude that Filipinos get when they are insulted).
No one cries crocodile tears like the pinoy. No one.
sir…..hmmm i think PHL only claims the sabah the northern part of borneo not the whole eastern malaysian territory….correct me if im wrong…
Pnoy’s dangerous move to provoke china might come back to bite him hard in his hairy ass. By provoking the chinese, he has made it easier for his critics to point out his obvious screw up in dealing with the territorial dispute. Unless he does something to solve this problem , he might find himself out of malacanang before his term ends in 2016.
At least through your reply we found the one place on Noynoy’s body with hair .
Lol, ironically it is the only part of his body that has more hair than the hair on his head.
Not that there is much competition.
What specifically would that “dangerous move” would be? I have to ask that to have a clear idea of what was being inferred about.
Some dude on facebook posted “The best solution to this problem, is, that the Philippines must break diplomatic and trade relations with China, immediately!!!”
Funniest thing I heard this morning. Considering we have more to lose by cutting diplomatic ties and trade relations with China.
Face palm.
The day Pinoys stop posting dumb things on Facebook might be the day I will call it quits as a blogger. Check out my posts here in GRP. Many of them based on false proclamations by Pinoys that I sometimes provide caps for.
That dude might have been watching too much yellow propaganda from that infernal yellow network. Their shows have that effect of dumbing down people’s intelligence level to that of a retard.
To be fair those guys were not smart to begin with. Abs Cbn caters to those guys and keeps them dumb
Guys like fishball and those other yellow retards that keep popping up here are basically ones that abs cbn caters to.
DUMB people.
Im actually curious to what would happen if by chance Pnoy is proven a bigger crook than GMA and is ousted. Will that station(channel 2) still keep defending him? Or will they abandon him the moment that he is no longer useful to them?
it’s the abs cbn voice-over announcer’s voice. most annoying in the history of local tv
Cut ties with China, wow. That will set them back a couple hours.
Yeah, let’s do that. And while we’re at it, let’s cut ourselves off from the rest of the world. Then maybe after a hundred years, our people will have ostrich feet or, hopefully, working wings.
The Chinese were sailing the oceans while our forefathers are busy with their petty tribal/barangay/clan wars.
FYI, “balangay” or balanghai is the first wooden watercraft ever excavated in Southeast Asia. And the oldest was found in Mindanao probably built in 320 A.D. So along with the discovery of “Laguna Copperplate Inscription” (the oldest known legal document from the Dynasty of Tondo dated 900 A.D.), it only means that during the early centuries of the first millennium (that’s contemporary of early imperial era of China, and centuries before the colonial westerners had ever set foot in the archipelago), the ancient Filipinos were already LITERATE and certainly MARITIME-ORIENTED.
By the way, I kinda love that map, too. May name was on it. 🙂
Wow. History education fails as hard here in this country as it does in mine.
While your ancestors were still about 14 centuries from even thinking about building a wooden boat, the Zhou Dynasty had already established trade and diplomacy in large parts of East and Southeast Asia.
If your computer-thingie has one of them Googles in it, you might try that.
BenK, are you sure about all of that? There is ample reason to believe that Austronesians traversed the Pacific long before the Zhou Dynasty Chinese did.
That’s a problem with historical claims of ownership — just what is the cut-off date? What date is the magical date that determines that everything before was meaningless and everything afterwards is “reality”?
There’s reason to believe, and then there’s historical records that actually exist.
The historical records are there regarding our maritime, pre-hispanic history and are known amongst historians in places like India, Indonesia, and China…. You could go through Wikipedia and check out the bibliographic source materials cited in it when discussing Ancient Philippines or Pre-Hispanic Philippines.
The notion that our history began in 1521 is the BIGGEST LIE foisted on the nation ever and should be BANISHED from our collective historical understanding forever! I never believed it even as a kid!
Ben K – historical records have gotten destroyed to varying degrees everywhere due to various reasons over the centuries so even in the globally acknowledged civilized empires of ancient times, you can never get the fullest picture! And us being a natural disaster prone nation surely lost plenty of records that way. Don’t tell me you believe the 1521 lie! If you do please go to Wiki and look at stuff on pre-Hispanic Philippines, THEN go look up the scholarly source materials cited. You can learn alot that way regarding the real Philippine historical experience.
PS: Ben K – fair point though regarding records that exist concerning the Maritime SE Asians reaching what’s Latin America today before the Chinese. However, archaeologists are continuously digging and eventually more things will be uncovered regarding our ancient past whether or not the Latin America theory is true.
PS: PS: And regarding records being destroyed by natural disasters in the country, don’t forget the Spanish have been sifting through those records during those 300 years and either burning/destroying the evidence, or burying them. Don’t think the conquistadores are above that behavior! Thanks…
@ BenK
And did your “history education” inform you that the ancient Chinese became civilized much much earlier than our Filipino ancestors simply because China was populated first? According to archaeological evidences, China was inhabited by homonids between 250,000 and 2.24 million years ago; while the Philippines was much later inhabited by Callao Man just 67,000 years ago. No wonder Chinese had already achieved high level of cultural, technological and political development hundreds of thousands of years ahead than Filipinos and even Americans. It’s really nice to LEARN REAL HISTORY, right? 🙂
@PrincesaUrduja
Your claim that Filipinos were already literate even before they were colonised doesn’t mean anything considering the society has exhibited moronic behaviour since gaining independence.
Even countries where they have had great histories have had times where they devolved into morons. Look at Middle Ages Europe after the Greek and Roman eras! But after a few centuries at least they somehow snapped out of it…
@ dude
It was NOT a “claim” since there was concrete proof as “Laguna Copperplate Inscription†that proved pre-colonial Filipinos were already LITERATE. And since the Spaniards burned and/or destroyed all or most of our artifacts, ancient Filipinos forgot their Malayo-Polynesian culture; were forced to accept European ideas & religion; and thus, been turned into “moronic” slaves. It’s a good thing that Ilustrados like Graciano López Jaena, Marcelo H. del Pilar, Mariano Ponce, Antonio Luna and José Rizal became erudite and soon bolstered Filipino nationalism that sparked the revolution and signaled the end of Spanish tyranny in the country. And rest is history. As what they’d achieved, they showed us that INDEPENDENCE FROM IGNORANCE was truly an exhilarating experience. So why not TRY IT some time? 🙂
If you do get your own region in the new country PrincesaUrduja would I be a choice as a eunuch? I am trying to think where I fit in.
I really have no problem with the map on its own. Just when some pinoys misconstrue it as manifest destiny which pinoys will never have.
@ Gogs
And I have no problem if you decide to be castrated, become impotent, or be a celibate as a “eunuch” anywhere in the Philippines or China. By the way, don’t take that map TOO SERIOUSLY since it was just a “fictional illustration”. 🙂
By cracking that joke, it is proof I am taking it in the same spirit I perceive that you are taking it.
What an inherently stupid map. It only reinforces the Pinoy delusion of grandeur.
I also wonder how Tibetans would react to Filipinos declaring their home a “sultanate.”
The last sentence declares that “No Empire Lasts Forever.” Isn’t this map just a reflection of what could be construed as Filipino Imperialism?
And how exactly does “the bullying of China” fit in with that map’s claim to Sabah?
Clearly whoever made this map needs a VERY basic lesson in geopolitics.
The China -Philippines standoff, will never be resolved by “Hakot” Demonstrators; internet mocking by both countries. I don’t believe that Diplomacy will solve it. We are the weaker nation. A stronger nation will always get what it wants in any diplomatic resolution. The U.S. will not sacrifice its good relation and influence on China. Because of an uninhabited island, in the Philippines…So, Noynoy Aquino, must use his brain (if he has any); to resove this issue. If he will sell us, and be defeated. He deserves a kick on his rear end by the Filipino people. We are watching…
So, no to Hakot, no to Diplomacy, insult our President. You have offered no alternative solutions. Good thing we know better than to listen to you.
If they can’t even annex Sabah, what makes them think they have the resources, manpower and leadership to take China?
I don’t see anything wrong on people conducting rallies to air out their sentiments with regard to territorial dispute with China. And I don’t think China will mind it.
“Hakot Demonstrators” that was YellowTard and the Aquino’s tactics will never work on China. So are, the EDSA posturing tactics of Enrile, Ramos, Honasan, etc…you are facing a country with real Armed Forces and real War capability…hindi o-obra ang sindakan dito…
Demonstrations will hurt China because they are not used to stuff they cannot control. All we need to do is get them to fire on bullet ..the world is watching them..and so is the US 7th fleet
Read any Noynoy post I have ever written. I am very consistent. He spent the first fifty years of his life avoiding work and responsibility. 2009 comes along and his mom dies and some people thought it was in their (not the country’s) best interest to run for president and he does. His own campaign never talked about any accomplishment or deeds because there were none to discuss. Nobody ever cared he lacked guts, brains, experience, leadership or decision making . Now we are reaping what we sow. Nothing you palace trolls can do to change that. You don’t put a simpleton like Noynoy in the position of leadership and expect him to morph into a leader with convinction and integrity. He never had it before what makes you think he will magically acquired it now? What does the idiocy of Noynoy have to do with GMA or China? I will give you some advice. Stop backing a moron. It makes you worse than he is.
“Read any Noynoy post I have ever written. I am very consistent.”
I agree. The consistency in hatred and repulsion against Noynoy is very evident in your posts. But that doesn’t give you the right to label people who disagrees with as pro-Noynoy. Unlike the wanton feelings of hatred, dislike and hostility you have for him, you have to show proof, though, of your allegation against other people.
I did not vote for Noynoy in the first place so your allegation is not only way, way off but also blatantly baseless. I do not expect anything from his leadership. His people may be praying for his health and fate. I don’t care. All I care is share my ideas and move on to the next topic.
I agree this map doesn’t have the right approach. We can rage against China all night, but it will never bring food to the table of the poor. And the map seems quite hypocritical… we blame the other countries for “imperialism,” but here we are wanting to do it ourselves. Not a good example.
I still can’t get over how Gogs said it… KSP is the root of all evil. Obviously, that’s how the map is. Stupid KSP.