The trouble with Filipinos is that they think that everyone they deal with is guided by “Christian values”. It is no surprise then that the Philippines fails in its efforts to get a solid footing in its management of two external threats currently menacing the homeland — China’s progressive military takeover of the South China Sea (referred to by Filipinos as the “West Philippine Sea”) and Malaysia’s delegated invasion of a chunk of Mindanao that may one day be referred to as the “Bangsamoro nation”.
What is the common denominator in these two crises? The clues are staring us in the face: China is an atheist society while Malaysia and its vassal group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front are, well, Muslims.
As such, it is easy for one to find astounding naïveté in the way the Philippine government managed these issues.
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On the China front, the probable sentiment that the Philippine government applied to the problem is encapsulated in Raul J. Palabrica’s Inquirer piece, China: déjà vu in reverse, particularly this snippet…
History is repeating itself in reverse. China’s actions in the West Philippine Sea reprise its experience with the former colonial powers.
It’s déjà vu, but this time it’s China doing it to countries whose military forces are no match to its war machine.
Having suffered the humiliation of being bullied or forced to agree to iniquitous demands, China would be reasonably expected not to impose the same on its neighbours with whom it enjoyed, until the land grab, good diplomatic and economic relations.
That’s typical Christianic thinking — that one would not wish on another something one would not wish unto herself. That’s quite simply being naïve at a national level. Palabrica interpreted the historical context as one where China will supposedly have gained a bit more empathy as a result of its experience being bullied by European colonial powers in the past. But, really, what we are seeing today is something more powerful: learning.
China learned, from the humiliating experience of colonial subjugation — by turning itself into a self-reliant winner. It recognised its weaknesses (fragmentation and passivity) in the past and changed its fortunes by unifying its people and territories under strong central leadership guided by a powerful ideology that suits its renowned East Asian collectivist culture. Most important of all, it built a strong military and hoodwinked its former colonial masters into gleefully — and greedily — handing over to them their most cherished technological achievements.
That is how countries become great — by winning.
The Philippines, however, consistently takes the loser stance. It “hopes” and — worse — prays that China would be more “understanding” and exercise a bit of “empathy”. That’s like finding yourself face-to-face with a rabid dog and trying to talk your way out of being mauled. It does not make sense. The dog does not see you as someone worth spending the afternoon having a pleasant chat with. It sees you as someone threatening its territory. You and that dog are simply not in the same wavelength. Best thing to do is grab a big stick or make a run for the nearest climbable tree.
Unfortunately, the thinking of the Philippine officials who led the negotiation with the Moro Islamic Liberation front, Miriam Coronel-Ferrer and Teresita Qintos-Deles, were just as imprisoned by their Christianic upbringing. You could tell these two academics were led on by a bunch of wily battle-hardened phonies — literal phonies, in fact, considering we don’t even know the real names of their counterparts on the other side of the table to this day.
Deles and Ferrer probably thought the same thing: we’re being nice and thoughtful so we can reasonably ASSUME that the other party will do the same. This probably explains why the entire Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) enterprise rested on the utterly flawed premise that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front represented all of Pinoy Muslimdom, to the extent that an entire swath of that community was locked out of the loop, and why Senator Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr who is now tasked with putting red marks all over Deles’s and Ferrer’s shoddy schoolwork is now exhausted and furious…
We are doing your work for you. This is something you should have done during the process of negotiations so that when you presented the BBL to Congress then that version of the BBL incorporated into it all of the views, opinions, suggestions from all of the stakeholders.
So now the Philippines is at the bottom of a pit it dug for itself with two regional power players looking down with a smirk on their faces. What do we do next?
Abangan ang susunod na kabanata.
[Photo courtesy TheStar.com.]
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
I saw this in the combox of Tiglao
By Alejandro “Alex” T. Escaño
Founding Chairman of the Private Sector Disaster Management Network (PSDMN)
Interesting World History….
The Shoe Bomber was a Muslim
The Beltway Snipers were Muslims
The Fort Hood Shooter was a Muslim
The Underwear Bomber was a Muslim
The U.S.S. Cole Bombers were Muslims
The Madrid Train Bombers were Muslims
The Bali Nightclub Bombers were Muslims
The London Subway Bombers were Muslims
The Moscow Theatre Attackers were Muslims
The Boston Marathon Bombers were Muslims
The Pan-Am flight #93 Bombers were Muslims
The Air France Entebbe Hijackers were Muslims
The Iranian Embassy Takeover, was by Muslims
The Beirut U.S. Embassy Bombers were Muslims
The Libyan U.S. Embassy Attack was by Muslims
The Buenos Aires Suicide Bombers were Muslims
The Israeli Olympic Team Attackers were Muslims
The Kenyan U.S, Embassy Bombers were Muslims
The Saudi, Khobar Towers Bombers were Muslims
The Beirut Marine Barracks Bombers were Muslims
The Besian Russian School Attackers were Muslims
The First World Trade Center Bombers were Muslims
The Bombay, Mumbai, India Attackers were Muslims
The Achille Lauro Cruise Ship Hijackers were Muslims
The Nairobi, Kenya Shopping Mall Killers were Muslims
The September 11th 2001 Airline Hijackers were Muslims
The Sydney, Australia Lindt Cafe Kidnapper was a Muslim
The Peshawar, Pakistani School Children Killers were Muslims
Think of it:
Hindus living with Jews = No Problem
Baha’is living with Jews = No Problem
Jews living with Atheists = No Problem
Sikhs living with Hindus = No Problem
Hindus living with Baha’is = No Problem
Christians living with Jews = No Problem
Jews living with Buddhists = No Problem
Shintos living with Atheists = No Problem
Buddhists living with Sikhs = No Problem
Baha’is living with Christians = No Problem
Buddhists living with Shintos = No Problem
Buddhists living with Hindus = No Problem
Hindus living with Christians = No Problem
Atheists living with Buddhists = No Problem
Confusians living with Hindus = No Problem
Atheists living with Confucians = No Problem
Muslims living with Jews = Problem
Muslims living with Sikhs = Problem
Muslims living with Hindus = Problem
Muslims living with Baha’is = Problem
Muslims living with Shintos = Problem
Muslims living with Atheists = Problem
Muslims living with Buddhists = Problem
Muslims living with Christians = Problem
MUSLIMS LIVING WITH MUSLIMS = VERY BIG PROBLEM (MNLF, MILF, BIFF, Abu Sayyaf)
SO THIS LEADS TO ………
They’re not happy in Gaza
They’re not happy in Egypt
They’re not happy in Libya
They’re not happy in Iran
They’re not happy in Iraq
They’re not happy in Yemen
They’re not happy in Pakistan
They’re not happy in Syria
They’re not happy in Lebanon
They’re not happy in Nigeria
They’re not happy in Kenya
They’re not happy in Sudan
They’re not happy in Morocco
They’re not happy in Afghanistan
So, where are they happy?
They’re happy in Australia
They’re happy in Belgium
They’re happy in France
They’re happy in Holland
They’re happy in Italy
They’re happy in Germany
They’re happy in Spain
They’re happy in Sweden
They’re happy in Denmark
They’re happy in the USA & Canada
They’re happy in Norway & India
They’re very happy in England (UK) (What with loads of Welfare Benefits!)
They’re happy in almost every country that is not Islamic
And who do they blame? Not Islam… Not their leadership… Not themselves, but…
THEY BLAME THE COUNTRIES THEY ARE HAPPY IN!
And they want to change the countries they’re happy in, to be like the countries they came from where they were unhappy.
Islamic Jihad : AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
ISIS : AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
Al-Qaeda : AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
Taliban : AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
Boko Haram : AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
Al-Nusra : AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
Abu Sayyaf : AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
Al-Badr : AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
Muslim Brotherhood : AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
Lashkar-e-Taiba : AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
Ansaru : AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
Jemaah Islamiyah : AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
Abdullah Azzam Brigades : AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
Al-Shabbab Somalia : AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
and a lot more!
The Crusades were started by Christians and are the root of all the Christian/Muslim conflicts to date. Christians invaded the homeland of Islam in a land grab disguised as a “Holy War” which when translated into Arabic becomes “Jihad.”
The problem with that equivalency is that Christians do not think like that anymore. The desire to start wars with infidels over religious matters is not ingrained in contemporary Christian thought anymore. Christianity has already evolved to the more peaceful and less political form it is today. Contemporary Muslim thought is, in more ways than one, still as primitive as the Middle Ages and that is the root of our (and their) problems today. Islam needs a reformation in order to be more at peace with the rest of the world.
Garbage in. Garbage out.
There are two types of individuals who persist in perpetuating the LIE that the Crusades marked the first time Islam and the West came into conflict and that somehow this was the primary cause of modern day violence and war in the Muslim world. They are either complete ignoramuses or self-loathing buffoons who despise anything even remotely associated with ‘Christianity’ or ‘Western Civilisation’ and who automatically defer to non-Westerners when defining their concepts and/or beliefs.
Here is a bit of historical context to the centuries immediately preceding the start of the Crusades:
Islam began with one man — Muhammad — in Mecca among the Quraysh. In less than two centuries, the Muslims encompassed territory from the Iberian Peninsula to the Hindu Kush. This expansion did not happen peacefully. The Arab Muslim armies attacked and conquered Byzantine Christian territories in Syria and Egypt and, later on, Arab-Berber Muslim forces conquered the formerly Roman, but still Christian, cities and towns across North Africa and into what is now Spain and Portugal, ruling there for seven centuries. Muslim armies invaded the Frankish Kingdom, later to become France, in 732 and were defeated by Charlemagne’s grandfather, Charles Martel. Over the next three centuries the Sunni Muslim Seljuq Turks further dissected the Byzantine Empire, beginning a process that would be completed by the Ottomans, who conquered Constantinople in 1453 and ruled southeastern Europe for centuries, threatening to expand into Central Europe and the rest of the Mediterranean.
The fact is this was not a ‘peaceful’ world as the apologists would like people to think when they take things out of context as this comment from Jerry Lynch does. It was NOT a world of stable borders or religious peace, and all of them — Christian and Muslim — were part of a longer story of attack and counterattack in which both sides were playing for potentially existential stakes.
The bottom line is — understand the geopolitical context of the issue before subscribing to any tendentious — likely erroneous — points of view.
ONE, BIG, FAT, LIE.
Ever heard of the Muslim Conquests? It was the Arabs under Mohammed that first started the conflict between Christians and Muslims, starting by invading the far flung provinces of then-declining Byzantine Empire. Egypt, Persia, the Levant, Africa until they reached Spain. Heck they almost conquered western Europe if not for Charles Martel’s heroics at the Battle of Tours, along with the courageous stand of Don Pelayo at Covadonga, igniting the Reconquista period of Spanish history.
The Crusades only started a few years after that.
Nice try idiot. But next time, read some books on medieval history. You’ll learn a lot.
This, sadly, is true.
Nakakapagmura talaga. Hinayaan na ma-corrupt ng ma-corrupt ang pera kaysa gamitin sa pagpapalakas ng sandatahang militar. Nagplano paano makaupo sa pwesto upang magpakasasa sa kaban ng bayan imbis na gumawa ng plano para maipagtanggol ang bansa. Umaasa pa rin ang duwag na si Aquino na gagalangin ng Tsina ang karapatan ng Pilipinas kasi puro siya yabang pero bahag ang buntot dahil wala siyang nagawa para palakasin ang pwersa ng Pinas. Kung ang Japan nga na kayang-kaya silang tapatan inaangkin pa rin ang isla, ang Pilipinas pa na umaasa sa ibang bansa para umunlad? Sa simula palang wala na sa wisyo ang paraan ng pamumuno ng panot. Nakngputo talaga! At ang gobyerno pa niya mismo ang nagbibigay daan para maangkin ng Muslim ang Mindanao!
China is flexing its military muscle, to test the military strength of the U.S. , in the area.
Aquino’s solution: he does nothing, and puts his head in the hole on the ground…
Aquino cannot fight, he just collaborate with his enemies.
Radical Islam is a religious/political ideology, bent on conquering the world. It is like “Nazism”…this is what Aquino and his cahoots cannot understand.
They think that appeasing the Radical Islamist, they can obtain “Peace”…Peace will not come to Mindanao, instead many radical Islamic factions will emerge, demanding their piece of your taxpayer’s money. To be given by Aquino, thru BBL Laws.
So, it is Patriotic, not to Pay your Taxes.
As an OFW, do not Remit money to the Philippines. It will only go the the Muslim terrorists.
The BBL Law is a repeat of the late British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s effort to obtain “Peace in our Times” with Nazi Germany’s Nazi Dictator: Adolph Hitler. Hitler signed the deal. The next thing he did was invade Poland, after swallowing Czechoslovakia. Then, he invaded other European countries…
History is repeating itself, in the Philippines. Aquino and his cahoots are the culprits here…
You know, down the road, Noynoy might be called the “Chamberlain of Asia”, because he repeated the same mistakes the British PM did. He probably aimed for that “peace in our time” analogue, only to trigger a war he never wanted.
Well, that is, if history really repeats itself. Down to the last detail.
If PNoy is the Chamberlain of today, who’s Churchill?
There is NO CHURCHILL. You BRUTES will be EXTERMINATED before CHINA’S AWESOME ALL-CONQUERING MIGHT.
Bet on it.
Eh, you forgot one important thing in their MO: Rely on big daddies USA and UN to handle their foreign relation problems.
The Philippines, however, consistently takes the loser stance. It “hopes” and — worse — prays that China would be more “understanding” and exercise a bit of “empathy”.
eto ang pinaka-ayaw ko sa lahat ng ugaling pinoy. idaan na lang sa awa ang pag-darasal. ika nga ni Lee Kuan Yew, “filipinos has a soft, forgiving culture.”
and now we expect the other countries do the same to us? empathy? kalokohan yan.
We must become a nation of law. not of men. if we do this, we will become a strong country.
i will take up arms if by chance China took over Batanes and war has been declared. putaina kahit M1 Garand lang ako patayin ko mga yan. isama ko na ung mga nakaupo sa gobyerno. or punta na ako sa mindanao atleast ang mga tao dun may sense of nationalism and Davao City will be the last bastion of hope in the south.
I’ve said this some time ago. Our people’s appetite is that of survival. Most Filipinos are already okay with the status quo, because they became afraid of change. If we want to be great, we shouldn’t be contented with “pwede na ‘yan.”. Our appetite must hunger for victory.
That, and BALLS, or the lack of it. Scrappy Vietnam banged hulls against the big Chinese boats all day long, unafraid. The Philippine Navy, if you can call it that, is no where in sight except in that rusting, beached hulk they call an outpost. Man up, guys!
I freaking called it. I knew that China will prepare to move into the Philippines. Though right now, they’re just muscling in Philippine controlled sections of the Spratly islands, it won’t be long until something provokes them into invading the country. My bet its going to involve “our Muslim Allies” down in Mindanao that’s going to start it.
They do a terrorist attack that just happens to involve China. China gets furious and decides to stamp out the Islamic insurgency in Asia. Philippines gets invaded.
anyone read Dale Brown’s “Skymasters”?
Filipinos actually have a LOT of will to win. And they achieve this victory by praying and posting quotes in facebook, maybe watching a soap or two and then reading some updates about Kris Aquino on the newspaper. Not to mention the following: not reading useful books, not thinking critically, and trying some skin whitening treatment. Yeah, all those things lead to victory.
What does it mean to be the best? It means you have to be better than the number two Failipino. But what gratification is there in that? He’s a loser—that’s why he’s number two.