The past and the volatile current

By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” – Great Gatsby

SOME try to recapture the past especially if it brings back memories of love, especially love that was interrupted in between. Some want to recapture it to right a wrong.

It is the experience of oppression, or the acquaintance with it, that propels others to act on the basis of this stored memory. Suffering is a strong binding force, especially if it elevates itself into hate. The past impacts on everyone. In others, it impacts severely, eventually distorting judgment.

It is true that six hundred Moros who had taken refuge inside a large volcanic crater were massacred by US troops under Gen. Leonard Wood. It is probably true that a priest molested the President. There are probably other atrocities the President took personally, which continues to influence his lukewarm relations with the US and his cozying up to China, and justifies his belligerent attitude towards the Catholic Church.

So the President takes the fight from the personal to the political. After all, the personal is political. He takes his experiences to Malacanang and narrates an entire novel from there, with China. His supporters believe in his ability to right a wrong, the symbol of Philippine independence from America. He is the hero who will not be cowed by the most powerful of nations, including China, where he promised to jetski, when challenged. He is the romantic hero, the Fernando Poe, the Probinsiyano, the Superman who will end the drug problem in record time, six months. Then he declares he is tired. The innocent, idealistic and romantic boy is tired, after three years in office, leaving his most resonant campaign promise swimming to survive in a sea of controversies and dead bodies, with members of Chinese drug syndicates freely out of the water.

But we were sunk in the deep blue sea. A Chinese vessel rammed the boat carrying 22 Filipino crewmen and abandoned floating, rescued by a Vietnamese fishing vessel passing in the area and the Philippine military. A Chinese official dismissed the incident as an “ordinary maritime accident”. The Philippine government was cowed, and flip-flopped a reaction coated in diplomacy. This, after Locsin lost his balls somewhere over the West Philippine Sea, somewhere in the poaching of giant clams in Scarborough Shoal.

China indeed has encroached in every aspect of our “development” not as an investor, but in a commercial transaction, a loan P12.2-billion for the building of the Kaliwa Dam whose details were not disclosed to the public, and whose impact, according to some experts could actually submerge communities if a strong quake happens. Do we wait for this event to be declared as an ordinary construction accident as well?

China may be the Philippines’ new friend, but this relationship will not get us out of the water. It will give us very little, probably to swim to shore, but not out of the water. We have to swim on our own to survive, and strengthen collaboration with our neighboring countries to ensure regional security and sustainable development. Already, China is attempting to drown Taiwan and Hong Kong.

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