NAAWAN, Misamis Oriental (MindaNews / 21 March)—The Chinese Coast Guards (CCG) and maritime militia vessels move around our maritime territory as if they own it. The aggression is repetitive, and the harassment they have subjected our supply ships and fishing boats has been endless. Our response of filing a diplomatic protest for every Chinese bullying, if it has changed at all anything, now changes to our disadvantage. The Chinese have ironically copied it. Now, they are faster than us in filing diplomatic protest every time an incident occurs, citing us of violating their sovereign territory.
President Bongbong Marcos claims he is doing a balancing act of securing the integrity of our sovereign territory without provoking the aggressor to a shooting war.
Can we say that our national territory has been secured when we are prohibited and constantly stopped from ferrying supplies to our maritime surveillance station in Ayungin Shoal? No, that power play is, crystal clear, a violation of our sovereignty.
Is it balancing to allow the CCG vessels to drench and damage our supply ships with water cannons, and our smaller coast guard vessels playing tom-and-jerry with the larger, faster, more equipped CCG vessels? No, there is definitely an imbalance.
Balance is secured if we, too, are also able to drench the bully.
Unless and until we can do it, we will always be at the end of humiliation.
Marcos has yet too much to learn about history and geopolitics.
He should know that if the planet has escaped Armageddon to date, it is because of the existing balance of terror inevitably yielded to by nuclear-armed countries.
(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. William R. Adan, Ph.D., is retired professor and former chancellor of Mindanao State University at Naawan, Misamis Oriental.)
