THE May arrest of some 70 Chinese steel work specialists at the Philippine Sanjia Steel Corp. inside the Phividec industrial estate in Misamis Oriental was one golden opportunity China could have taken to expose the real United States machinations in the evil undertaking.
Defense Secretary Gilberto “Gibo” Teodoro Jr. lost no time reviving the issue, connecting it as a tit-for-tat for China’s recent arrest of Filipino workers.
Nothing is farther from the truth.
The Sanjia arrests were a deliberate US military move, the first step in a grand design to transform what otherwise was meant for advancing the livelihood of retired personnel of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) into a mighty hub for protecting the security of America.
As early as a year before, the Pentagon released a plan to convert the 3,000-hectare Phividec industrial estate — inside which was built the Philippine Sanjia Steel Corp. in 2018 upon the estate’s invitation — into a fuel hub capable of storing 41 trillion barrels of oil a day to supply the needs of its entire Asia-Pacific Command. At the time of the May arrests, such conversion of the Phividec estate was just an idea, but just a month before, Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of the US Navy Indo-Pacific Command, submitted a 121-page report to the US Congress detailing the overall plan to deter what it called Chinese expansion in the region.
Said the report:
“China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is undergoing historic expansion across all domains and is training for two primary missions: forcing Taiwan unification and countering US and allied defense capabilities, with military readiness targeted by 2027.”
The report details how military planners would deploy in Asia funds from the Trump administration’s record $1.5-trillion defense budget request.
Admiral Paparo urged lawmakers to approve the massive spending increase — up 44 percent from the previous year — in order to “defend the homeland and defeat China’s misaligned strategy.” A key part of the budget request includes $592 million for development, prototyping and procurement of a “Quicksink” seeker add-on that would turn Boeing’s GPS-guided Joint Direct Attack munition bombs into a “low-cost, all-weather anti-ship weapon capable of sinking vessels by detonating below the waterline to break the ship’s keel.” The report said Quicksink kits would help “counter numerically superior adversary fleets across the Pacific.” That was a clear reference to China, which has the world’s largest navy with more than 430 ships, according to the Congressional Research Service. By contrast, the US has 291 combat vessels
The report, dated April 6, also reiterates the year 2027 — symbolically important as the PLA’s 100th anniversary — as a key year for Chinese forces to be prepared to seize Taiwan.
Then on Aug. 3 to 6, Teodoro and Paparo met at the 37th annual Military Law and Operations Strategic Engagement in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where both delivered speeches addressing regional security and countering coercion in the Indo-Pacific.
Secretary Teodoro delivered a keynote on regional security threats and pushing back against external coercion, while Admiral Paparo emphasized allied deterrence and a free and open Indo-Pacific.
The plan to convert the 3,000-hectare Phividec industrial estate into a giant American naval base-fuel-ammunition manufacturing-complex is a reality.
For all we know, the Teodoro-led raid on Sanjia in May was an integral part already — albeit unspecified — of the Paparo report. A broadsheet report that Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (Paocc) chief Benjamin Acorda Jr. led the raid was wrong; Gibo was there all the while giving the orders.
Now, we’re into this brouhaha of Filipino workers having been arrested in China in, as news accounts put it, retaliation for the Sanjia arrests.
In a Senate hearing last week, the Paocc executive director stated that Beijing had threatened to arrest Filipino workers in China if the Chinese steel specialists arrested in Sanjia in May are not released.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun clarified in a press statement that the arrest of the Filipino workers were in accordance with Chinese law on overstaying foreigners or holding illegal employment.
So, what is taking place is clearly a case of apples and oranges.
It is a trick the Teodoros, the Tarrielas, and their ilk are accustomed to resorting to in furthering their servitude to America.
The Paparo report to the US Congress confirms the American hand in the Sanjia Steel Corp. raid in May while none backs up the Teodoro contention of “Chinese retaliatory and discriminatory action.”
Gibo goes to the extent of even suggesting that China’s “retaliatory moves” could affect likewise Filipino workers in Macao and Hong Kong.
China is much way above such cheap tactics.
What is taking place in the news is propaganda, aimed at the masses of uninformed.
The truly significant fact is the tireless diplomatic dialogues that unceasingly go on. These dialogues, guided always by what’s good for brotherly national relations, necessarily end up achieving harmony quite unlike what warmongers like Gibo and Tarriela parrot just as tirelessly.
Never forget that in that period when even lawmakers were calling for declaring Ambassador Jing Quan persona non grata, Foreign Affairs Secretary Ma. Theresa Lazaro asserted her authority: “On the South China Sea issue, the DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs) decides.”
No matter how vociferous, Teodoro and Tarriela are nothing but second-rate chorus voices, echoing America’s refrain.
It is to the credit of the Filipino people that they are a thinking lot. No matter how loud Teodoro and Tarriela howl, Filipinos maintain their calm and balance in handling Philippines-China friendly relations.
