Unhappy Marriage

So we're "separating" ourselves from the United States now, whatever that means. You can never tell with Duterte. 

"Separation" is a loaded word. This joke has probably been made before but perhaps he meant it as a lawyer would. We are legally separated from the US. It wasn't an annulment or a divorce. The marriage is still on because the state has an interest in keeping Filipinos miserable together. Thank God for that! 

Does this mean the US still has visitation rights? What about support? Seems we don't want any of their aid. That's an interesting question. Can support be waived? I'm sure a child can't. But the Philippines is all grown up now and doesn't need his white papa telling him what to do. We don't need papa Sam to deal with that Chinese bully on the playground; a bully that happens to have more soldiers, tanks and planes that we can even begin to fathom. They have nukes too but our constitution forbids us from having nuclear weapons. Our moral high ground is unassailable at least.

So what did we get out of Duterte's trip to China. Well, we got some deals of questionable value. It's interesting that we respond to China's saber-rattling by indebting ourselves to them, as if China needed any more leverage. But good news! China just recently gave us permission to fish on our own territory. Isn't that kind of them? Now we're getting contracts from Chinese companies drenched in corruption. It's a perfect fit.

This deal is getting worse all the time.

Made in China

A lot of pirated goods come from China but synthetic rice? That's a new one.

Too bad. A lot of the fake crap from China wasn't this bad long ago. Gone were the days when you could sit down on your comfy chair with a nice cup of Lipiton iced tea, watch a bootleg DVD of Taken on your Pensonic player hooked up to your Soby TV set. Now we can enjoy a nice bowl of styrofoam with it.

Mm-mmm...

Midnight Express

History repeats itself.

A Filipina convicted of drug smuggling was executed in China today. I suppose there's shock and outrage over this but that would be meaningless. She broke the law so she was executed. End of story.

The Vice-President tried to fly to China to grab the headlines negotiate on her behalf but was denied. I doubt grovelling to the Chinese ever solves anything especially when we're in no position to bargain in the first place. The President himself wrote a letter to China asking them to commute her death sentence into life imprisonment. On what grounds, I wonder? Did the President honestly believe the Chinese, who execute people faster than you can say "Tiananmen", wouldn't execute this ONE woman simply because he asked them not to? It's kind of insulting when you think about it; telling the President of another country to commute a sentence and instead keep her imprisoned (at their expense I bet) for life just because.

You see, it's because we ought to feel sorry for the poor woman. It's not her fault! It's the poverty and desperation. She was just trying to provide for her family! Nope. Sorry. That's not the way it works.

The phrase "rule of law" gets tossed around too much these days usually by supposedly smart people. Not many people have seen the "rule of law". Many doubt such a thing exists. It's like a unicorn; a mythical creature of legends. I've seen it a few times, twice or thrice, I think. We're told it exists. It's kind of like faith, you know? You can't see air but you can breath it in, right?

China seems to follow the rule of law. The Filipina broke the law and faced the penalty. Perhaps the outrage is because, having so little experience of it, it's just such a difficult concept to grasp for us Filipinos. But don't worry, I'm here to help. The rule of law simply means nobody is above the law. You do the crime, you do the time. No special treatment. It's truly a shame a communist cesspool like China does it better than THE FIRST DEMOCRACY IN SOUTHEAST ASIA, THE ONLY CHRISTIAN NATION IN ASIA! PINOYPRIDE!!111

Rule of law? Explain that to Erap...

ASEAN Talks Fail

China has an army large enough to wipe the Philippines off the planet. This dispute over the Scarborough Shoal ain't looking so good for us. Kinda makes you wish we didn't get so uppity back in the nineties and kick our only superpower ally, America, out of the Philippines huh? That's what misguided nationalism gets you.

For all our sakes, I hope the President and his people know what they're doing.