As stupid as it gets

IF the majority of Filipinos continue to entertain the belief that there is still “hope” for them to regain the respect of the international community by a clear demonstration of our independence as a nation and as a people, our own Senate is contributing to the erosion of that hope.

For a brief of time, particularly under Pres. Rodrigo Duterte, we managed to hold high our heads owing to his pursuit of an independent foreign policy and limiting the influence of US Imperialism in our domestic and foreign policies.

Our take, though, is that, near the end of his term, the Americanistas inside our government did not waste time in wreaking Pres. Duterte’s ‘Filipino First’ policy by, among others, scrapping the already consummated helicopter deal with Russia and, scrapping the joint oil exploration agreement with China that can serve as the guarantor of peace between the two nations in the South China Sea and with that, within the whole ASEAN region.

Immediately forgotten was the help provided by both Russia and China during the months-long war the country waged against the ISIS in 2017 when they tried to take over Marawi City and more importantly, during the worst moments of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021.

Recall that in both instances, the United States and its Western minions only helped us belatedly — and with the usual “conditionalities” while the vaccines we paid for from them have been shown to be as deadly as the virus that they claim to cure.

Today, as the administration scurried forth to the deadly embrace of US Imperialism to affirm our neo-colonial status, our senators are also quick to show that when it comes to ass-licking, they should not be counted out by the White House.

And what better way to demonstrate their fealty to the American flag by passing a resolution calling on the government to bring our dispute with China before the United Nations and citing among other basis, the worthless 2016 “arbitral award” given by the (private) Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague, which is not even an official body of the United Nations.

We cannot believe that our current Senate is packed by individuals of low genius for them not to realized that this award is not even worth the paper it was written on and that, aside from thinning the patience of China by our stupid repetition of its “legality,” it has no other useful purpose.

Nevertheless, in a bid to call attention to themselves over their misplaced sense of patriotism that they even want to impose on all of us, our Senate has become oblivious to the potential national embarrassment that we are facing should it get its way in forcing the government to raise the matter of alleged Chinese “aggression” at the South China Sea.

For before the UN, what are we, really? Have we really earned the respect and admiration of even our ASEAN neighbors that they would be willing to support us, fully, when the time comes for the UN General Assembly to vote on our complaint? Do we have the sufficient influence to convince China to vote against its own interest before the Security Council?

More immediately, have our senators realized that by “internationalizing” this otherwise neighborhood dispute between us and China, they are angering our biggest neighbor and biggest export market?

What if China, in its exasperation, simply decided to cripple our economy by banning our exports using some new pyro-sanitary rules as it did before under the PNoy administration? What then? Will the debt-ridden United States immediately come to our assistance? Or will it leave us to fend for ourselves as has been the case repeatedly in our one-sided relationship?

There are many levels of stupidity. But this Senate proposal must rank several notches higher for its lack of sense.