IT IS the dry season once again in the country. Fortunately, we are not experiencing this year the severe water shortage that we saw in 2019 when parts of Metro-Manila, Rizal and Quezon faced water rationing.
Angat Dam, Laguna Lake and deep wells – the traditional water sources of the NCR and adjacent provinces – have been struggling just above the water lines in the past years; hence, recent progress in the development of the Kaliwa Dam for Metro-Manila’s water supply s is cause for jubilation.
Early this week, the Chinese Embassy’s Facebook page posted photos of two “Super Giant Tunnel Boring Machines” that had passed the acceptance test on May 17, 2021 to “participate in the construction of the diversion tunnel for the Kaliwa Dam Project in the Philippines.” Surprisingly, the two machines were christened Sampaguita and Jasmine after the Philippine national flowers, heartening signs that PHL-China ties are growing warmer than ever.
The Kaliwa Dam, or the New Centennial Water Supply Project, is the new source that will meet the burgeoning demand from 17.46M residents (or 3.49M households) of the Metro area, Rizal and Quezon over the next decades.
The P 12.189-Billion project, which has been supported with funds from China, has been contracted to the China Energy Engineering Corporation Ltd. (CEEC). With the tunnel boring machines being readied, it is clear that the obstructionists from the Leftist groups and the political opposition have been surmounted.
In the same week as the acceptance of the boring machines, Philippine officials – the Philippine Ambassador to China, the Philippine economic team to China consisting of representatives from the DTI, DA and the DOT and the Philippine Consulate General in Xiamen – engaged the Xiamen Forum on Philippine-China Post-Pandemic Economic Cooperation to map out and prepare for the Philippines’ road to economic recovery, riding on the crest of China’s spectacular and expansive “dual circulation” economic growth.
China is boosting domestic consumption with its external trade and commerce. It demonstrated this opening up of its economy in 2019 with the 1st China International Import Expo (CIIE) where President Xi Jinping declared China’s program to buy $30-Trillion worth of goods and $10-Trillion worth of services from the rest of the world for the next 15 years.
And this month, it opened the 2021 China International Consumer Products Expo for global brands to showcase their products to Chinese importers and consumers.
Meanwhile, Chinese delivery of donated and purchased Sinovac vaccines continue to land at the Manila International Airport.
With the latest batch of 500,000 doses, a total of 5.5-Million doses of Chinese vaccines have arrived in the two months since February 28, which will enable at least 2.25-M Filipinos to receive the full two-dose inoculation.
Since the DOH has also sought Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for Sinopharm to supply the Philippines, the country can rest assured that it will have enough vaccines for 2021.
Except for the goodwill it will earn, what has China been asking for?
President Duterte provided the answer in his February 28 message upon receiving the first batch of Chinese vaccine donations: “China never asked for anything. China has been giving us everything but never asked anything from us actually.
“Ang pinakamabigat ang Amerikano, ang hinihingi nila ang base. (Actually, it is the Americans who ask for the weightiest things – they are asking for the military base.”
Is China really doing an altruistic deed? After the past 500 years of Western domination of global politics, this seems to be such naïve thought to swallow.
It should be noted, however, that China is a wise, ancient civilization that knows that its rise depends on a stable, peaceful, prosperous neighborhood community and global peace.
For the Chinese, tension and conflict can only disturb economic development and trade. But as far as the West and the U.S. are concerned, their growth and domination will depend on their ability for occupation, alliance-vassalage, and weapons sales.
A vast sea of Filipinos are yearning to taste the comfort of middle class life, even as millions of OFWs just long to be back home with their families if only there were local jobs available.
They care nothing for the smart-alecky obstructionism of opposition politicians, Leftist chameleons who are street parliamentarians by day and Reds by night, and fake patriots who are raising hell over the fruitless saber-rattling because of the West Philippine Sea.
If Filipinos want better lives, investments, trade, tourism and exports to China are the keys.
President Rodrigo R. Duterte has finally cracked the whip on cabinet grandstanders and spoiled brats who talk way above their heads and out of turn.
He has appointed Spokesperson Harry Roque, a genuine international lawyer, to speak on the South China Seas (SCS) issues, while telling the Task Force on the West Philippine Sea to shut up.
But (DFA secretary Teodoro) Locsin, who does not have enough shame to commit hara-kiri, spoke again on China’s fishing ban, apparently unaware that the ban is China’s favor to its neighbors in the ASEAN and that it has never coerced others to follow.
While U.S. and its “presstitutes” continue to use Locsin, they have now begun to scrounge around for retired generals to speak, such as, the clueless Biazon who says he’s confused and Adan with his meaningless squeak against Duterte.
Despite these, however, China is irreversibly wining hearts and minds amongst Filipinos, while helping to prepare our country to meet the prognosis of Price-Waterhouse and other economic think-tanks that the Philippines will be the 17th largest economy in the World by 2050. ###
(Herman Tiu Laurel is an author and founder of the Phil-BRICS Strategic Studies think tank. Join his: “Power Thinks” every Wednesday 6pm Live on Global Talk News Radio [GTNR] on Facebook and Talk News TV on YouTube, and Every Sunday from 8am to 10am on RP1 738 on your AM radio dial).