A consequence of Duterte’s treason
Public attention is once more called to the Duterte regime’s treasonous policy of selling out the Filipino people’s sovereign rights over the West Philippine Sea by a Chinese vessel sinking a Philippine boat and leaving 22 Filipino fishermen to the elements.
The Filipino people have been outraged for so long by the Duterte regime’s failure to assert their sovereign rights over the West Philippine Sea and to demand before the United Nations that China stop its violations of the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea and the 2016 judgment of the International Arbitral Tribunal in favor of the Philippines against China.
The regime has stubbornly refused to make the following just demands: the withdrawal of China from the artificial islands it has unlawfully built and militarized in the West Philippine Sea, the payment of rent for the occupation of these islands and compensation for destroying the marine resources and environment.
These demands are not being made before the courts in the US and other countries where China’s overseas assets can be held liable. Instead, the Duterte regime has shamelessly offered to China the exploration and exploitation of the oil and gas resources in the Reed Bank, which is estimated to be 5.4 billion barrels and 55.1 trillion cubic feet. These are enough to finance the industrial development of the Philippines if not subjected to imperialist plunder by China.
The Duterte ruling clique justifies its treasonous behavior by its expectations of large loans for infrastructure projects from China. Thus many people have observed that commissions have been advanced to the ruling clique through Dennis Uy and other Chinese conduits that are hyperactive in the infrastructure project and in buying up major Philippine assets.
The Chinese loans are at exorbitant interest rates and the infrastructure projects are overpriced. Thus, the Duterte ruling clique is expected to receive further huge kickbacks on a scale even grander than that at the time when Duterte’s infamous idol Marcos milked the foreign loans and infrastructure projects.
But the Chinese government has been tough by rolling out the projects at a rate much slower than expected by Duterte to compel him to make immediate and outright surrender of the sovereign rights in the most explicit terms. The regime has, therefore, appeared absurd in touting Chinese loans and infrastructure projects as the main pillar of his build, build, build program.
In the meantime, the US-China trade war is heating up and the US, Japan and European countries are asserting their freedom of navigation and telling the entire world that China has no right to own the South China Sea and to take control over the West Philippine Sea, in which the Philippines has sovereign rights to marine and mineral resources in its exclusive economic zone and extended continental shelf.