THE Marcos government was outsmarted by the China Coast Guard to lose Escoda Shoal, which the Chinese call Xianbin Jiao. The Chinese also thwarted the US plan to turn Philippine vessels into cannon fodder in its campaign to demonize the Chinese as the violent bullies in Asia.

Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. in just two months has lost two of the maritime areas that the Philippines has been claiming as part of its exclusive economic zone, the Ayungin and Escoda Shoals. (China on the other hand claims it as part of Nansha Qundao, which it says it claimed as its sovereign territory for two millennia.)

This loss is for “forever,” as in the case of Vietnam’s grabbing of Southwest Cay in 1975 by tricking our Marines into leaving their watch for a party in nearby island, and of the Benigno Aquino 3rd abandoning Scarborough Shoal in 2012, fooled by the Americans.

We have been betrayed by our political leadership. Marcos was largely either indifferent or oblivious to the unfolding events that led to the loss of Escoda Shoal. On the other hand, the Marcos-controlled Congress was obsessed over suspected POGO magnate Alice Guo spending four months in its investigation of her,   resuscitating long-debunked claims of EJKs during the Duterte administration, and hunting down the religious leader Pastor Quiboloy.

Two days before the BRP Teresa Magbanua left the shoal, according to its captain, because it was running out of fuel and water, with several of sailors suffering from dehydration, Marcos was busy over the planning of and implementation of his birthday celebrations on September 11, which probably occupied his mind, as it was his favorite band Duran Duran that played at his party.

A WATERSHED has occurred in my generation: religion is now on a steep decline, especially Catholicism whose culture and worldview have dominated this country since the Spanish conquistadores subjugated this archipelago nearly 500 years ago.

And it is during what we call the Holy Week that it becomes obvious that Catholicism is on the way to extinction as a system of beliefs, although many will still cling to its cultural aspects, as there are yet no replacements — weddings, baptism, and even house or office blessings. It is also during Holy Week that one feels religion as still fighting for dear life, as in several newspapers’ closure from today till Sunday.

In my youth Holy Friday to Easter Sunday really did feel as if the entire world is mourning the death of God (an absurdity which I found inexplicable) and you can watch on TV only the always-shown-on-Holy-Week “Ten Commandments,” “Jesus of Nazareth,” with “Ben Hur” the most exciting. Now of course hallelujah you can watch nearly whatever movie or series you want through Netflix and other streaming services.

Just three years ago the Pabasa two blocks from our home kept me awake for several nights. That practice ended with the passing away of the elderly man who financed it. That is one of the reasons for the decline of Catholicism, the old religious generation is passing away, and the new ones aren’t really interested in religion.

Before, only the rich would escape the cemetery-like ambience of Holy Week who troop to their Baguio residences or abroad. Now, I bet more than half of families that can afford it see Holy Week as a grand vacation time in some beach or hill resort. Golf courses are crowded. As late as the 1980s, absolutely no mall nor movie theater was opened during Holy Friday. Now only a few are closed on that day.

VICE President Leni Robredo’s satisfaction ratings as vice president, according to polls of the Social Weather Stations, have collapsed from its peak of plus 42 in March 2019 to just plus 1, based on the pollster’s December 2021 survey.

That means most Filipinos view her vice presidency as an abject failure. She is insane if she thinks they will vote her to the higher office of the presidency.

Polls on whom Filipinos would vote for also reflect the fact that she doesn’t have a chance of winning, with the latest poll I’ve seen showing Isko Moreno has even overtaken her in the No. 2 slot.

In contrast, the net satisfaction ratings of the third highest official (by succession) who is running for vice president, Senate President Vicente Sotto 3rd dipped only slightly, from plus 61 in March 2019 to plus 53 last December.

That of President Duterte rebounded from a net ratification of 52 in September 2021 to the “very good” level of plus 60 in December 2021, a remarkable performance, according to the SWS president, as this means he is still “in his honeymoon phase even if he is just a few months away from stepping down.” That net satisfaction of 60 means about 85 percent of Filipinos are satisfied with his presidency.

CONTRARY to what most people think, the way we practice All Souls’ Day, which has come to be called “Undas” only in recent years, wasn’t a creation of Catholicism nor is it a practice among Catholics all over the world.

Only Mexico, the Philippines, Brazil — and in less intense forms, a few other Latin American countries — celebrate the Day of the Dead in the way we know it; that is, one day of the year when people go to the cemeteries to honor their dead. “Todos Los Santos” to us, this was an import from Hispanic Mexico, the reproduction here of its Dia de los Muertos.

Christians celebrate Christmas and Easter in the privacy of their homes with their families. Why would they commemorate their dead, who obviously passed away at different days of the year on one particular day when everyone does so and undertake this in one crowded place with strangers — crowds — all around them; thus, diminishing the solemnity of commemorating their loved ones?

The absurdity of the practice has become so obvious as our population has swelled, and more and more die, so more and more people visit their dear departed in cemeteries, which obviously have not grown in size, creating mammoth crowds in these places on November 1 that risk people’s safety.

WHAT did former President Benigno Aquino 3rd, his Foreign Affairs secretary Albert del Rosario and his solicitor general Florin Hilbay do when they brought the arbitration suit against China before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2013?

They shot themselves in the foot. Correct that, they shot the Philippines in the foot.

Two of the major provisions of the arbitration award handed down in 2016 for that case emboldened Malaysia to claim that its continental shelf would include most of our territory called the Kalayaan Island Group (KIG), which the strongman Ferdinand Marcos had created by decree in 1978.

On Dec. 12, 2019, Malaysia submitted to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (UN CLCS) a claim that its continental shelf extended beyond 200 nautical miles in the northern part of the South China Sea. The northern outer limits of Malaysia’s submission, as its accompanying map and its geographical coordinates show, are even 100 to 150 kilometers north of our KIG. (Lime and red lines in figure accompanying this column.)

THE Yellows keep ranting that President Duterte hasn’t continued to quarrel with the superpower China to assert our sovereign rights in our exclusive economic zone — ignorant of, or rejecting the fact that not just China, but Vietnam and Taiwan are claiming not just rights but sovereignty over those areas our EEZ encompasses. Thus, as Duterte succinctly put it, “China is claiming it. We are claiming it.”

The hypocrisy — or ignorance, feigned or not — of former Foreign Affairs secretary Albert del Rosario and their resource person former Supreme Court justice Antonio Carpio, is obvious in the fact that while they have been livid, or pretended to be livid, over China’s alleged aggressiveness in the South China Sea, they have been inexplicably quiet in their hundreds of statements — even in Carpio’s book — over the brazen grab by Malaysia of Philippine territory.

And I’m not referring to Sabah.

Two presidents — Corazon Aquino and Joseph Estrada — could do nothing to stop the seizure of four reefs in our sovereign territory, the Kalayaan Island Group (KIG) and an island in our EEZ by Malaysia, which at that time was, so to speak, in our weight class.

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