WITH our disputes over the South China Sea territorial and maritime disputes again hogging the front pages, I am again astonished at the massive misinformation on the issue, a testament indeed to the tremendous power of the US and its propaganda apparatus.

What gives these lies so much power is first, deep-seated anti-Chinese racism, which early in our history as a people led to massacres of the Spanish-era Chinese settlements, called the parian. Second, it is another instance of that deeply ingrained mentality that psychologists and anthropologists call the “us vs. them” syndrome: that is, evil is the other tribe, the other clan, the other fraternity, the other basketball team, and the other country with territorial disputes with us.

It is understandable for the man on the street, senators playing the gallery, and Philippine Coast Guard officials like spokesman Jay Tarriela basking in the media limelight and swallowing hook, line and sinker the American deception. Such brainwashing is easier because the SCS dispute involves complex concepts as abstract as, say, physics’ black holes or quantum entanglement: territorial sea, exclusive economic zone, and even the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos).

It is disappointing, though that a few columnists, otherwise intelligent and scholarly as well as known for diligent research, have easily fallen for the US propaganda line.

One example is a statement from a veteran columnist in his Philippine Star piece yesterday: “Under the terms of the Unclos, Bajo de Masinloc sits well within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. The arbitral tribunal in 2016 rejected the validity of China’s sovereignty claims over Bajo de Masinloc and the contested reefs further south.”

ANYONE who has spent some time studying geopolitics, superpower behavior, and especially China’s moves to claim the hegemonic throne in Asia would be worried over our government’s immediate response to its setting up of a 300-meter floating barrier in the southeast portion of Scarborough Shoal, discovered Sunday by our Philippine Coast Guard (PCG).

The Philippines defied the superpower by having its personnel cut the ropes used for the floating barrier.

The ropes were cut by a man not even wearing a diving suit and scuba gear, which raises my suspicion that the PCG may claim it was merely done by fishermen outraged that they were being blocked from the fish-rich waters.

NO newspaper had a news article, feature or opinion column on the anniversary of an event on Sept.16, 1991 which scholars called in the early 1990s the “unthinkable” and Juan Ponce Enrile, “a defining moment of our race.” The last feature article on it was in September 2016 — 2016 in, of all media outlets, Rappler, funded by US outfits that had links to the CIA.

Indeed, most Filipinos would not know what that event I am referring to is. It was the day the Philippine Senate rejected, by a close vote of 12 to 11, the Corazon Aquino government’s proposal to renew the lease of the huge US military bases here.

The US — the world — was shocked by the decision, particularly as Cory — a global heroine of democracy in those days — expended nearly all of her political capital to get the treaty ratified by the Senate, with poll after poll showing that most Filipinos wanted the Americans to stay. “An insult to our race,” Enrile, one of four still living of the “Magnificent 12″*, as media dubbed them. The other three are then senators Joseph Estrada, Rene Saguisag and Orlando Mercado, the latter, however, perhaps as another testament to our changed times, didn’t care to write about it in his column in this newspaper.

It was a demonstration that our leaders called the Senate — derived from the Roman “senatus,” for old man, that is, the “wise” — knew their role in the Republic, which is to stand by their considered views, even if these go against the mob, often disguised as “the people.”

JUST when prices of rice and other agricultural commodities have become volatile, not just because of climate change and logistical disruptions resulting from the Ukraine war but from such unexpected dements as an Indian ban on some of its rice exports, we have the most dysfunctional department in the country — the Agriculture department.

The blame is solely on President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., although he can easily move to restore the department’s effectiveness by doing what he should have done on Day 1 of his presidency, which is to appoint a qualified technocrat, preferably with political skills, as a full-time Agriculture secretary.

Instead, he appointed himself as concurrent Agriculture secretary, which, as expected, in effect meant that the department was leaderless. In the 14 months that he has been Agriculture secretary, he has visited the department only four times and has reportedly met with its undersecretaries and other officials three times. What has he been thinking?

It is a mystery why Marcos has been adamant about keeping the agriculture portfolio, even though it is so obvious he is unable to run it, especially at this crucial period when prices of rice and even vegetables are so volatile that a tight running of the department is necessary. While he was governor and vice governor of a dominantly agricultural province for 12 years, he has never shown any expertise or interest in agricultural issues. Marcos’ insistence borders on political suicide as the department not only faces daunting challenges because of decades of neglect and mismanagement; it is also viewed as an Augean stable of corruption.

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WHILE one can cite other factors that contributed to the steep rise in rice prices such that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had to order a price cap of P41 per…

FINALLY, the Congress has moved to enact a law that would define our maritime zones, most especially our exclusive economic zones (EEZ). Such a law would also allow us to…