If this country were to believe each fairy tale spun by Rodrigo Duterte and his kids, and spice it up further with Sen. Maria Imelda “Imee” Romualdez Marcos’s Tiktok intelligence on the 25 targets of Chinese missiles in the Philippines, expect colonies of Filipinos scared shitless being established in the fastnesses of the Sierra Madre, the interior of the Samar national park and the limestone caves of Palawan.
Duterte and his kids have been telling Filipinos that Malacanang is bringing the country closer to war with China while Imee, who appears to be enamored with the fables churned out by the Dutertes and the talking points disseminated by Chinese Embassy personnel who have consumed too much of the partially edible bread in some bakery in Quezon City, joins the chorus, plumbing the depths of the Tiktok neverland to produce the strange yarn about the targeting of the Chinese rocket force.
To refresh the senator’s mind, Xi Jinping “nearly” suffered a heart attack upon being informed by top party officials that his hypersonic missiles were a big fat egg as they were fueled not by the ancient hydrazine propellant but by water. Whoever heard of a hypersonic missile that zooms at Mach 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or 20 using steam engine? Xi got the heads of the rocket force chief, along with that of the defense minister, cut off. They were saved from “lingzhi” or immurement in the Gobi Desert. Both were expelled from the Chinese Communist Party and Beijing checked on the 500 or so missiles in its arsenal and discovered that water from the Himalayas or the water that is pumped up to supply the waterfalls in the north was being loaded to fuel Xi’s monstrously accurate hypersonic missiles.
This episode goes to show that responsible party units in the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLA-AF) and the party discipline inspectorate were sleeping on the job, unable to check corruption within the ranks and failing to maintain strict control over Being’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD.) Since China is not a signatory to various treaties aimed to prevent the expansion in the number of nuclear missiles, it could have used its precious time to develop such missiles to deter the US from tightening its tentacles to choke China.
As it is, Xi has little control over the top brass and generals know pretty well that Xi was a princeling, not a party cadre of sterling quality and certainly not at par with Mao Zedong. An indication of this is that party elders rejected the ambition of Xi to have his Xi Jinping Thought elevated to a pedestal like Mao Zedong Thought. And he has to check every missile and verify if they are really loaded with genuine solid or liquid propellant. Same with the PLA-Navy, which now has 452 ships but its tonnage is less than half of the tonnage of the US Navy.
However, Imee’s 25-target story is inextricably welded to the 11-dash-line oceanic calligraphy of China, circa 1947, and by promoting the tall tale that Beijing was intent on attacking the Philippines, the report hews closely to the story that all military bases in Northern Luzon, from Batanes to Cagayan, will be reduced to ashes by streaking Chinese missiles. While the 11-dash-line calligraphy seeks to legitimize an illegitimate claim on the South China Sea (SCS), the 25-target story spreads fear among 112 million Filipinos. Imee also forgets that back in 1574, the Chinese corsair Limahong and his 30,000 men attacked Manila but were beaten by Galo and his gallant “indio” fighters, turning Manila Bay’s water red with the blood of defeated pirates. Another expedition entered the bay in 1589 but was routed. Since the Chinese could hardly be trusted, traders from Southern China were ordered to do their business only in a Cavite port, which is now Sangley Point. Sangley means Chinese, and these Chinese had their spawn in the province. The Aguinaldos were Sangleyes. But wait, Marcos Sr. also claimed to be related to Limahong via the Edralin maternal line. Does piracy rule their DNA?
The only trouble is that Tiktok is hardly the best medium to threaten neighboring countries and it is not a credible channel to surreptitiously spread intelligence information. Nonetheless, Imee has been trying to show that she and Vice President Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio are best friends forever (BFF) and share the maxim that honesty is not needed in politics, so they must sing the same tune, segueing from one bad rumor to another. They are only dispensing half of what Juvenal proposed to be the cure for rebellious Romans: Circuses. The bread will come in later, in the event Bongbong quits.
Imee also waxed ecstatic upon remembering that in 1972, the Philippines tried its hand in developing rockets and missiles to wean itself away from dependence on the US. Bongbong 1, 2 and 3 were tested with the assistance of a US scientist related by affinity to the late Public Works Secretary Antonio Raquiza. The US dashed the plan of Marcos Sr. (known as “Maharlika” in the Melchor documents) and the scheme was reduced to using rockets for cloud seeding. The missile program suffered the same fate as the extinct dodo.
