THE Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) is doing the right thing standing up to China’s aggression in the West Philippine Sea while studiously steering clear of any action that might provide Chinese vessels an excuse to start something more serious.
It could not have been easy. For several years now, our Coast Guard vessels have been sailing into the West Philippine Sea in the South China Sea knowing that a belligerent and far stronger force is going to block their passage while using every trick in the book to try and provoke a retaliatory action.
For the Coast Guard leadership, the burden is having the prior knowledge that each vessel lifting anchor is potentially sailing into trouble while on a mission to enforce Philippine maritime laws and play mother hen to Filipino fishing vessels.
And yet the PCG has been performing this mandate unstintingly day in and day out despite being hilariously underfunded and shorthanded compared to Beijing’s floating assets in the area.
‘It is unfortunate therefore that the agency and its personnel have been subjected to abuse of late for supposed reluctance to strike back against water cannon bombardment from Chinese vessels.’
It is unfortunate therefore that the agency and its personnel have been subjected to abuse of late for supposed reluctance to strike back against water cannon bombardments from Chinese vessels.
But when the same needling comes from lawmakers and other elected officials, it becomes downright idiotic and plainly dangerous.
In 2022 and 2023, China coughed up over $450 billion in total defense spending. It does not require a wild imagination to guess that a big chunk of that was shelled out precisely with the West Philippine Sea situation in mind.
During the same two-year period, our government had to dig deep to scrape together enough resources to buy $7.96 billion worth of military hardware and equipment. Placed side by side, that boils down to being hopelessly overmatched.
The PCG is well aware of its limitations. It requires no more compelling reminder that it is getting a pummeling than when its puny ships and hapless sailors are being hammered by thousands of gallons per minute.
That its men chose to sail anyway and endure such threats without resorting to a violent retaliatory action is a testament to their courage. It is deserving of respect rather than ridicule, honor in place of derision.
Because any other course at this stage would be playing into China’s tricky hand.
We can count on it to play the role of the sandbox bully to the hilt. It will not give up finding ways to escalate each confrontation — from blinding lasers, water cannons to swapping paint with our ships.
It can be expected to do almost anything short of ramming or firing a weapon on our men during such encounters.
For rather obvious reasons, we have been chosen for the dubious honor of being China’s object of interest as it serves notice to the world that it is a full-fledged global power.
Make no mistake, Beijing is spoiling for a chance to flex its newly developed military muscles, but it will not do so without a perfectly plausible justification.
Let us not crowd our own Coast Guard into gifting China that pretext.
