COLONIZATION FOR FREE

By Bayawanon

After the historic Battle of Manila Bay which happened on May 1, 1898 between the flotilla of naval ships under the command of the legendary American Commodore soon to be Admiral George Dewey and the Spanish navy, which the Americans easily won and after the Treaty of Paris where the Kingdom of Spain ceded her rights as regards the Philippines to the United States of America for and in consideration of twenty million dollars ($ 20,000,000.00), the Philippines became a colony of the United States of America. Through this historic development, the Philippines became a Commonwealth of the United States of America and became part and parcel of the latter for the next forty-eight (48) years.

Such facts are recorded in the history books and cannot be disputed by anyone and such facts would bolster the reality that the Philippines was colonized by America through war and eventually by way of purchase. After years of independence the Philippines became a good partner of America in business and some other ventures by way of legal means, America gained in the process and so does the Philippines.

On the other hand, a rising Asian neighbor which became a political hegemon in the country of China became aggressive against her neighbors and started to do her own colonization for free by grabbing islets and islands belonging to her neighbors. This kind of mini-colonization is not comparable to the USA's colonization of the Philippines since the same was done through war and purchase.

Four islands/reefs coming from the Philippine side were taken by China namely: 1) The Subi Reef; 2) The Fiery Cross Reef 3) The Mischief Reef and the 4) Scarborough Shoal. Three of these islands or reefs were already militarized by China by building military installations therein. The Philippines via the diplomatic corpse of the former Philippine President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino filed a case against China as regards the ownership of these islands before the International Tribunal on the Law of the Seas which resulted to the Philippine victory, but such judicial victory by the Philippines over her gigantic neighbor became nothing when China dishonored it and when the succeeding Philippine president never followed up the judicial territorial victory the Philippines have over China.

What makes the story sadder is the fact that the Philippines through its newly elected president loaned from China a gargantuan sum of money with gigantic interest rates, bigger compared to the interest rates from other international groups, agencies or aggregates not to mention the fact that China became the leading investor easily over and above many countries in the Philippines in many business ventures.

THESE FACTS POINT CLEARLY TO ONE THING, China is colonizing the Philippines for free. If many political activists were crying foul as to the colonization of the USA over the Philippines and by the commercial imperialization of the same over the latter when the United States bought the Philippines from the Spaniards, then we must cry harder because CHINA IS COLONIZING THE PHILIPPINES FOR FREE.