A Philippine lagoon now invaded by Communist China

There was a 1980 movie that was set in an “idyllic lagoon” somewhere in the Pacific. According to the Internet, it was based on a 1908 novel written by Henry De Verde Stackpoole and so it was titled The Blue Lagoon, starring Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins. Written somewhere was a view of an unidentified someone describing the role of Brooke Shields as “Sexualized Innocence.” Honestly though, I do not know what that someone might have meant because I did not watch the film myself. It was not my genre. In fact, a movie critic named Roger Ebert, called it “the dumbest movie of the year” even if, interestingly, the film was a box office success.

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines a lagoon as shallow sound, channel, or pond near or communicating with a larger body of water. If I described above the lagoon in the movie to be idyllic, I could equate it to Bajo de Masinloc. Father Joaquin Bernas, the eminent Constitutionalist, referred the Spanish word “bajo” as the adverb “under or below” and so he meant under or below Masinloc, the name of a town in Zambales. But, another opinion took “bajo” as a nuon to mean “a shoal or shallows” and so Bajo de Masinloc should be taken to refer to the “shoal or shallows of Masinloc.” I came to learn that explorer Alejandro Malaspina, in his Philippine expedition of 1792-1793, sailed to and around the “Baxo de Masinloc,” as he named it on a map published in 1808 in Madrid. The name “Bajo de Masinloc” is also carried on and printed in other maps, as early as Fr. José Algué’s map of 1899-1900.

Whether it is to mean “under or below” or “shoal or shallows” of Masinloc, the area is so idyllic as to make Communist China, hiding under a more acceptable term Peoples’ Republic of China, obsess for it. Proof an ABS-CBN news report mentioned that Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief of staff General Romeo Brawner Jr. on Monday confirmed that a moving structure was found inside the lagoon of Bajo de Masinloc or Scarborough Shoal in the West Philippine Sea. According to Brawner, the structure measured approximately six meters by six meters and was seen carrying six individuals. Brawner said the structure appears to be the same object earlier seen in satellite imagery shared online by SeaLight director and maritime expert Ray Powell.

In its updated news of two days ago, ABS-CBN reported that “the Philippines has filed a formal protest with China over a "floating structure" spotted near the disputed Bajo de Masinloc. We do remember that Beijing revealed plans to create a "nature reserve" at the Bajo, which Scarborough, which former national security adviser Eduardo Año, described as a "clear pretext towards eventual occupation."

Here lies our problem. We, Filipinos, have not as yet matched the Chinese obsession of the West Philippine Sea (WPS). We do not seem to savor nor protect the 2016 ruling that the WPS is within the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone and that the Chinese 9-line is without legal basis. In fact, some of our own senators are perceived to favor China’s aggressive invasion and occupation on some parts of the WPS. I do not want to identify them without being accused of politicizing this truly politicized issue.

Let me sound again what we ordinary citizens can do to fight China’s expansionist moves by looking at the reality that we ourselves are helping fund the Chinese in this illegal adventurism. Imagine that in March 2026, we imported from China goods worth $5.14B and we exported to China worth $2.19B. We assume that part of the trade imbalance of $2.96B helped finance the Chinese maritime assets violating our territorial sovereignty. I propose that we adopt BOYCOTT CHINA PRODUCTS policy!