Soundbite

I suspect Joey Salceda’s call for a public boycott of Chinese-made goods was made entirely for political effect.

With our entire officialdom pussyfooting on the Spratlys issue, blowing hot one day and cold the next, Joey just could not resist stepping into the role of bad cop. Somebody just had to do it and the economist-turned-governor is a sucker for making the most controversial statements.

In the dimension of pure political theater, Joey’s boycott call is perfect soundbite. The call crystallizes the frustrations of citizens over the asymmetry of it all: our puny military trying to prevent encroachments by the navy of the rising superpower.

By saying what he did, Joey calls up the nationalist emotions of a by-gone age, long discarded by the realities of globalization. They are naïve emotions, vulnerable to jingoism. They are uncomplicated sentiments, pitting “us” against “them.”

There is still some political juice to be extracted from these sentiments. We saw that in the informal television polls taken: the large majority agrees with Joey.

In circumstance starved for heroism, Joey is the last of the Mohicans. Our nation may be an ant in the jungle of big powers, we may be weak and poorly led, fractious and constantly discombobulated. But, Joey says, we can bite back — even if that may be suicidal.

In the real world of diplomacy and economics, however, Joey’s call for a public boycott of Chinese goods is perfectly insane.

We actually enjoy a trade surplus with China, which is why every businessman resists the idea of a politically-instigated campaign that will mess up our trade relations with the world’s largest consumer market. No one wants to see the escalation of a territorial dispute into a full-scale economic war we can never win.

Nor would anyone want to see an escalation in anti-Chinese rhetoric. Our relation with the regional power is a multi-faceted one. It is, into the long future, the more important bilateral relationship we need to nurture — for our own sake.

Besides, a slide into jingoism will not be healthy for our own communal peace. Under a very thin veneer, racial tensions simmer, based on ignorant prejudices. Remember how, a few years ago, communal tensions erupted in Indonesia that saw rioters burning down properties owned by ethnic Chinese Indonesians. That was not healthy for them. It will not be healthy for us.

Of course, a boycott of Chinese-made goods is impracticable. The goods coming from the world’s industrial powerhouse are embedded into everything we buy: from the rare earth metals in our electronics to the landline sets made by ZTE.

A consumer boycott will eventually constrict our diplomatic room for maneuver. What we urgently need to do now is precisely to enlarge the diplomatic space for dealing with this problem. No one in his right mind believes we can win a shooting war on this issue.

In this region, only the Vietnamese have the gumption, and the means, to send in commandos, assault Chinese garrisons and seize contested islands by force. They did that once before and will probably do it again if the situation deteriorates and diplomacy becomes a futile option. They might do it against our garrisons as well, which is why it is so important to enlarge the diplomatic space.

The most sensible thing said this past week of hysteria was said by Rep. Rodolfo Biazon. He proposes the Philippine government initiate an “Asean plus one” meeting with China on the dispute. The Palace should heed this man instead of doing nothing but tell our citizens to be calm.

Insufficient

After broadcaster Gerry Ortega was shot in Puerto Princesa last January, there seemed to be a hurried, almost concerted, attempt to link former governor Joel Reyes to the crime. There was a well-coordinated effort to vilify Reyes, implicate his brother and even former Marinduque governor Jose Carreon in the dastardly crime.

The contending factions in Palawan politics appeared to have taken hold of the event, dragging people to the mud by innuendo and casting suspicion on the basis of tenuous testimony. Political personalities were seen escorting witnesses and offering their own theories about masterminds and conspiracies.

In addition, ecological politics came into play. The murder was linked, without the slightest evidence, to the on-going local debate about mining in the province. Warranted or not, the murder of Ortega was characterized as the handiwork of mining interests. The anti-mining campaign appropriated Ortega and appointed him a martyr for the cause.

The rule of law, however, had more rigorous requirements for establishing the probability of guilt. Those requirements could not be displaced by unsupported claims, conspiracy theorizing and plain finger-pointing.

After months of reviewing the facts of the case, the DOJ panel cleared former governor Joel Reyes and several other associates dragged in by those who imagined a large conspiracy behind the fatal shooting. The DOJ resolution, released June 8, decided there was insufficient evidence to include Reyes and several others in the indictment. Four men directly involved in the shooting were recommended charged.

In his formal statement after being cleared by state prosecutors, it was Reyes’ turn to speak of a conspiracy to defame him “orchestrated and financed by (his) political opponents.” That conspiracy, continued Reyes, was “for the purpose of destroying (his) political capital in Palawan” so his opponents “may control the resources of the province for their own selfish interests.”

Fighting words. We hope Reyes, for his part, will have sufficient evidence to support his version of what happened.