Venerable

It was a gallant act. Late last week, the venerable Rajah Humabon lifted anchors and set sail for the open sea far away from the safety of its berth.

Rajah Humabon hardly qualifies as a warship. It is a large armed patrol boat we acquired at a friendly bargain price. The WWII-vintage ship is the proud flagship of our proud Navy.

The vessel has a long history of diligent service, first with the US Navy and then with the Japanese Self-Defense Force. If this ship were a person, it should have been retired. But the ship is not a person: so Rajah Humabon plod on.

I heard one radio commentator wryly quip that this is the best vessel to send out to the contested Spratly islands: it is an experienced ship. That is true. It is also the icon of how our many domestic troubles prevented us from spending enough for protecting our marine boundaries.

As Rajah Humabon sails out for, literally, stormy waters and into unfamiliar blue ocean duty, we can only wish it a happy and safe voyage. I recall that many decades ago, the Philippine Navy actually had a destroyer. That real warship sunk during a typhoon — and since then we significantly toned down our rhetoric about Sabah.

It is probably coincidental that Rajah Humabon sailed out to the West Philippine Sea as China announced that its biggest merchant marine vessel will pass by the area. At least that is our official line. Unless that official version is accepted hook, line and sinker, we will appear to be escalating tensions in the contested islands by sending out a Navy vessel to eyeball an unarmed but humungous “research” vessel.

If our flagship, Heaven forbid, is taken down by the storm or “accidentally” rammed by the large Chinese “research” vessel, there will be huge embarrassment in store.

Just as Rajah Humabon left port, the President announced that P40 billion will be made available over the next five years to modernize our armed forces. Again, that statement happens only coincidentally with the fielding of our flagship to the contested islands and the spiraling tensions with China.

Unless we uphold the official version, it will appear like we were challenging China to a mini arms race in that small sea we share. We do not want to precipitate such a thing, of course. China will soon become the world’s biggest economy while we wallow in the unenviable position of the Asian economy that failed or the “tiger economy” that could not growl. We can ill afford an arms race on any scale.

P40 billion might seem like a large amount of money. That is, of course, exactly what we need to close the classroom gap our kids are now enduring. But that is hardly enough to buy a respectable fighting vessel.

Fortunately, we are not about to squander that money on the naval version of a Porsche, one that could be sunk by any old missile.

Rep. Pong Biazon, the wise old soldier who heads the House defense committee, was quick to dispel any indecent proposals about how the money ought to be spent. Whatever new money becomes available for defense modernization, he said, must be spent on improving our capacity to terminate the age-old rebellions that have sapped our military needlessly.

As for the Spratlys, says Biazon, let diplomacy do all the work. Amen.

MacArthuresque

I am not sure if this is an occasion for cheers or for jeers.

Today, controversial assistant secretary Virginia Torres returns to the LTO after ending her voluntary leave of absence (which the President interprets as just penance for her sins). I hope she does not aggrandize the moment by arriving at the anxious compound wearing aviator glasses and sporting a corncob pipe.

Even if she does, it will not be unwarranted. She held on to the inevitability of this moment of return with great conviction.

When her erstwhile superior, Sec. Ping de Jesus ordered her to do certain things, she defied every instruction. When her mother agency, the DOTC, wanted her disciplined for insubordination, she laughed them all off, saying she was a presidential appointee.

When, on orders of the Palace, the DOJ organized panel hearings on her questionable behavior, Torres snubbed all of them and did not even bother to explain herself. When the DOJ recommendation to have her penalized and dismissed found its way to the papers, Torres snapped at Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, taking the Cabinet member to task for “leaking” a report that Torres downgraded as merely “recommendatory.”

She has the attitude of a pug; and, like all pugs, respects no rank. Let’s see if Sec. de Lima will let this pass by retreating quietly to her cubby hole.

When Mar Roxas went to the DOTC to be briefed about the agency, outgoing Sec. Ping de Jesus warned his successor about the many “challenges” he will face. He likewise impressed upon his successor that the contract with Stradcom is a valid one and government is obligated to honor it.

Sec. Ping is such a gentleman, although few doubt that high among those “challenges” is the insubordinate Virginia Torres and the precariousness to which she has pushed the operations of the agency she heads.

Even ahead of the formal handover of the DOTC, Torres is now Mar’s problem because this is a political question and no longer an administrative one. Good luck with that, Mar. You might now feel like an Eisenhower dealing with your own MacArthur.