EDITORIAL - Send in the warships

While Filipinos were busy demonizing Janet Napoles, the Chinese were merrily plunking concrete blocks on Scarborough Shoal, in preparation for the construction of more permanent structures. And nobody even knew about it until defense officials were grilled in Congress over, of all things, their budget.

Pressed on the situation, the officials replied there was nothing the Philippines can do about it. But isn't that odd? Haven't we just acquired two "warships" -- the BRP Gregorio del Pilar and the BRP Ramon Alcaraz that, going by the definition of warships, are meant precisely for such a situation?

Not that we should now go to war, God forbid. But isn't this precisely the best time to validate the "warship" notion that a media that was either overly cooperative or grossly ignorant spared no opportunity in heralding their arrival?

So where are our two "warships." What are they doing? The enemy is at the gates, so to speak, begging for some kind of reaction, yet our "warships" are nowhere to be found. Are they just getting snuck up in some safe harbor to bask in the glory of name only?

The Philippine Navy, having unilaterally claimed that the Del Pilar and the Alcaraz (an official went to the extent of writing to a newspaper to make the insistence) are in fact "warships" simply because they are armed, should not now demean its own self by relegating the ships to law enforcement duties.

To be sure, the two ships are in fact cutters, previously of the United States Coast Guard, and built primarily for law enforcement duties. But since getting recalled from the mothball vat and renamed, we have insisted on their being what they are not -- warships.

But now, having each been insistently branded a "warship," the call of the day is for them to embark on a mission as one. They can go to the Scarborough Shoal and just sail around. They don't have to engage China or any of its ships in a stupidity.

But responding to the threat, even if just to eyeball the enemy, should restore dignity to these ships whose capabilities have been misappropriated in the name of false pride. The Del Pilar and the Alcaraz should patrol the edges of our borders.