Lim Ahong relived

Scanty historical accounts described Lim Ahong simply as a Chinese pirate. But in my father’s hometown in Southern Leyte, where I spent my first two high school years six decades ago, legendary tales painted him as vicious and brutal. Such information though could, at best, be sketchy. But here is a recorded fact. After Lim Ahong brutally attacked the newly-established Spanish settlement in Manila in 1574, Spanish historian Gaspar de San Agustin dubbed him a ruthless "corsair" and enemy of the Crown. I feel it is relevant to write here that from the internet I further learned that Lim Ahong was born in Guangdong province in China about 800 to 1,000 kilometers north of the West Philippine Sea.

I remember the tales of viciousness and brutality of Chinese pirate Lim Ahong because another somewhat similar senseless attack took place only last July 20 at Ayungin Shoal well inside the West Philippine Sea. The attackers were also Chinese and what made the scene more despicable was that they were not pirates but men in uniform!

We must remember that the Ayungin Shoal is part of Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). This was so decided by the Permanent Court of Arbitration on July 12, 2016, 10 years ago. If piracy, as we know it, is a criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon a coastal area, the incursion by the Chinese coast guard into our territorial sovereignty could likewise be considered as piratical. They might not have taken any material thing of value but when the illegally intruding Chinese coast guard hit the head of his Filipino counterpart with a deadly pole, the blood that oozed out of the injured head of our countrymen represented something more valuable than gold. In that context, the Chinese were as much pirates as Lim Ahong.

What makes Communist China audacious and bold in violating our territorial sovereignty and in doing piracy-like acts? It is our apparent loss of national self-respect. The Chinese know that we are a fragmented nation. We had a former president in Rodrigo Duterte who expressed his sentiment favoring that our country be annexed as a province of a godless China. We have supposedly-honorable members of our Senate, who, by their deafening silence on the Chinese intrusion into our EEZ, are perceived to have derisively become Tsinadors. There are our Filipino economic elite brethren who, exemplified by their rush to buy BYD cars, use their financial power to support China’s maritime violation into our land. We do not acknowledge the fact that the Philippine-China trade imbalance, reported be at $8 billion against $24 billion, in China’s favor, actually helps feed Chinese coast guards while illegally patrolling in Philippine seas.

I have reason to believe that China knows that we have written in our Constitution the principle that we renounce war as an instrument of national policy. So they rely on the thought that no matter what acts of territorial transgressions they do against us, we cannot declare war against them. But we too, have constitutionally adopted the generally-accepted principles of international law as part of the law of the land. Technically speaking, Communist China has already waged an undeclared war against the Philippines. Dr. Jovito Salonga said that “war commences upon the commission of an act of force by one party done animo belligerendi.” So if the act of the Chinese coast guard of assaulting our coast guard personnel at Ayungin Shoal on July 20 was not like Lim Ahong’s piracy, it was done animo belligerendi, that will justify our resort to physical self-defense in addition to the numerous diplomatic protests we have been lodging.