Insanity, so the oft-quoted other definition says, is doing the same thing and expecting to get different result. It’s lazy logic or simple unthinking.
When he was still a pro-China president, as opposed to being a pro-China civilian now, Rodrigo Duterte was the unlikely drumbeater for the alleged high intelligence and friendliness of the Chinese or Chinese leaders. In fairness, he didn’t compare the Filipinos’ giftedness, or the lack of it, in that regard.
When he was MMDA chairman, the late Bayani Fernando at times told media friends that foreign engineers—he did not mention from what countries—are only slightly better, using two fingers to demonstrate the small gap in between, than Filipino engineers. It was a self-deprecating observation given that he was an engineer. His fatal fall recently from the rooftop somehow proved his point. What was a 77-year old doing at the rooftop than defying sanity or testing gravity?
For the longest time, China has been trying to provoke the Filipinos capacity along the Duterte line that runs parallel to the fictitious nine-dash-line of the hegemonic bully in the South China Sea. And for the longest time, the Philippines has been relying on the same strategy— to no avail. Every diplomatic protest sent to China in response to its clear violation of Philippine sovereignty in the SCS is treated like it was an offering of “bwisit” which, according to a Tsinoy friend, means “ nothing” as opposed to “pansit” which means the opposite.
The latest of these illegal maneuvers was a hit- and – run involving a Chinese Coast Guard ship and a deputized civilian motorboat that was on its resupply mission to the Sierra Madre ship in the Ayungin shoal. On the Philippine side, it was an accident waiting to happen. On then China side, it was an accident designed to happen. It’s a distinction with a difference. The difference is logic.
The accident was not of the Black Swan problem; it was not the white variety. According to Nassim Nicholas Taleb, in his book “The black Swan”, people in the so-called Old World believed that all swans were white until a black one emerged on the scene. Taleb said what is referred to as the Black Swan has three categories: namely 1} it is an outlier and lies outside the realm of regular expectations, 2) carries an extreme impact 3) some explanations are invented for its occurrence.
Obviously, the hit-and-run incident was no black swan. We have already lost count of just how many such illegal maneuvers were made by Chinese vessels and, luckily, no hit on any Philippine vessel happped. Not this time. The law of averages has caught up with China.
The hitting incident is microcosm in concept with the latest conflict between Israel and Gaza.Jews knew from time immemorial that the Palestines or the Hamas group from Gaza are out to wipe them off from the face of the earth. It’s black -and -white and –red in history- The admission of intelligence failure by Israel and some Western countries proved the absence of a Black Swan logic. Sure, they expected the usual hit-and-run forays by the enemies, but not that one that has been view as a pre-civilization and barbaric attack that made previous incidents paled in comparison.
“I am as mad as hell,” said the actor Peter Finch in the movie “Network” I can’t take anymore. Jews from everywhere are in that state of mind. And the world is worried that the tit-for-tat will end up in a disproportionate response that may, accidentally, involved other countries on the basis of ideology. “Consider that many black swans can be exacerbated by their being unexpected”, Taleb warned.
In “The Merchant of Venice” by William Shakespeare, the Jewish moneylender Shylock demanded justice and wanted his pound of flesh from his debtor, Antonio, and some perceived Christian machination.
Shylock argued his case before Portia, the judge: If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison do we not die? If you wrong us, shall we not revenge? Portia understood Shylock’s point when he rested his case. A pound of flesh is granted shylock on one and one condition alone: not a drop of blood should be shed or Shylock will die. The vengeful Jew settled for a win-win solution.
The Portia solution cannot solve the Israel-Hamas conflict given the modern technology employed/deployed in modern warfare and its barbaric, uncivilized tendencies of blood-shedding.
Hopefully. the Chinese leaders have read Shakespeare. Because, Defense Secretary GiboTeodoro is” as mad as hell and can’t take it anymore”. Translation: a serious escalation. A shift in logic is needed. The Chinese, in accordance with Duterte’s logic, must be thinking Philippine leaders are like the proverbial frogs in the kettle. The stove is imperceptibly being heated slowly it’s too late when they realized their being cooked alive.
Hopefully, too, Philippine leaders headed by President Marcos, who met recent the country’s national security team, will come up with something more effective in stopping China’s dangerous trend in the SCS or the West Philippine Sea, or consider its more serious consequences. The American historian Victor Davis Hanson argued that the enemies of the US such as Russia, China and Iran were more fearful of former President Donald Trump than President Joe Biden because the former was unpredictable. The war between Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Hamas, and China’s current aggressive moves are the offshoots of that perception.
There have been various suggestions to make a more drastic move against China’s bullying tendency in the SCS. There is one that calls for kicking out the Chinese ambassador to Manila back to Beijing. There is another that calls for bringing the matter up to the United Nations. Filing the usual, run-of-mill diplomatic protest to China every time it misbehaves obviously doesn’t work in an ancient mindset that repudiates the rules-based order.
It’s time to think out-of-the box or be less predictable.
