The friendly Chinese are sea sick, call a spin doctor very quick.
Reli German, a P.R. savvy on top of his game, was once the spin doctor for former President Erap Estrada who caused a kind of historical “eruption” in presidential politics two decades ago or so. He must be shaking his head and brushing his thin moustache that his former client is surprisingly named as the mysterious flippant Philippine official the Chinese didn’t name as the cause of their endless belligerence in the South China Sea or the West Philippine Sea.
There was supposed to be a promise he made to them more than 20 years ago, and still remains a promise. On top of it, there is the so-called nine-dash-line theory that Chinese leaders say tell who owns part of the South China Sea, if not the whole of it.
On this premise, the Chinese Coast Guard recently fired a water cannon on the Philippine Coast Guard crew in the Ayungin Shoal to remind the Philippines of that promise. Their Filipino counterpart continue to deliver supplies to the soldiers at the BRP Sierra Madre in the area, notwithstanding that vow. The Chinese said the Philippines is supposed to have taken out the rickety warship from the area. Enough is enough.
Reli’s client was the man, according to a subsequent outing by a Filipino columnist and former Cabinet member of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The columnist bared that it was Estrada, after a few days of suspense, who made that promise in 1999. Ironically, he was also the one who ordered that the ship be grounded in that area, for one reason or another , security and sovereignty among others.
The logic is in the irony. Estrada’s former defense chief has denied that his former boss is guilty of making that promise. No such thing and no logic, former broadcaster and senator Orly Mercado, said. Why would he, Erap, take out that which he ordered to be put there with soldiers guarding it in the first place? Erap’s two senator-sons, one who is good and the other one, have assailed the uncomfortable revelation, one mumbling a few name-calling tirades against the whistleblower of some sort.
Reli , a top public relations practitioners, or spin doctor, if you will, should , know Erap. He wrote a book, aptly titled “Eraption” about Erap’s jokes, his mangling of the English language. His book helped Erap get elected as improbable president, exploiting Eraps’s negative into positive. Pinoys love the underdog. He must have very well understood Erap’s nuances and body language. That is, his client may say something but means another thing. He’s a perfect combination of an actor and a joker, at times a risky one for a popular politician. Erap must have left a great impression on the Chinese and took him at his word, or his alleged promise.
There are others who knew Erap and his jokes, of course.
At one time, a moro-moro was allegedly staged by the former marquee action star right in Malacanang. One day, so the narrative goes, Estrada summoned a government corporate executive to the Palace. A well-known businessman who wanted to do business in a freeport zone in Central Luzon was in his office, apparently seeking his blessing. Once at the Palace, the actor-president immediately told the executive why he was summoned in not so much details. But the president, the executive remembered, furtively winked mischievously at him a couple of times. He got the message.The intrepid businessman will not land a deal in the much-coveted freeport until the day Estrada was ousted unceremoniously by the Pasig River.
Tough luck for Erap and non-Erap fans. If the great Filipino impersonator, Willie Nepomuceno, were alive today , he would have parodied on a contrived scene between Estrada and the Chinese discussing the Ayungin issue and where everyone misunderstood each other. Willie, with a pompadour hairstyle to complete his imitation,would have ended the current brouhaha about an old vow in a funny way.
As in a theatric performance, either the nuances or the translations got in the way of truth. And the fact that there is no written document to that effect renders the alleged promise a simply hearsay or ,worse , just another Chinese invention to justify their aggressive actions in the SCS or WPS. That is the latest word from the top honcho at the foreign affairs turf.
So much for moro-moro.
The President, the man of hour, has decided to cut to the chase. He has his local version of the Camelot intact so far , and he will not allow a partisan journo or his camp, to spoil the fun and fantasy. There is no such promise, and if ever there was ever one, he now rescinds it. He says it, that should settle it. He’s consistent: under his wings, not an inch of Philippine territory will b e taken away, not even a rusting dead ship in the water.
At the very least the revelation that the “bad” boy was Erap, cleared the other three former presidents: GMA, Duterte and Pinoy. The first two were suspects because of their coziness to the Chinese – she of the aborted NBN ZTE deal, he of the slavish deference to China’s strong man. The revelation is quite a revelation in itself.
The barely unseen hand is that China may be sneaking into Philippine politics in more ways than one than just the sea dispute issue. In a confidential Cabinet memorandum submitted to Pinoy once , purportedly surfacing now in relation to the alleged promise, the main thing was the main thing: : the Ayungin Shoal is part of the Philippine territory, before and after the Chinese wanted a code of conduct that they honor in the breach since, not the alleged claim of a promise unfulfilled.
Tbe popular sentiment now is that some people obviously need their heads for examination , not just their sense of patriotism and partisanship, which only makes the devil or his minions laughing. Sen. Chiz Escudero has a wise , short and simple advice: the alleged promise is now irrelevant after all has been said and done.
