‘No investigation, no right to speak’
Credit to Author: The Manila Times| Date: Sat, 15 Jun 2019 16:16:56 +0000
It would pay for a sovereign nation like the Philippines to act more rationally rather than do so based on what its government officials or the general population feel, especially when faced with unexpected bad news three days before the country’s 121st Independence Day, such as the ramming by a Chinese boat of a local fishing vessel in Recto (Reed) Bank off Palawan in the contested South China Sea (West Philippine Sea) last June 9.
Understandably, the incident raised the hackles of Filipino authorities, from President Rodrigo Duterte to lawmakers, and from ordinary folk to netizens — all of whom, however, seemed to have initially lacked the correct information on what really happened in the disputed waters, making them react less logically to a national issue with possibly regional and, perhaps, global consequences.
Practically, Philippine officialdom all but concluded that the foreign boat was Chinese (the Philippine Coast Guard said it was still verifying this bit a few days after the incident, and local authorities also a few days later just took the word of a Filipino fisherman who was on the boat at the time that the foreign boat, indeed, was Chinese, without giving us a clue what its name was), that the local vessel F/B Gemvir 1 sank after being “intentionally” hit by the intruder (the vessel was later reported to have been towed back to shore) and that the 22 crew of the Philippine boat were abandoned after their craft was supposedly rammed (we have yet to hear from the captain and men of the Vietnamese boat that reportedly rescued the Filipinos from certain drowning), among other pieces of the puzzle.
To fit the pieces together, Malacañang should have immediately formed a fact-finding, ad hoc body that could have investigated the unfortunate tragedy, instead of apparently taking stabs in the dark even before information that needed verification were all in.
Even without a Philippine official inquiry into what the Chinese foreign ministry described as “an ordinary maritime traffic accident,” the culprits behind the accident should be summoned by an arbitral international body for abandoning the Filipino crew when the humanitarian response should have been for the foreign seamen to scoop the local crew from the sea.
Again, those behind the battering of the Filipino boat should be made to face sanctions by their government, whether the offenders were on board a private or government vessel.
That President Duterte on Friday, June 14, or five days after the incident, was reported to have elected to be “cautious” — from his initial response on Monday, June 10, when he also was reported to have been “outraged” by the supposed accident — could be a signal for the Philippine officials to calibrate their acts based on available facts.
The Chinese have a saying: “No investigation, no right to speak.”
Philippine officials must have breathed sigh of relief over their apparent good luck that the foreign vessel turned out to be indeed Chinese, as confirmed by reports on Saturday, June 15.
They, however, may not be as fortunate next time, when they would again respond (we hope not) to a highly explosive situation without the proper ammunition at hand.
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