u/HeavenBreak

This is why we are having lag right now

From BNC -- The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) has been coordinating with relevant government agencies and private telecommunications companies to determine whether a Chinese research vessel capable of cutting subsea cables had operated near critical undersea cable routes off Batanes province.

PCG spokesperson Rear Adm. Jay Tarriela said authorities were pinpointing the exact locations of subsea cables in the area and comparing them with the foreign vessel’s movements after it was spotted about 37 nautical miles off Itbayat town where it stayed for several days before being challenged by PCG personnel.

He said the effort was aimed at determining whether the Chinese research vessel Jiang Hai Ke 7 had operated near any cable infrastructure and whether its presence in the area was related to the cables.

“There are a lot of subsea cables up north that connect the Philippines and other areas. So we would like to believe that the presence of the Chinese research vessel there has something to do with it,” Tarriela said in an interview on Bilyonaryo News Channel’s “At The Forefront” program on Friday.

He said the privately owned vessel had the capability to install and cut subsea cables, making its presence near the Philippines’ undersea cable infrastructure a matter of concern.

Tarriela stressed, however, that authorities still needed to establish whether the vessel’s activities brought it near any of the cable routes.

The PCG earlier deployed the BRP Teresa Magbanua after a Coast Guard aircraft detected the Chinese research vessel during a maritime domain awareness flight.

The PCG later moved to disrupt the unauthorized marine scientific research after determining that the vessel did not have the necessary authorization from the Philippine government.

Tarriela said the BRP Teresa Magbanua remained deployed in the area to ensure that the Chinese research vessel and the China Coast Guard ship accompanying it would leave the Philippine waters.

“As we speak right now, BRP Teresa Magbanua remains to be in the vicinity. We wanted to really make sure that this Chinese research vessel together with her bodyguard 2503 to leave the waters in Batanes,” he said.

Source: https://bnc.bilyonaryo.com/pcg-telcos-map-undersea-cables-after-chinese-vessel-sighting-off-batanes/n

It's getting mainstream now, but it's old news. This has always been how mainlander Chinese people viewed Filipinos. And they're actually being generous at that. If you're familiar with mainlander meta, they actually also call Filipinos "flies" ("苍蝇" - "cangying"). They think we're just insects and vermin.

The PH will definitely continue to be a high-cortisol country in the conceivable future. Meat shield for the United States, punching bag for China, all-you-can-eat cash buffet for local rent-seeker clans. We're surrounded with vultures from within and from without. Predictably, the population will once again be praised for its resilience. The ability to accept exactly how absurd the world is and decide to thrive anyway. But "resilience" is just the polite HR-approved word that a weak state uses to romanticize its own failure to protect its citizens. Wala talaga tayong tunay na kakampi sa mundong ito. We only have one home, and each other. Yet we're being infiltrated by sellouts and traitors who let outsiders disturb our peace here.

What a lot of geopolitical analysts, whether Western or mainland Chinese, do not realize is that we have a robust immune system against colonizers from centuries of humiliation and historical experience, and in our current form we can punch well above our weight class even with limited resources and asymmetric disadvantage. One can even say that we have developed an allergy to any hint of colonization. Heck, it's in our very national anthem.

But our long-running weakness, a chronically fatal one at that, from the time we were first colonized by the Spanish up until now... is that WE ARE OUR OWN ENEMY. Filipinos will readily betray each other, deem their own brethren as inferior compared to other countries, and sell out their land and fellows and their long-term collective future for short-term personal gain.

Compare it to the mainland Chinese who will readily shit (quite literally, besides the figurative meaning) on other nationalities when abroad, but they always have each other's backs. Filipinos are quite the opposite. Polite to foreigners but treat their fellows as inferior, especially their fellows back at home.

A nation can survive diversity, polarization, and varying opinions. That is part of any democracy. "Unity" as peddled by a lot of pundits is a red herring and isn't necessary. What it cannot survive is outright treachery from its own kin. It corrodes a nation from within, making it vulnerable to external attacks and shocks.