A first sanction

One lesson I learned in law school, decades ago, dwelt more in numbers than in substantive law. The lesson is still vivid in my mind that I can recall it as if it happened only yesterday. A professor called my attention to my answer sheet in a given examination. Following the words to introduce my answer to the last item of the test I wrote "first" to enumerate my reasons. But, after few sentences that constituted my answer, time ran out. I could not anymore put the "second" and the "third" reasons. In our talk with my teacher, he told me that he had to deduct few points from my total score because something was missing. He said he did not discern what really was absent but for sure I failed to write at least, the "second" whatever.

I remember that lesson while watching news on television, the other day. While the world report was unfolding, there was a story line that was flashed on the bottom part of the screen. It was about the perceived Hong Kong sanction against our country for our failure to apologize to the Chinese victims of the bungled rescue attempt of the hostage-taking three years ago.

I do not know whatever specifically triggered His Excellency, President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III, to blubber about Hitler in relation to a Chinese action, for which the president is now practically the man on spot. It may be about the apparent expansionist move of this superpower. But, if the president drew a parallelism of Hitler and China because of the same story line that I saw on tv screen the other day, our president has good basis to make that comparison even if he has to speak in undiplomatic terms. Why?

Let us not forget that Great Britain, which held Hong Kong under its protectorate, already returned the control and administration of this island to the People's Republic of China. In simple language, Hong Kong is a part of China. Any pronouncement its high officials say is presumed to carry the authority of the leadership of mainland China.

So, if the Hong Kong officials expressed in unmistakable language that the revocation of the visa-free privileges of Filipino diplomatic officers is only the "first" sanction, there must be forthcoming a "second", a "third" or maybe many more sanctions. The reaction of our president may not admittedly be in its most exquisite language but it is the undeniably coming from the heart of a leader pained by a flux of events he is not in control of.

When, coincidentally, I first wrote on this topic last week, (certainly before our president's parlay to Hitler), I mentioned that our people should be united in the face of the Chinese display of apparent haughtiness. To my greatest surprise, the few suggestions I got were all focused on a specific thing we can do our own as a people and without involving our government. The emphasis is our individual though collective commitment. Those reactors took into consideration our obvious incapacity to meet the Chinese tantrums.

The only thing we can do to express our indignation is not really new. The late President Carlos P. Garcia expressed it in a most nationalistic way. He called it the "Filipino First Policy."

In simple terms, Pres. Garcia urged his countrymen to buy things made by Filipinos. Patronizing Filipino products would not only promote Filipino producers, it would save the country's dollar reserves.

What is happening today is that we buy "Made in China" things. Of course, this is because there are no more competitive products "Made in the Philippines." It may be true that this issue is really like the chicken-and-egg configuration, but if we put in our minds a full resolve to buy only Filipino, (and reject everything made in China), it may have a weight to counter the sanction of Hong Kong against us such that it if was the "first", Hong Kong officials may no longer make a "second" or a "third" sanction.