EDITORIAL
A creeping and stealth invasion
“A creeping invasion” is how former Senior Associate Justice Antonio T. Carpio described the presence of Chinese naval vessels in our sovereign waters. Carpio warns about a subtle and insidious mode of conquest that could undermine Philippine sovereignty in the long term.
It is worrisome for an archipelagic state whose fisherfolks experienced harassment in its exclusive economic zone. Carpio correctly describes China’s presence in the West Philippine Sea as a creeping invasion. As tension escalates in that disputed part of our territory, we hope both countries and all those interested in this international dispute will soon agree to resolve this issue. While the Philippines has won the arbitration case against China, enforcement of the arbitral award remains elusive for the Philippines. The worst that Filipinos fear, and God forbids this to happen, is for China to wage war against us and invade our territory.
However, another kind of invasion has stealthily happened within the Philippine government and the bureaucracy. Sadly, this kind of invasion is with the aid of some corrupt officials in the government who sold our sovereignty to aliens.
Triggered by the Senate investigation into Mayor Alice Guo, the NBI uncovered that some 1,200 foreigners believed to be Chinese were able to obtain Philippine birth certificates through late birth registration in the Davao del Sur town of Sta. Cruz since 2016. This is just the tip of the iceberg, as the NBI continues to uncover several other fraudulent late birth registrations in different cities and municipalities.
Once a foreign national obtains his birth certificate as a Filipino citizen, it opens all the opportunity to seize government powers by running for public office to accommodate devious foreign interests to the disadvantage of the Filipino people. Senator Loren Legarda is on point in raising the alarm bells that this is a national security issue. While we tried our best to defend our national territory using our meager resources, we must exhaust all possible means to plug the loopholes in our system. Otherwise, we will wake up one day being treated as aliens in our own land.