Perhaps Filipinos, specially the so-called “influencers” of today’s Opposition camp, need to step back and appreciate the bigger scheme of things surrounding the treatment former Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales recently copped in Hong Kong. There are only two foundation principles at work here: (1) Morales acted as a private citizen when she, together with former Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario, decided to accuse Chinese President Xi Jinping of “crimes against humanity” before the International Criminal Court and (2) she was travelling to Hong Kong — a territory of China — as a private citizen.
Even if those two simple facts fly above the pointed heads of the Philippines’ foremost “thought leaders” there’s an even bigger planetary context to this that they need to comprehend.
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China is neither a democracy nor a signatory to the “Rome Statute” that established the ICC. Neither does China care about the well-being of the Philippines beyond its own national interests. The latter is the most important thing Filipinos need to appreciate. China will only act in its national interests (as the Philippines, too, should). Beyond that, it will only back the interests of other countries if they align with its own. Because China has vast economic, political, and military clout, it can effectively apply that simple premise to its foreign policy.
That Filipinos would rely on a Mickey Mouse “criminal court” such as the ICC is pathetic. The pathetic nature of the position taken by Morales and Del Rosario is readily-evident in the statement they reportedly issued when they filed their complaint with the ICC back in March 2019 where they asserted, “it is only the ICC that can exact accountability on behalf of Filipinos”. Exceedingly pathetic. Filipinos should be ashamed that it has come to this — a dependence on a “court” with no teeth set up by former colonial masters.
For that matter, the Philippines is in no position to negotiate with China. It is dependent on its Hong Kong territory for the livelihood of more than 100,000 of its citizens that its domestic economy is unable to employ. China is also a major destination for Philippine exports and a supplier of vast quantities of imported capital and consumer goods even as the Philippines, for its part, hardly ranks a blip on China’s overall foreign trade radar. Most important of all, the Philippines lacks any significant naval capability to project power over the maritime territory it presumes to claim.
Perhaps, one can argue, China then is acting like a “bully” by mobilising all these tangible advantages to further its strategic objectives. Well now, isn’t that the way the world and life in general works, child?
Even democracy and the world of “fairness” supposedly embodied by Western civilisation was won by swords wielded by brutish grizzled men. No amount of appeal to “fairness” will win Filipinos a prestigious place in the world order. It will certainly not win Filipinos any advantage when going up against China or, for that matter, any country with the national chops to stake a claim of influence over global affairs.
Unfortunately for former Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales, she has been made an illustration of the reality surrounding the Philippines’ place in the world. China does things because it can. So can the Philippines. The only difference is that what the Philippines can do is utterly dwarfed by what China could do in retaliation without breaking a sweat. This is not because of any fault of China — it is because the Philippines, throughout most of its history since being granted “independence” in 1946, focused on all the unimportant things and neglected the truly important stuff — building capability to take care of itself.
Morales’s and Del Rosario’s quaint ICC “project” punctuates that national failure. Filipinos should not expect their government to back Morales in this debacle. Instead, they should leave her to lick her wounds and learn the important lesson in all this. It is high time Filipinos distance themselves from losers and the legacies of this loser mentality that continue to hobble the Philippines’ march to progress.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
As a Filipino, I am torn between standing up for Conchita Carpio-Morales knowing how she dispensed selective justice, in fact, mostly in favor of the Yellows of which she’s one, and applauding Hongkong authorities for giving her a lesson in grounding. Morales had engaged in partisan politics when she shouldn’t have. Her ICC complaint against Chinese President Xi Jinping with another Yellow, Albert del Rosario, was dictated by their canine devotion to the US, which is hell-bent on demonizing the Chinese leader. Sorry to say, but for their age, I have no respect for them.
It’s hard to be sympathetic with somebody who allows herself to be a tool and then acts clueless why she’s marked as a security threat. What’s pitiful is her pretense of patriotism when she aligns with and serves the end that wants to keep PH dependent.
You would think Filipinos of all people – who tend to reach for a bolo before engaging their brains – would understand that the world is ruled by the guy with the biggest bolo.
As for complaining to the ICC about China: I’ve noticed that the average Pinoy thinks the law is something akin to magic. A contract is a magic spell, and a lawyer must sprinkle magic dust on it to make it work. Carpio-Morales seems to be displaying this same naive faith in a system of ideas that she simply doesn’t understand. The Law is based ultimately on the agreed use of State force – so exactly how would the ICC enforce a judgement, in the case of China’s noncompliance?
Now even if the ICC could muster 100,000 armed men from member states to effect an arrest of Xi, they would all simply be sacrificed on the altar of stupidity before the 2M-strong PLA. We’ll just have to forgive Conchita for failing to do her math- even just hypothetically.
“Tsk tsk tsk” is getting to be the standard reaction to Yellow logic/brains.
I wish they’d come up with a movie… “The force vs. the farce” – starring all our favorite Yellow characters. That way they can at least earn some money while making us laugh to make up for Otso’s Humongous loss.
Conchita Morales Carpio is the Bitch of Pnoy Aquino. She is the willing tool of the Aquino Cojuangco political axis. She was a former Justice in the Ombudsman Court in the Philippines.
When she was in office, she looked the other way, while Pnoy Aquino and his corrupt cahoots ransacked the Philippine National Treasury. She was used as political tool of the Aquino Cojuangco political axis to prosecute and jail their political enemies.
It is good that she received that kind of treatment from the Chinese. They should had thrown her into the sea; or took her to their “inodoro” , that she deserved to be taken.
She thinks herself as an important person in the world ? What an idiot, together with her idiotic friend , Del Rosario !
Shame without repentance doesn’t lose power when it is spoken, it only seeks approval.