I don’t know about others, but it’s the man’s fascination and flirtation with China, among his other disturbing tendencies, that scares me most. I tremble at the prospect of waking up one day a subject of China.

Could that have been, after all, the whole point of this presidency?

I have absolutely nothing against our local Chinese. I’m fond of everything Chinese, from their food to their culture. Some of my closest friends are Chinese-Filipino; my own paternal lola was of Chinese blood, from Binondo.

But the streamer on the pedestrian bridge around Ortigas declaring us a province of China—that’s another thing altogether. It sent shivers up my spine, recalling prewar stories told me.

In particular, I mean stories about some Japanese surreptitiously coming to our shores and settling as gardeners or cooks or street peddlers and peeling off their disguises and changing into military uniforms when war finally broke out: They were in fact spies!

I can’t help becoming alarmed, therefore, seeing in our midst more and more Chinese, mostly young and too numerous for comfort, occupying condominiums including this old, modest one we live in, built in the ’70s, only eight stories high, unlike the newer ones that shoot up three, four, or five times higher.

These new invaders arrive in groups, with readymade jobs, mostly in call centers for Chinese companies.

They exhibit social behavior that leaves much to be desired.

Some condominium associations have succeeded in keeping their likes as undesirable tenants, and others are trying to do the same, nothing easy to do in the face of the temptation of beyond-market profits.

Public parks

Lately in public parks near our home, I’ve noticed Chinese grandmothers who speak no English hovering over toddlers, their grandchildren, I suppose. They have no interest in making friends or being the least bit sociable, which I thought unusual for grandmothers. Some live in our village, Legazpi, taking up yaya duties, I imagine, for their children and their spouses while they’re out at work.

According to friends in real estate, the newly arrived Chinese are a growing market and even those who buy units pay cash. A new Chinese restaurant has sprouted in our area, with Filipino waitresses, but their cooks and owners speak no English, only Chinese.

I wouldn’t be so afraid if our government did not seem so complacent about this invasion. Even the Chinese military is able to come and go undisturbed, landing planes and docking ships wherever they please, not to mention taking over our own waters and driving off our own poor fisher folk. If we so much as a squeaked to object, we are warned, we would be starting a war we cannot win.

Where do we draw the line, then? Is there nothing worth fighting for anymore?

Does this government even care that the polls clearly indicate we Filipinos want to make a stand for our sovereignty over those waters? The polls also are clear we are against charter change and federalism.

Apparently, the government has use for polls only when the polls suit it.

Mad rush

Thus, the mad rush, too, to change the Constitution to allow a shift to federalism. Further treason is risked just so that some officials could extend their terms to sawa, thinking kowtowing to China trumps accountability.

We’ve seen what happened to other countries who bought China’s advice to build, build, build and have ended up drowning in Chinese debt— while their leaders swim happily in kickbacks. Federalism, if we get there at all, promises to be a bad omelet that cannot be unscrambled!

If we’re not being led to hell, I don’t know where we’re being led to that is not comparable. As the former Chief Justice Hilario Davide himself has warned, “The leap to federalism is a leap to hell!”

Hell can be many things to many people. To me it is right now a Philippines dominated by the Chinese, in which we are turned into lower-class citizens in our own country and a godless society.

When we didn’t stand up for God when the man called Him “stupid” we may have already begun our own trip to hell.