It came as no surprise when the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) caught a Chinese national and two Filipinos for allegedly spying and surveilling various military sites in the country as well vital and power installations and
critical infrastructures for the country’s defense and security. What comes as a surprise is how long it took for the government to realize that China for the past several years have been conducting spying operations in our country.
We all know that once in a while the government is able to apprehend a Chinese national, sometimes with their Filipino cohorts, for alleged espionage activities in the country. But truth to tell there might be lot of them already here in the Philippines, both legally and illegally, serving the desires of their masters in China by gathering vital information, conducting surveillance, as well as reconnaissance operations to the detriment of our national defense and our Republic.
We have to remind ourselves of the stark reality that our defense sector is not that fully equipped to be at par with the spying prowess of China and we can only rely on luck or the information shared by other states such as the US to uncover the spying shenanigans of the Chinese government of our critical and vital infrastructures.
If we are to go by the report of the Armed Forces of the Philippines that some of the areas surveilled by the arrested alleged Chinese spy and his Filipino cohorts are those areas selected for the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) between the Philippine and US armed forces then in all probability these are all part of the preparations for a much bigger plan or strategy aimed at some future military action by China to eventually make good its promise of invading its alleged wayward province, Taiwan or what is officially called the Republic of China (ROC).
And if the Chinese are now gathering information about the EDCA sites their Human Intelligence or HUMINT then we can be sure that the Americans had a hand in either providing information or intelligence data that led to the capture of the alleged Chinese spy and his accomplices. What we can be sure of right now is there are more of these Chinese spies roaming and going about their nefarious business of spying for their government and so our government must be on their toes to thwart these cold war tactics being employed by China.
If government authorities were able to arrest or capture several Chinese spies over the years then you can be sure that for every one Chinese spy caught there might be ten or twenty other Chinese spies roaming the provinces or cities containing vital military sites, defense structures and power installations and gathering information on these sites and relaying this back to their Chinese government.
Now on the part of China they have already called out the Philippines for alleged shadow chasing and spreading reports of an alleged Chinese spy apprehended in Manila for espionage activities. But whatever their denials there is
no avoiding the fact that they have been treating us as an inconsequential state with no capability whatsoever to
counter their threats and actions. And so the only way to tell them that we will not take what they are doing sitting
down is to make sure that we catch more of these so called Chinese spies, bring them to court and punish them with
lengthy prison sentences.
For proactive measures the Philippine government, with the help of the US and other allies with established defense pacts, can start developing islands in the Western Philippine Sea (South China Sea) that it has claimed and has some measure of control. This is what China and Vietnam are doing with the islands, reefs and atolls they have claimed in the Western Philippine Sea. We can do no less.
We can start by refurbishing the antiquated ship marooned at the 2nd Thomas shoal in the Spratly islands and fortifying these by putting additional navy personnel to man the outpost. On the lighter side we can even conduct guided tourist visits to the marooned ship to show the world how one rusty old bucket of a ship and a handful of Filipino marine soldiers are standing their ground and challenging the might of China the bully.
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