SUMMARY
Apparently alluding to the Ayungin shoal incident where China Coast Guard personnel attacked Filipino soldiers with knives and clubs to prevent them from delivering supplies, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. recently said: “We are not in the business to instigate wars.”
Unfortunately, such statement – sounding so cliché – does not rise to the level of a declaration exuding national consternation. If at all, it was a hackneyed retort that did not produce the sense of illegality that the incident truly exhibited.
What happened in the Ayungin Shoal was an unmistakable manifestation of the intrusive policy of China within Philippine territory. One cannot interpret it in any other way. Let us remember that China has been violating our territorial sovereignty long before this re…