Confucius and the inevitability of rape

“IF rape is inevitable, lie back and enjoy it.” When my longtime and valued friend, Foreign Affairs Secretary Raul Manglapus, said it, he got trashed- talk all over the place. In fact, I had heard it often before, from various sources. Indeed, my ultimate source is Confucius ( born 551 B. C.?), from China, a country of very smart and shrewd people.

Napoleon was right, when the sleeping giant ( China) awoke, the world would tremble. We are trembling now, aren’t we? Or “lying supinely on our backs”— in the words of Patrick Henry in his 1775 “give me liberty or give me death ! “speech ( Prof. IpeDiño made us memorize and recite it as freshmen in San Beda). Ready to be China’s 24th province? China has effectively and subtly taken over the disputed isles in the West Philippine Sea. The administration falls all over itself in rationalizing and speaking for China, which cleverly lets its local arguably caponized spokesmen do all the work. The new twist is presidential spokesman Harry Roque now playing the blame game and trashing PNoy, who has been out of power for 20 months. Assuming softie PNoy were to account, when rape first was first attempted, he resisted by going to an arbitral tribunal, where my pal, Paul Reichler, who attended Harvard and trained in Arnold & Porter, as I had done earlier, won. He had also beaten in the World Court his own native USA, for Nicaragua, which ruling the former ignored until there was a regime change years later, when a Violet Chamorro took over. I am verifying whether some settlement was reached. ( Paul and I had worked together , in another matter, for our government.)

What have toughies Digong and Harry done? Jetski? Lie back and enjoy being deflowered? Or as fair Laetitia did, prevent being raped by Fireblood by giving her timely consent? Again and again, the new regime has consented.

PNoy and Digong have Chinese blood. And so does Cardinal Tagle. And so did Cardinal Sin and Rizal. And how many of us can really say we do not have a smidgen of it? Are we ripe and ready to be super- bully China’s 24th province? Digong and his advisers had better reassure us that it ain’t so in the same manner that we are leery of being America’s last plantation. But, the administration dissembles, not only as to China.

Digong now says he is for a “hybrid” form of government, whatever that means. A hybrid government for a mongrelized nation? But every dog, it is said, has its day.Will we?

Last Saturday, it was Lions day, and night, in Mendiola as Bedans came home, from all over. When I came in early that evening certain senior alums onstage belted out the rousing sing- able “The Red and The White,” the origin of which I have not been able to trace and which has since been discarded in the NCAA, sadly.

At 78, last August, I, a Leo, seemed to have been the oldest alum among those who attended the Mendiola reunion, now in our second adolescence. OK, older was Fr. Benildus Maramba, OSB— which we used to say stood for Order of Society Boys, party animals; he is my first cousin- in- law, who quickly gave me another rosario on first contact. Other alums may have left early when the night was still young, mayhap to be with their lovely Rosarios elsewhere.

Ancient drug problem

This week, our paper carried pages from the past on the drug ( opium) problem in the Philippines in the 1930s when our Guv- Gen was Chester Davis ( the famed and coveted Davis Cup in tennis was named after him; in 1900). At this time, we note how ancient the drug problem is and there are reports on how vicious Fentanyl could be. Prez Digong acknowledges using it as a painkiller. It is also a people- killer. See “Fentanyl kills 16 in English city,” ( February 5, 2018, p. 15). So careful, Mr. Prez, we wish you well and pray that you change in some ways, and succeed, “for our good and the good of all His church [ our people]”.

The of February 3, 1930, on page 1 ( page or blast from the past), as reprinted here last Saturday, recounted that a League of Nations Opium Mission arrived that morning, to “interfere,” what else? The body was composed of two Swedes, a Belgian, a Czech and a Brit. The party was met on board by a PC colonel, who did not denounce the interference, and in fact brought the party to Malacañang. Today, Digong and Bato de la Rosa would tell a similar mission where to go. Not to China, where shabu ( worth billions) apparently continues to come, through our porous shorelines.

Guv-Gen Davis placed at the visitors’ disposal the government’s facilities for assistance.It had been formed at the instance