Xi is packing a storm for Mindanao

Two weather disturbances are coming to the Philippines this week. Tropical Depression Samuel and China’s Prime Minister Xi Jinping.

Samuel may have swept Caraga, Northern Mindanao, and Eastern Visayas with strong winds and rain. Xi may have stormed his way into Malacañang with billions of loans for Build-Build-Build. I hope the president is not caught power napping.

Take note, these are loans. You can’t give anything for free, just ask any Chinoy businessman around the corner.

How Malacañang welcomed Prime Minister Xi, the investments and loans they bring stands in contrast to what happened to Chinese-Filipino migrants decades ago.

I remember this story that my late auntie and uncle lost their bugasan store sometime between the late 1950s or early 1960s. That time, the government had a “nationalist protectionist” policy that shut down Chinese owned stores.

In retrospect, such “patriotic” policies did not break the monopoly of American companies and plantations’ hold in our country such as Del Monte, Dole and others. The fact is, the Filipino-Chinese business community have served as vital cogs in the local economy as local traders.

It’s not easy to grow up as a Chinoy. There’s stereotypes, there’s othering and discrimination. But through the years, the Chinoy community has assimilated into the Filipino community. Chinese schools have fewer Chinese subjects. Chinoys of this generation have gone more into mainstream professional jobs.

For that, there’s ambivalence on how we welcome Xi, China and their big investments. It seems the Filipino-Chinese trade is lost too with the flood of Mainland China’s surplus of cellphones, plastic-wares, and capital investments. How do we survive another wave of assimilation and identity?

Also lost amidst this government’s euphoria in China is that November 20 is International Children’s Day. The Philippine government signed the 1990 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), and has passed 33 laws and six development frameworks worked for the Filipino child.

The Save Our Schools Network though, reminds government that the current political climate of Martial Law has violated many of such laws they signed. Around 22,000 students in Marawi have been affected with

the destruction of schools and homes. More than 3,000 Lumad children are displaced with 60 Lumad schools forcibly closed.

Much of government’s Build-Build-Build program for highways in Lumad areas, hydro-electric plants like in Pulangi, and the Marawi rehab are cornered by China to the tune of nearly half of the P738 billion flagship programs, as according to Bayan Muna’s Neri Colmenares.

There is so much welcome for China’s loans and investments, but are the Lumad and Moro welcoming such “development” at the expense of their land and identity?#