Dispatch from Crame No. 726:
Sen. Leila M. de Lima's Statement on the AFP's Acquiescence and the People's Capitulation to Treason

2/28/2020

The Filipino people must act before treason becomes capitulation. Let me explain.

Duterte says that if we cannot be capable in defending our country, we should choose either to be a US territory or a province of China. However, it is clear that he has already chosen for us, and his choice is for us to be a province of China.

It is astounding how the most treasonous of statements coming from the President himself can be made on national media without the Malacanang-payrolled AFP brass batting an eyelash. Maybe counting all those millions of monthly payola disbursed by Bong Go has kept them so busy to be bothered even to show the slightest of reactions.

But Duterte's policy of subservience and surrender to China, without China having to fire a single shot, is HIGH TREASON, plain and simple. We do not need our AFP generals to tell us that. The generals not telling us that Duterte's actions smack of treason does not make said actions any less treasonous, it only makes the generals accomplices to his treason.

There is no more reason to sugarcoat the AFP's role in Duterte's successful pivot to China. (Correction, we have not been pivoted to China, in as much as we have been made to bend over to the communist state.) The AFP is the protector of the people and the defender of our country's territorial integrity. That it has all but become an accomplice in Duterte's treason by silence, acquiescence, or even affirmation by continuing to receive wads of cash in monthly payola in exchange for shutting their mouths is already a testament to their own role in this administration's capitulation to China.

Naka-discount pa ang China. Imbes na sa kanila manggaling ang pang-suhol sa ating mga heneral, sarili pa nating pera ang ipinamumudmod ni Duterte at Bong Go sa kanila para lamang sila tumahimik sa plano ng dalawang traydor sa bansa na ipa-alipin tayo sa Tsina. Sa madaling salita, patuloy tayong ginigisa sa sarili nating mantika.

This is why the Constitution did not leave all the defending of the national territory to the AFP. Every six years it allows us to reject leaders who failed in their job or betrayed their sacred oath to uphold the Constitution and defend the nation. Under extraordinary circumstances, it has provided for the mechanism of impeachment, especially for cases of the high crime of treason, when elections are not enough to respond to the national emergency of dealing with a fifth column head of state. But the latter has failed, while waiting for the former option might already cost us our patrimony and independence by that time, with China already in full control of our government through Duterte's fifth column as they prepare their successor Manchurian-candidate-in-waiting, a Senator cum national caregiver.

Where does all these leave us? We still have legal options. The creative people in our legal community can come up with a petition prohibiting the President from further pimping us to China, or even one for quo warranto, after the case of Chief Justice Sereno opened the ouster of impeachable officials by other means, subject only to who holds the sway at Padre Faura. (Duterte, of course, so that immediately strikes out the creative legal options. But we can always try.)

But more than all these, it is public opinion that is crucial in ending this treasonous buffet in our highest executive and defense offices. As long as Duterte remains popular, we are all party to this treason. When majority of Filipinos, by their vote of confidence for Duterte, effectively approves of this treason, then it ceases to be such.

Duterte's approval rating is an indication of how the Filipinos will exercise their right to national self-determination, i.e., to vote for its exact opposite. Apparently, the Filipino people, in the exercise of this right, will decide to cease to exist as a nation, and instead choose to be exactly what Duterte wants them to be, a province of China. In such a case, this will no longer be treason. This will be surrender. We are only calling Duterte's and the AFP's actions and omissions treasonous under the presumption that the people are still loyal to the flag of the sovereign Philippine Republic. We hope they still are.

At least our ancestors shed blood before being forced to sign instruments of surrender. Today's Filipino race cannot even be bothered to protest the treason of its officials and reject their surrender to a foreign power. Through a national referendum of the Filipino people's continuing support for Duterte and, vicariously, his pivot to China, one person's and his entire defense establishment's treason would thus become - hopefully not inevitably - a whole nation's capitulation.

300 years under Spain, almost half a century under America, four years under Japan, now China. With the novel corona virus presently decimating China's social infrastructure, we only have our stupidity to blame for settling for the worst of would-be foreign masters. Napakatanga na lang ng sambayanan na sa yugto na ito ng ating kasaysayan, ay Tsina pa ang pipiliin na bagong among pagsisilbihan. ###

(Access the handwritten version of Dispatch from Crame No. 726, here: https://issuu.com/senatorleilam.delima/docs/dispatch_726)