SAN FRANCISCO,
California —On July 24, Filipino Americans in the Bay Area joined their colleagues
in other part of the United States and other capital cities in the world in disapproving
what they called the invasion of the Philippines by China.
Filipino rallyists, carrying inverted
Philippine flag march to San Francisco’s
UN Plaza, calling for a stop to China’s movement while shouting “China out now!”. Some are holding placards,
condemning China for its alleged “bullying” tactics in commerce with the
Scarborough Shoal conflict.
They established a
program describing continued “harassments” against Philippine sovereignty where
speakers condemned the Chinese
government’s invasions in the disputed territory.
Rodel Rodis,
President of US Pinoys for Good Governance (USPGG) explained to campaigners why
they march holding the inverted flag of the Philippines. He said, that the
Philippines is in distress because China is building a military based on Mabini
reef with a mile-long strip and a Marina for their ships to dock.
“They could go all
over the Philippines with the range of their rockets and their ships and this
is a very dangerous development worse than if they set up an oil rig,” Rodis
added.
He described that
when China set up an oil rig on an island claimed by Vietnam before, the
Vietnamese were very angry and demonstrated against Chinese businesses in their
country, pushing the Chinese to send back 3,000 of their workers back to their
country. Thus Rodis insisted Filipinos
to do the same because what China is currently doing in the Mabini Reef is
“worse than what they did in Vietnam.”
Mabini
Reef is one of the disputed islands and reefs in the West Philippine Sea that
also embrace the Ayungin shoal, considered as the gateway to Recto Bank. It lies 85 miles from the Philippine coast and
was estimated by the U.S. Energy Information Administration to hold 213 billion
barrels of oil and two quadrillion cubic feet of natural gas.
