Infiltration in Cagayan: Tip of the iceberg

Maj. Gen. Edgard A. Arevalo (Ret.)

CALLS from members of the House of Representatives and the Senate have snowballed as more legislators have joined the clamor for a congressional investigation. They want to get to the bottom of the reported influx of Chinese students into Cagayan province, where there are three key military installations — two of which are Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) sites. Given the tension between the Philippines and China, the move to conduct an investigation and summon relevant government agencies to shed light on this phenomenon is imperative. And since this is of major national security interest, the senators and representatives want to extend the coverage of the investigation to include not only Cagayan, but other parts of the country where there are EDCA sites.

The recently disqualified Cagayan governor Manuel Mamba is vociferously pro-China and against the establishment of additional EDCA sites in his province. He issued a statement belying the claim that 4,600 Chinese students were enrolled in universities in Cagayan; he said there were only 600, citing Commission on Higher Education records, and that they did not pose a security threat. His declaration was vigorously refuted by UP Diliman professor and Cagayan native Chester Cabalza and professor emeritus of the Cagayan State University Fr. Ranhilio Aquino.

Aquino was surprised and suspicious that Chinese students who cannot even speak English are enrolled in graduate programs. And if the purpose was first-rate higher education, why would they want to obtain it in a province instead of the more prestigious and reputable universities in Manila? Indeed, the seriousness of the security threat posed by these potential infiltrators — be it 4,600 or 600 students in just one province — is certainly significant! Could there be more undocumented Chinese in Cagayan than there are on record?

China’s mouthpieces were quick to condemn the calls for an investigation, referring to it as a malicious campaign that is meant to sow hatred against their nationals. They claim that the Chinese are being discriminated against, with their embassy playing the usual “victim” card.

Surely, with China’s hostile and aggressive behavior in the West Philippine Sea, it is only reasonable for Filipinos to feel suspicious and wary of the reported presence of Chinese nationals of questionable intent. With the peril to life and limb of the crew of our wooden resupply boat that was attacked by steel-hulled China Coast Guard vessels using powerful water cannons, there is no room for complacency. Paranoia, when it comes to national defense and security, is desirable. To err on the side of caution, it is better to be safe than sorry.

History

The young generation may not know it, but our great-grandparents, who have lived to tell the tale, can confirm what history books say about how Japanese nationals gradually and surreptitiously gained access to the Philippines in the late 1930s. Bereft of the intelligence sophistication of today, Japanese civilians were able to enter the country masquerading as businessmen, storekeepers, barbers, market vendors and street peddlers. And with the onslaught of the Japanese occupation, these “ordinary” civilians turned out to be officers of the Japanese Imperial Army who provided critical intelligence information about the Philippines.

The same ploy could have been adopted by the Japanese in Hawaii. Their spies assiduously collected intelligence information on the island in preparation for a planned attack. For how could the Japanese have known the pattern, for instance, that US ships always returned to Pearl Harbor for the weekend after maritime security patrols? They would not have timed their attack on the early morning of Sunday, which is the Navy’s “stand-down day,” had they not stationed infiltrators on the island. The underestimation of the Japanese capability to launch an attack, the complacency, and the lack of situational awareness led to the fateful event of Dec. 7, 1941. The then US President Franklin Roosevelt described it as “the date that will live in infamy.”

We should not commit the same mistake that led to the siege of Marawi seven years ago. Terrorism expert Prof. Rohan Gunaratna, head of the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore, criticized the Philippine government for “[failing] to detect, to read the indicators, the signs and the clues [about] the ‘build-up’ of the terrorist Islamic State (IS) in the Philippines.” Members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (IS) were able to infiltrate the city by posing as mujahedeen.

While we were sleeping

But many malevolent Chinese have long been able to gain access to our country. They need not build and hide as the Greeks did in that legendary wooden horse to enter the fortified city of Troy. They were able to populate the Philippines with the help of unscrupulous private individuals, groups, and government officials who were either on the take or simply incompetent in discharging their duties.

Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations (POGO) hubs that proliferated in the cities of Cebu, Davao, Cagayan de Oro, and mostly in Manila have been blamed for the high incidence of heinous crimes in the Philippines. There are POGO hubs just a stone’s throw away from military and police headquarters in Metro Manila. Perhaps the most glaring was the raid conducted in Bamban, Tarlac, as reported in the news quoting the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission, which found “a POGO compound on a 10-hectare property with 36 structures which included buildings, barracks and villas, and an Olympic-size swimming pool. Also discovered was a secret tunnel, which connected the three villas.” Operating with appropriate permits from the local government unit.

The tripartite Joint Seismic Maritime Undertaking among China, Vietnam, and the Philippines proceeded with the blessings of the Gloria Arroyo administration despite issues with its constitutionality. The Supreme Court voted by an overwhelming majority in January 2023 that the agreement signed in 2005 and expired in 2008, was unconstitutional. But the damage has been done. The ruling came out long after China was able to extract ancillary information that it used in its massive reclamation and construction of artificial islands in the West Philippine Sea.

Dito Telecommunity (Dito), partly owned by China Telecommunications Corp., a state-owned enterprise, was given preferential treatment. Despite the public’s vehement objection to the co-location of Dito facilities inside military camps due to the potential risk to national security, the accommodation continued nonetheless, with the military giving its assurance to the contrary.

The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), which acts as a “system operator that balances the supply and demand of power to maintain the quality of electricity that flows through the grid,” is not wholly owned by Filipinos. Blamed for the frequent power outages and the resultant increasing prices of electricity in the country, NGCP is 40 percent owned by the State Grid Corp. of China, and the remaining 60 percent is shared by two Filipino corporations.

Preoccupied as we may all be in making a living, we Filipinos should not entrust defense and security solely to our men and women in uniform because that is a shared responsibility. We should be trained to come forward to defend our country.

We should report to the authorities the presence of suspicious individuals and activities in our localities aside from those involving POGO hubs. Government must investigate public officials under whose noses criminal activities happen and facilities that endanger national security were established. It must prosecute and penalize with full force of the law corrupt or incompetent public officers who erode public trust and undermine peace and security.

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