Wrong place, wrong time for Philippines to hit China on sea issue

It is lamentable that during the four-nation European tour of Philippine President Benigno Aquino III from Sept. 13 to 19, enroute for the United Sates, he made the issue of the South China Sea as the topmost item on his agenda with the leaders of the host nations.

Of course, the leaders of Spain, France, Germany, Belgium and the European Union, when personally confronted by Aquino, could not but endorse his position that the Philippines has sought international arbitration to the territorial dispute involving China and the Philippines.

It would be discourteous, if not uncivil, for German Chancellor Angela Merkel or French President Francis Hollande, for example, to try to dissuade or convince Aquino to go slow with China and settle its country's differences with its neighbor in some other way aside from internationalizing the sensitive issue.

It would be unthinkable for the leaders of Europe to deny Aquino what he has sought for, because in doing so, they would be hurting the feeling of their esteemed guest. As hosts, they have no reason not to make their guest comfortable and happy.

China has never threatened to disturb the peace in the region.

It has time and again said that it is willing to resolve the issue peacefully through bilateral negotiations with the other claimant countries but without the intervention of any third country.

The leaders of Europe certainly know China's stance on the issue.

As to be expected, Aquino also cited the "remarkable economic performance" of the Philippines during his watch, even belittling the record of his predecessor in his speech at a forum organized by the Egmont Institute, a think tank in Brussels.

Nobody could quarrel with Aquino on his stellar role in pushing the country's economy forward. Indeed, there is no gainsaying that Aquino's anti-corruption drive has energized the ailing economy of the Philippines which, for a long time, was the described as the " sick man of Asia."

But what the investors in Europe and in the U.S., the last leg of his two-week foreign trip, probably wanted to hear is what his administration is doing to curb the rising criminality, especially kidnapping, in the Philippines.

Data from the Movement for the Restoration of Peace and Order ( MRPO) show that from January to August this year, there were 33 incidents of kidnapping across the country involving 50 victims.

Of the 50 victims, 17 of them were Filipino-Chinese, locally called Tsinoys.

Of the 50 victims, 29 were freed, one escaped, three were rescued, and one was killed.

Teresita Ang-See, MRPO founding chairman, has said that the large Chinese-Filipino community in the Philippines has been bothered by the increase of kidnapping cases.

She called on the police to intensify its anti-kidnapping operations and focus on the manhunt operations and buildup of cases against the suspects.

The recent upsurge of kidnappings and other crimes in the Philippines has prompted the Chinese government to issue an advisory warning for its citizens not to travel to the Philippines in the meantime.

The advisory was released after the kidnapping of 18-year-old Li Peizhi by unidentified gunmen in the town of Kabasalan, Zamboanga Sibugay province in the strife-torn Southern Philippines and after the arrest of three Filipinos for their alleged role in the reported plot to bomb the Chinese embassy, the international airport and the business premises of ethnic Chinese tycoons.

As a result of the Chinese advisory, the country's budget airlines, Cebu Air Inc. (Cebu Pacific) and Tiger Airways Philippines, have cancelled 149 chartered flights to and from Chinese mainland starting this month.

The cancellation would strike a loss to the country's tourism industry of millions of dollars in potential revenues.

This is what Aquino failed to mention, even in passing, to his audience in Europe.