By Robert B. Roque Jr.
This past weekend, the infamous speech at the plenary given by Sen. Robinhood Padilla last January 26 has kept flashing across my social media walls. I hadn’t given that speech much attention two weeks ago since I don’t afford him much attention, really — at least not enough to write a column about him.
But on second thought, the gall of a Filipino senator using precious Senate time to scold the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) spokesperson, Commodore Jay Tarriela, and lecture the PCG itself to a point of suggesting cowardice is appalling.
‘Di bale na kung tawagin din ako ni Sen. Binoy na “pangit,” as he did former political adviser to the late former president Noynoy Aquino, Ronald Llamas. But to me, mas pangit yung ginawa niyang pagtayo sa Senado para upakan ang PCG as if they were the same hoodlums he beat up in his old movies.
His tone, language, and the decision to put it all on record in a nationally televised privilege speech are beyond unsettling. Imagine a senator, amid China’s bullying of smaller, outnumbered Philippine vessels, daring to suggest that our guardians at sea are cowards.
Imagine him, the No. 1 elected senator in 2022, feeding bravado by urging the PCG to buy stronger water cannons and water-bomb Chinese coast guard ships. Imagine him publicly scolding Tarriela — the spokesperson who has stood his ground for years, defending our maritime territory and the men and women who risk their lives in the open sea.
If Tarriela is “inappropriate,” then what does that make the senator’s own performance before the nation?
Let’s explain this plainly. First: the PCG does not respond to water-cannon attacks with water cannons. They outmaneuver Chinese vessels — sometimes five at a time — trying to trap them or provoke a violent reaction. That is not cowardice. That is discipline under pressure. Second: the PCG does not retaliate because it is bound by national security policy and the President’s order of maximum tolerance. That is not weakness. That is resolve — defending territory while refusing to be dragged into illegal escalation.
Water cannons on PCG ships are not weapons of harassment; they are safety tools — to put out fires, to save lives at sea. Hindi po ito pelikula. China wants provocation. It wants the PCG to react illegally to justify further aggression. Feeding that script only weakens the Philippines.
This is not about courage versus cowardice. It is about ignorance versus responsibility. And it is not just Padilla. When senators like Padilla and Marcoleta posture as “peacemakers” while undermining our legal, diplomatic, and maritime position, they serve China’s ends — not the Philippines’. And it’s easy to read through all the overacting to mask their real intentions.
They weaken our standing, dilute our resolve, and cloak it all in the language of de-escalation. The PCG is doing its duty — quietly, bravely, lawfully. The real overacting is in the Senate. And Filipinos will eventually see it for what it is: unpatriotic, un-Filipino, and dangerously irresponsible — if not betrayal.
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