IN the heightening tension in the South China Sea, the real question must be addressed: Does the United States have the right to interfere in the affairs of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean)?

Over the past several years, Asean nations and China have been earnestly engaged in crafting a code of conduct in the South China Sea (COCSCS) that would bring about a peaceable settlement of all the disputes over the waters in the region. China had made its position clear — and it was accepted by the Asean nations — that such settlement would be to the complete exclusion of any outsider. Upon the initiative of President Xi Jinping, the COCSCS was on the way to a nice conclusion when the problem arose. The US insisted on its own idea of “freedom of navigation operations” by which it arrogated to itself and its allies the authority to sail in the waters of the Asean region and the South China Sea, which China claims to own.

I remember the commemoration of the establishment of the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty conducted by then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2012 on the deck of the USS Fitzgerald then docked on Manila Bay. She called the South China Sea “West Philippine Sea.” That was the first time I became aware of the term, which obviously was American-made.

Anyway, from a swing of Asean nations, Clinton proceeded to join President Barack Obama in Bali, Indonesia for the Asian Summit. In that summit, Obama told to the face of Chinese President Wen Jiabao the classic American interference, or words to that effect: “We may not be part of the dispute (conflicting claims in the South China Sea), but we are a Pacific nation, a maritime power — and a guarantor of peace in the Indo-Pacific region.”

Wen Jiabao had occasion to counter Obama’s arrogance when in a subsequent APEC summit, he declared: “We may not be a war-hungry nation but we are not one to run away from a fight when pushed against the wall. The Philippines will learn this to its cost.”

Sadly, now is the time for the Philippines to learn the Wen Jiabao stated cost. The approval by President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. of four additional military bases for America under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) is evidently targeted for a direct attack on Mainland China and its forward military bases in the South China Sea. This has so enraged China that it no longer makes any effort to hide its readiness to go to war in defense of its territorial integrity. Flybys by US aircraft in the skies of the region are instantly met with stern warnings from Chinese planes which are ever ready for such occasions. Down on the waters, sail-bys, whether by Philippine vessels or by those of US and its allies are regularly confronted by China Coast Guard (CCG) with radio challenges.

In the particular case of the BRP Sierra Madre, which had been grounded on Ayungin Shoal since 1999, China’s attitude has seemed to change radically, from tolerance to animosity. For 24 years, China has allowed the resupply missions by the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) to the Sierra Madre of food and other living provisions but never construction materials, which ever since have been explicitly banned. In instances when this ban is violated, water cannoning of the offending vessel is carried out, both as a deterrent to the offense and as a humanitarian way of dealing with an enemy. It must be noted that although the PCG resupply boats had been bombarded with water by Chinese coast guard vessels a number of times before, it had not generated the kind of raging controversy the recent such bombardment has spawned.

Where lies the difference?

In the past incidents, the water cannoning was taken as a standard operating procedure in the overall mechanism of defending Chinese territory. In the recent incident, it was deliberately projected as an act of aggression by China against the Philippines.

In fact, it was a conscious machination by a former officer of the US Air Force named Raymond Powell who took satellite images of Chinese vessels deployed in the vicinity of Ayungin Shoal and publicized those images in his Twitter account with the narrative that CCG vessels were attacking PCG boats. Picked by various platforms of Philippine media, the otherwise innocent action of China’s defense forces in protecting Chinese territory was pictured as aggression against Philippine sovereignty. And true enough, not only a large section of the Philippine government bureaucracy is enraged but also a wide section of the general public.

That’s how America has, through sheer propaganda, succeeded in instilling in the minds of Filipinos that China is evil and therefore must be fought.

A concerted action by genuine Filipino nationalists is called for to counter this vicious American maneuver. Already there is the Anti-War Peace Caravan which launched its initial salvo recently, tracing the routes of antiAmericanism in the Philippines. Kicking off from the Quezon Memorial Circle, it proceeded to the Barasoain Church in Malolos, Bulacan, where the Malolos Congress was held in 1899 for the establishment of the Philippine Republic. It ended up in Cagayan whose governor Manuel Mamba is a most vociferous opponent of EDCA, knowing it could spark the most-feared war with China.

The Anti-War Peace Caravan next plans to swing through the Visayas and Mindanao.

This effort deserves the support of every peace-loving Filipino. America has its sinister agenda in the Philippines to get the country warring with China as a means of salvaging its steadily declining economy. Only its war industrial complex keeps America alive. That’s why it planned the Ukraine war back in 2014, the same year it concluded EDCA with the Benigno Aquino 3rd government. EDCA is part and parcel of a US war with China, with the Philippines, like Ukraine, as proxy.

This US machination must be exposed, opposed and demolished. Or else the Philippines will perish.

By no right whatsoever can the United States sacrifice in its war designs the peace, security and dreamedof prosperity of the Filipino nation.