IT’S THE DAY after Valentine’s Day. People became quite creative and celebrated this special day for lovers in the time of COVID-19, what with all the protocols, you know, the mask and social distancing. Of course, love will always find a way, pandemic or not.
But I do miss the old Valentine’s Day BC (before COVID). Those were the days when that philandering husband takes a deep breath, bites his tongue and gaze at his wrinkled, sagging and ageing wife, and takes her out on a date comforted with the thought that this atonement happens only once a year. At least this year in the time of COVID-19 that philandering husband has the perfect excuse not to.
And who would not miss the so-called “running priest” Robert Reyes running around with his posse of “idiots” knocking on the windows and doors of motels all over Metro Manila, disturbing the occupants and telling them to come out “in the name of God”?
I’m pretty sure this kinky voyeuristic act of giving people coitus interruptus” is instant gratification for his suppressed libido all in the name of God, of course.
Whatever happened to that so-called running priest? Since he could not have his instant gratification giving people coitus interruptus, he will just have to content himself with his own version of a “Jim Paredes”.
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We had a long weekend starting Thursday last week with this Evelio Javier Day. Not that Moi is complaining (any holiday is always welcome) but what had this fellow Evelio Javier done that deserved a holiday?
Was he also one of those “not officially declared national hero”? I read somewhere that he was a politician shot by his political rivals but that’s not news. Philippine politics has always been immature in a violent way. Just because he was shot he was made a hero in the mould of Marcial Bonifacio?
Then we have Friday which was Chinese New Year, another holiday of course. It made one wonder why these fools who hated everything China – from vaccines to telcos – and wanted the Philippines to go to war against it over some godforsaken rocks in the South China Sea yet they’re posting on social media Chinese New Year greetings.
The so-called West Philippine Sea that the “devotees to the cult of the yellow ribbon”, wokes and pseudo communists want the Philippines to go to war against China is a farce and does not exist legally. It was created by an administrative order by then President Noynoy Aquino but is not recognized nor supported by any law international and local.
Excerpts from a Feb. 8, 2021 article by Rigoberto Tiglao in www.manilatimes.net:
We don’t have territorial sea, EEZ, maybe even WPS – yet: Blame Congress
The likes of former Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio and Aquino’s bungling former Foreign Affairs secretary Albert del Rosario have been incessantly ranting against China, that it is encroaching on our exclusive economic zone (EEZ), and our “West Philippine Sea” (WPS).
A bit of a problem though: we do not have an EEZ nor a territorial sea — yet. We have not enacted a law indicating these maritime areas. The government agency that has the sole authority to define such areas as provided by law and locate it in official maps says so.
We may not even have a West Philippine Sea, since President Benigno Aquino 3rd’s administrative order giving that name to the waters off the western side of the Philippine archipelago implicitly stipulated that a big part of it is the EEZ, which, however, really has a phantom existence at this time.
Yes in theory, we have such maritime areas, since we ratified the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 1984, which stipulated that the EEZ “shall not extend beyond 200 nautical miles from the baselines.”
But we have to have a domestic law to affirm that international law, which is the UNCLOS. This would specify the geodesic coordinates that define the EEZ. Furthermore, the documents for this would have to be submitted to the UN that would circulate it among its members to determine if it complies with the UNCLOS and does not encroach on EEZs and territorial seas of other countries. The necessity for such a domestic law is also obvious in that UNCLOS merely specified the maximum distances for the EEZ and territorial seas from the baselines.
We haven’t passed such a law defining our territorial sea and EEZ. Officially, therefore, we do not have an EEZ or even a territorial sea which we can demand our neighbors to respect. We would be just like somebody declaring that he owns this land, yet he cannot produce the court titles to it.
That we don’t have an official map of the Philippine EEZ and its territorial sea is not my speculation, but a declaration by the agency solely authorized by government to issue official maps of the country, including its maritime areas, the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority (NAMRIA).
I received an email last Jan. 22 by the head of its hydrography branch, Antonio Valenzuela Jr:
“We regret to inform you that we do not have an official Philippine map indicating the territorial sea, EEZ and other maritime zones since we are still waiting for the maritime zones bill to become law. The Maritime Zones Law will be our basis in preparing the official map.”/PN
