Chinese Ambassador Zhao Jianhua

Traveling around Manila is no longer normal. It’s absurd! Waste of time, money and effort. What else can I say?

It took me an hour and 15 minutes to go from Pasong Tamo to McKinley Hill. that’s a very short distance which should normally take only 15 minutes.

Buti na lang they reserved one seat for me.
Three minutes after I arrived, the PCCI’s guest of honor came.

Joseph Sy (PCCI Director), Alberto Fenix (PCCI’s Honorary President), Ambassador Jose Romero, ACTY, Allyson (PCCI Vice President), Apolinar Aure (PCCI Vice President).

The business groups hosted a dinner for the new Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines. I thought it would a typical dinner with a few short speeches, eto ang daming speakers.

Ambassador Alfred Yao (Zesto owner)
Fred, your phone’s ringing!

Atty. Miguel Varela

I was expecting a 15 minute friendship speech. Instead, the good ambassador made a one hour presentation on their country’s trade, investments, with emphasis on their economic power and market potential of China.

There was no need for an interpreter because Ambassador Jianhua speaks good English. He was assigned for a few years in Great Britain.

He had a long presentation.   He emphasized how big China’s economy is.  Here are the salient points:

1.  Their export is  US$ 2.21 Trillion last year.

2. According to him, they don’t worry about financial crisis because they currently have $4.16 trillion in foreign reserves.

3.  They are close second to the US as the world’s biggest economy.  soon, they will overtake the US.

4.  Despite the fact that we have a dispute,  90,000 Chinese nationals visited our country in the  first quarter of this year alone.

5.  650,000,000 Chinese nationals will travel within the next 5 years.

Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines, H.E. Zhao Jianhua

There was an exchange of souvenir items. PCCI gave him what looked like a metal boat sculpture, while the Chinese group gave PCCI a gold painted porcelain vase about 24″ tall.

The program was too long as there were many speeches, plus the one hour investment forum by the Chinese Ambassador. Dinner came at past 9 pm.

Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Jose de Venecia, gave the closing remarks.

Cold cuts

Salmon with broccoli

I was starving because I didn’t have lunch.

First time I’ve seen grilled lamb in a Chinese Lauriat.

Birthday noodles

Scallops with broccoli

After the best part of the program (eating dessert), I disappeared. It helped that I was seated next to the side door.

My colleagues teased me that I have a date kaya I was in a hurry to leave.
It was 11:30 pm and I was really tired. I haven’t fully recovered from the flu and I only came here for the open forum.

I was disappointed because I wanted to participate in the discussion. I thought there would be an open forum. I wanted to ask Ambassador Jianhua WHY despite the diplomatic efforts being done by the Philippines and our show of good faith, their country continue to advance their incursions of the disputed waters. If they are in good faith, they should stop their continuous physical possession aka invasion of our uninhabited islands, until after claims have been resolved. Filipinos are very polite. We continue to explore diplomatic means for a peaceful resolution of China’s establishment of military installations and other buildings in the disputed islands. China, however, is re-writing history and maps by claiming the whole West Philippine Sea as theirs. Their demarcation line is practically near my window. They are short of invading our main islands. What they are doing is extremely worrisome. Not because that ocean is called China Sea  doesn’t mean they own it. It’s like Manuel Quezon claiming he owns the whole of Quezon City.

Amb. Jianhua’s ending sentence was “not only we are neighbors,  not only we are friends,  we are relatives”.    Ayun pala,  that explains it.  Relatives share properties.  What is yours is yours and what is  ours is yours.