House duty: Censure Barzaga
Francisco “Kiko” Austria Barzaga must be feeling on top of the world these days. Every word and every antic the 27-year-old neophyte congressman throws up is lapped up by the press and social media. In so short a time, he has earned a sizable following from those who relish his bulldog-in-a-china-shop behavior, believing such actions to be refreshingly radical and necessary amid a political culture of double-dealing and deceit.
But there is a world of difference between the mocking, snarky ways he has employed on the House floor to needle his colleagues to tell the truth—or at least the version of it he wants to hear—and the attacks he has lately leveled at the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG). There is a line to be drawn—especially for a lawmaker sworn to uphold the public interest—when bratty, reckless statements begin to undermine the citizenry’s trust in crucial institutions and put the country in potential danger.
According to Barzaga, the PCG should be abolished because it is a “waste of our government funds,” and that it is a “corrupt organization” whose operations in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) could “cause World War III.”
‘Misleading and inflammatory’
The representative of Cavite’s 4th District presented no evidence to back up his claims—no finding from, say, the Commission on Audit to justify his accusation that the PCG is frittering away public funds, or one from the Ombudsman assailing the agency for wholesale corruption, and certainly no reputable study, analysis, or situation report that would support the incendiary charge that the PCG is leading the country to war.
The words were the rash, petulant pronouncements of a man-child imagining that he had something consequential to say about the agency now at the very forefront of the Philippines’ struggle to assert its sovereignty in waters being snatched by an overbearing neighbor. Unfortunately, the remarks were also the kind of controversial “content” loved by those on social media who find his broadside as “fearless.”
PCG spokesperson Commodore Jay Tarriela had to allocate extra time to parrying Barzaga’s attention-seeking tirade, describing it as “misleading and inflammatory,” and one that “grossly misrepresents the PCG’s mandate, operations, and the very essence of our service to the Filipino people.”
But if Barzaga were to conduct a survey even among his constituents, he would likely find himself in the dismal minority when it comes to public support for the PCG and its work in the West Philippine Sea.
Chinese aggression
Survey after survey has consistently shown that the public overwhelmingly supports government efforts to protect the country’s sovereignty over its exclusive economic zone—an invaluable birthright critical to the Filipino people’s economic security and progress. That right was affirmed by international law when the arbitral tribunal ruled that China’s claim over nearly the entire South China Sea, including the Philippines’ EEZ, had no basis in either history or law. China, however, has continued to disregard that ruling, opting instead to intensify its harassment of Philippine vessels that dare to sail on Philippine waters.
The PCG, a civilian maritime agency, is no match for the might and bullying ways of Beijing, but it has borne the brunt of Chinese aggression with exceptional professionalism, bravery, and decorum. The PCG has repeatedly been the victim of water cannon and ramming attacks by the Chinese navy and militia trespassing on Philippine waters, and video documentation of these lopsided encounters is all over the internet. And yet in Barzaga’s view, the valiant men and women of the PCG are the aggressors that could spark “World War III”?
Barzaga should spell out his position clearly: Does he prefer that the Philippines cease defending the WPS and in effect give up its territorial rights and patrimony, to appease Beijing and keep the “peace”?
Broad consensus
In this, he will be in a starkly conflicting position not only with his countrymen, but also with the rest of the world. The United States, the European Union, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, Vietnam, and many other countries have rallied behind the arbitral ruling and rejected China’s unilateral actions in the region. That broad consensus, anchored on the Philippines’ valid claims to its territory, is what the PCG upholds and enforces with its operations in the WPS.
So when Barzaga taunts the agency with the words “water cannon lang galing China, iyak na agad sila, ako pa kaya? (It’s just water cannon from China and they’re already crying, what more if it were from me?),” he should be forcefully reminded that, as a public servant, he is not paid with Filipino taxpayer money and granted the privileges of his position only to sabotage the very interests of the land he calls home.
Barzaga has crossed the line from being merely annoying to becoming a danger to the country’s national security. The House, diffident or indulgent all this time, should now find its sense of outrage and censure the looser-than-loose cannon in its midst.
