The General Alliance of Workers Association in Negros Occidental is calling on President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to place the West Philippine Sea (WPS) concern as the top agenda in his State of the Nation Address.
The issue on WPS involves an imminent danger to the country and it must be included in the SONA as a matter of security concern, GAWA Secretary General Wennie Sancho said on Monday, July 15.
Sancho said that despite the bullying, harassment, intimidation, unfair action, and unlawfulness committed by the Chinese Coast Guard, the Philippines’ maritime forces have remained calm and disciplined.
The Chinese are not only grabbing our seas but also grabbing our lands through the “frenzied acquisition of strategically located real estate at staggering prices, undisguised bribery to control or influence both local and national officials and the location of extensive electronic gambling networks”, he said.
The SONA should be a call for nationalism to urge the Filipinos to resist the invasion of China, Sancho said.
“The determination of an entire people, refusing to be conquered at the expense of their own lives, will earn respect even from its enemies”, Sancho said.
“The bravery and resilience of the Filipinos as a people and as a nation should be integrated in the arsenal of the Armed Forces of the Philippines”, he added.*