The first article of the 1987 Philippine Constitution states the Filipino people’s claim to a national territory.
This national territory, as per the United Nations tribunal in charge of the international convention on the law of the sea,
includes parts of the West Philippine Sea claimed by the Philippines.
That was clear until the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte, muddling our foreign policy with a pivot to China ended up slowly ceding the parts of the Spratly Islands that we claim to our gigantic northern neighbor.
The supposed logic behind official refusal to resist Chinese incursion into Philippine territory or their building of structures there is spurious.
On one hand, fans of the Malacañang say that we do not have the military might to resist Chinese force.
On the other, the same fans say that it is best to cooperate bilaterally in friendship with China.
But no one said we must engage China in an armed confrontation, and no friend will ever say that friendship entails tolerated theft.
The world may have become globalized and the preponderant superpower status of the United States may be on the wane as some analysts perceive.
But that does not mean nationalism is passe.
When the May 2019 comes around, we hope that voters will ensure that they choose leaders, especially for the Lower House and the Senate who will assert in a diplomatic but robust way the sovereignty of the Filipino in his own land.
Enough of our slavery in this game of bondage.