TORONTO – A handful of protesters, most of them Canadians of Filipino descent, marched in circles in a small fenced-off area near the Chinese consulate here on Friday (May 11) in a lackluster show of protest against the reported Chinese incursions in a contested shoal in the South China Sea.
“China bully, China bully,” the less-than-two-dozen people shouted, their cries inaudible to people in the consulate, mainly because of the distance between the protesters and the building housing the consulate across the street. An ongoing construction and the back and forth of trucks and heavy equipment muted their outcries.
Their small number looked even tinier as some of the protesters sought shelter from the sun during the hour-long protest and stayed cool under the trees in front of a condominium, the public spot chosen by Toronto police to air their grievance.
A police officer explained they can not gather in front of the consulate and had to be confined to a portion of the street as they could disrupt traffic flow which is already slowed down by ongoing street repairs.
Some attendees, short of publicly admitting failure, blamed the low turnout to poor planning, if ever there was one, absence of a leader and to the choice of a day, Friday, to hold the event.
An unidentified organizer tried to distance the protest from the Aquino administration in Manila. “The Philippine government does not want to officially sanction the movement,” he explained.
Asked by a protester who was spearheading the mass action, he says: “As of now, the organization leading this is the Save Our Spratlys Advocacy Network.” The group is unheard of and is perhaps an ad hoc body created for the purpose of the event.
A protester said they went to the protest site because they were told to come by friends through email.
That the protest appeared and sounded leaderless, ill-focused and wanting in public support was obvious the moment it went underway at 12 noon. Some of the protesters decried the lack of preparation. There were no information flyers or handouts nor a manifesto for Chinese officials.
The very first one to arrive at the site was Joe Zagala, the immediate past president of the University of the Philippines Alumni Association of Toronto.
“Basically, the reason why we’re demonstrating is because we firmly believe that the intrusion of Chinese government and the Chinese military into the Scarborough shoal is completely illegal,” he says.
“The Chinese are basing their claim on the map that they have drawn themselves, which is really self-serving. They claimed that it’s centuries old but still drawn by Chinese. The claim of the Philippines is based on internationally-accepted documentation,” Zagala explains.
Zagala said though every Filipino is committed to preserving Philippine territorial integrity, “we are not willing to start a war because that is the wrong approach”.
“Even if we have the military might, which we don’t have, we are not willing to start a war. What we’re committed to do is to call the attention of the international community, the community of nations, and show them how China is using bullying tactics and illegal means to occupy what they think is theirs, which is wrong,” he emphasizes.
“We believe in diplomacy. We believe in peaceful means, strong but peaceful. We don’t believe in war. We have nothing against the Chinese people. We are against the Chinese government,” Zagala adds.
Except for occasional rants and the waving of a Philippine flag, the protesters were hardly noticeable in the dusty din of the street repair. Scribblings on their mini posters were barely readable from a distance.
The Filipino community media totally ignored the rally even though information about it circulated in the internet at least three weeks earlier.
The protesters got a little excited with the arrival of Toronto-based Chinese press. In fact they happily obliged them, specially during the photo ops when photographers and cameramen choreographed their moves and poses. #
