When your country is a paradise to be robbed

This has reference to the escalation of hostilities in Sabah between the Sultanate of Sulu and the Malaysian government.

Why is it that when the American invaders occupied the Philippines, their invasion was called a “pacification campaign,” while the Filipinos who fought for freedom and liberty were called “bandits”?

Why is it that when the Spanish colonizers invaded the Philippines they called the Filipinos “ladrones” for taking away their armaments and other instruments of destruction, but Spain’s systematic stealing of the wealth  of the land was called the “Galleon Trade”?

Why is it that the British Empire could annex any land it wanted, but when the subjects of the Sultanate of Sulu decided to settle on the land they leased to a British company, but for which they were not even properly compensated for centuries, the landlord and the members of the royal family of the Sultanate of Sulu were reviled as “intruders” and shot by the lessee?

Why do nations rage against the Philippines? Why don’t they meditate and ponder on the shared responsibility of addressing the curse of poverty, the curse of diseases, to make the Philippines a better place to live in, instead of seeing a paradise to be robbed?

 —BOB GABUNA,

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