Abetted by crooked officials, China is grabbing our lands

China not only is grabbing our seas. It’s also targeting our land territory by coopting the government.

“There’s a creeping invasion,” security expert former interior secretary Rafael Alunan analyzes. Signs are clear:

• In October 2023, the NBI raided a house in plush Valle Verde subdivision, Pasig City. Arrested were six Chinese nationals and two Filipino cohorts.

In their possession were assault weapons marked “People’s Republic of China.” Plus badges designating “blasting team,” “reconnaissance team,” “support team,” “assault team,” “machinegun team” and “sniper team.”

Valle Verde is but one of many gated communities beside Camp Aguinaldo, the Armed Forces general headquarters.

Alunan wonders, “How many more are harboring sleeper cells within striking distance from our centers of gravity around the country – Malacañang, Congress, Supreme Court, military camps, local governments? A Chinese state-owned telco has towers in our camps.”

• Rifles, grenades and Chinese military uniforms have been interdicted in gambling enclaves in Metro Manila, Pampanga and Tarlac. The last two are near Basa Air Base, Clark Air Base, Subic Naval Base, Camp Servillano Aquino and Fort Magsaysay.

• Chinese students, tourists, traders and workers are flocking to strategic sites. Recently exposed was the surge of 460 “exchange students” in Cagayan. The province hosts two AFP camps where US troops train. It faces independent Taiwan, which Beijing mislabels a “renegade province.”

The students speak no English or Filipino. They rarely attend classes but pay up to P2 million each to obtain college degrees, say UP professor Chester Cabalza and Cagayan State University head Fr. Ranhilio Aquino.

• Unearthed too was a jump in Chinese retirement visa grantees: 30,000 as of mid 2022, when President Duterte’s term ended.

Most of the Chinese “students” and “retirees” are in their mid-30s, the age of soldiery, notes Senator Nancy Binay.

• In 2016-2018, 3.12 million Chinese nationals obtained residency. Some work in gambling hubs, others in China-funded reclamations. “Immigration floodgates were thrown open in one of the most remarkable subversions in recent history,” Demetrius Cox writes in Journal