Amb. Babe on rumblings, sleepless nights and Ricky Razon

Our Philippine Ambassador to the United States, Ambassador Jose “Babe” Romualdez, who is in the country now, makes every minute count.

One might think that he comes home to Manila just to take a much needed break but on the contrary, Amb. Babe, quite the indefatigable diplomat, has his schedule packed with meetings – big and small – when he is in the country. This is all with the aim of helping us get through what he described as the biggest threat we are facing since World War II.

Thus, on last week’s hump day, Amb. Babe gathered members of the Consular Corps of the Philippines and said that the unprecedented “aggression” and “bullying” from China loom large like dark clouds over Manila and are today’s biggest threats against the Philippines.

He doesn’t see the end of the tunnel just yet, saying the aggression is very real.

“It’s something that all of us, all Filipinos, should be made aware of, and how important it is that we are united in facing this very big challenge to our country, “he told the crowd.

The threat, indeed, is real and Amb. Babe said it could affect the country’s economic ties with China.

“There are rumblings going around now. As you know, we have a lot of exports to China, but all those exports can be at peril because occasionally, we hear negative things. We’re hoping that our neighbor in the north will see the value of continuing our economic activity while trying to peacefully resolve the issues surrounding our territorial waters. We all know that there are challenging times that we face, on many fronts, as I said.”

The skirmishes, Amb. Babe said, keep President Marcos awake at night.

There were times, he said, when he would get a call from his cousin in the wee hours, say around 2 a.m. Manila time, about the tensions between Manila and Beijing.

“We want to avoid having to find a situation where we will have to call each other and say, we want to invoke the Mutual Defense Treaty (with the US) – ‘you have to defend us because the Chinese are already in our shores’.”

“We hope that will never happen. And believe me, that keeps a lot of us awake at night,” Amb. Babe said.

“Because there were times when I would get a call from our President at