By Herman Tiu Laurel

 

The depths of inanity some of the Filipino “potpot patriots” (the self-boosting, self-tooting, flag-brandishing anti-China bigots) knows no bounds, they have found a new nadir of absurdity with that “China claims Palawan” fake news they are trumpeting out of their echo chamber and into the mainstream and social media, and even dragging down national institutions to that low level of imbecility.

Following the trail of this black propaganda ploy we find it started two weeks back with the Chinese social media “Red Note” post by some unknown party (for all we know it may have been a paid troll) with an ancient Chinese map of Palawan and other part of the Philippine islands. The Red Note post “calling for the return of ‘all controversial areas’ covering Palawan, Mindoro and Panay. There after it spread in Philippine social media by faceless, unidentifiable netizens many certifiable trolls.

After a week of the fake “Chinese claim” over Palawan story spreading in Philippine social media it was clear to me, and I would expect to other experienced social media watchers and analysts, that the fake news was being made viral deliberately. It was no different from that anti-Chinese vaccine Sinovac black propaganda in 2020 instigated from a U.S. military cyber base and spread in the Philippines, later exposed by Reuter’s in 2024 as a “Pentagon secret anti-Chinese vax campaign.”

As expected, the fake “Chinese Palawan claim” fake news was escalated to the more respectable level of formal institutions taking up the cause. Then the National Historical Commission of the Philippines entered the fray and issued a statement on February 28, 2025 that it “… strongly condemns and refutes the recent Chinese claims over Palawan island as seen from a social media post circulating in Weibo and other Chinese social media platforms.”

The NHCP response boosted the issue some more that the mainstream media started picking it up and a newspaper columnist-historian Michael “Xiao” Chua reacted with a column on the subject that I berated for giving the frivolous anti-China propaganda unwarranted attention, but which I later read in his concluding paragraph, “I do not know if the claim began from the official Chinese government to warrant a response from our official historical government agency. Baka we are being trolled… ”

Being trolled the Filipino public certainly is, for a decade-and-a-half already, and then more today with this Palawan claim fake news. On March 2 a former young Marine lieutenant Gary Alejano posted on FB which I translate from Tagalog, “The new lang-grabbing by China of Palawan using revisionist history that is blatant falsehood and deception…” In 2018 Alejano claimed China had taken over Sabina Shoal which turned out to be false, like many of his other claims.

Jumping in to stir the Chinese Palawan claim even more are: National Security Adviser Eduardo Año, Philippine Navy Spokesman for the West Philippine Sea Rear Admiral Roy Trinidad, AFP spokesperson Col. Francel Margareth Padilla, National Youth Commission Asec. Karl Josef Legazpi. So many “big wigs” and small brains trying to join in the stirring of the “tempest in a teacup” that just make them laughable clowns.

   

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