There is no other way to say it. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is to blame for China’s progressively aggressive actions against the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG).

The latest act – ramming the BRP Teresa Magbanua not once, not twice, but three times in a span of minutes over the weekend says it all.

China has no respect for the president of the Philippines and the country he represents, and why should they? That president has shown a meekness that is fast becoming an embarrassment to the rest of the world.

It is easy to imagine other world leaders asking: When is he going to do more than resort to talk in the face of what are clearly actions intended to find out if his country has already accepted defeat?

China is not only laying claim to owning most of the West Philippine Sea, the China Coast Guard (CCG) now occupies waters that fall well within the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

The rest of the civilized world recognizes the Philippines’ EEZ. China does not. China is therefore acting in a most uncivilized manner, to the point of being barbaric.

China is like the school bully who found an easy target against one victim who refuses to fight, even as other similarly easy targets had stood their ground, forcing the bully to back off.

China’s easy victim is the Republic of the Philippines, whom the Chinese perceive as being led by a weakling. 

It pains us to say that they are right. Our beloved motherland is indeed led by a wimp, a wuss, and a pushover.

Former presidents Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Rodrigo Duterte have been blamed for opening too wide a door for China to influence Philippine affairs. The “favors” that they received were in exchange for a non-confrontational stance where Chinese intrusions into the WPS were concerned.

This may be so, but it was President Marcos Jr. who showed China’s Xi that aggressive, event violent, acts against the Philippines would be allowed to pass, with little more than the usual diplomatic filings and calling Beijing’s ambassador to Malacanang for a verbal slap on the wrist. Worst, there have been instances when lesser Chinese embassy officials were given soft warnings that their latest acts were not acceptable.

The result? China continued to commit progressively worse actions against their now favorite whipping boy, the Republic of the Philippines, specifically the PCG.

At the rate Marcos’s failed leadership is going, it will not be hard to imagine Chinese ships soon anchored off Manila Bay.

This scenario is not as farfetched as it seems. It is already happening in the waters close to the Luzon landmass. Again, well within the Philippines’ EEZ.

Marcos Jr. should be warned: Where China and its de facto invasion of the Philippines is concerned, the anger and hatred seething within the Filipino people is becoming more and more palpable with each “incident.”

The ramming of the Teresa Magbanua may yet be a turning point. Marcos can either take concrete action against China, or risk a repeat of his family’s early exit from Malacanang.