GOVERNMENTS have the right to do what they want with the passports they issue citizens.

There are many things the People’s Republic of China’s foreign ministry is achieving by putting the map of the West Philippine Sea, (more well-known abroad as the South China Sea), with the imperialist and hegemonic nine-dash line on the inside pages of the Chinese passport.

It has, according to the Rappler story “PH protests new Chinese passport map,” delayed some Chinese travelers at Vietnamese immigration. Rappler got this information from social media users. It quoted a Chinese user of “China’s utterly popular microblogging site Sina Weibo” saying that “an entry stamp was initially refused ‘because of the printed map of China’s sea boundaries—which Vietnam does not recognize.”

The map in the passport has also caused Vietnam and the Philippines to protest.

The Philippines protested with a mere note verbale. “The Philippines strongly protests the inclusion of the 9 dash line in the e-passport as such image covers an area clearly part of the Philippines’ territory and maritime domain,” said the note sent to the Chinese Embassy on Roxas Boulevard.

In diplomatic practice, a note verbale is more formal than an aide-memoire and less formal than a note. It is worded in the third person and is not signed.

Vietnam’s protest was more serious than our note verbale. The Vietnamese government lodged a formal complaint with the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi.

Another thing the 9-dash-line map in the PRC passport does is make more Chinese aware of their country’s 9-dash-line. The Chinese passport has therefore been employed for propaganda. It could also lead some Chinese innocents abroad, taking this plane ride for the first time, to look through their windows and try to see the 9 dashes when the pilot announces that the jetliner has begun to fly over the Nanyang.

Anti-Philippine propaganda
China’s media—press, radio and TV—have been telling the Chinese people how bad we Filipinos are. They say we are arrogant when the truth is we are only asserting our sovereignty.

They call us a pawn of the United States, which—despite similar diatribes made by some Filipinos who would rather have our country serve as pawns of China—is also untrue. It just happens that due to our past colonial relationship with the USA, our country officially and a great many of us Filipinos individually have developed strong friendly ties with America over the past century.

Our Senate voted to end the treaty allowing the US bases to remain in our country. But no less than the late sainted President Corazon Aquino led the opposition to the removal of the US bases.

Surveys show that most Filipinos love the USA more than China, despite most Filipinos being partly of Chinese ancestry.