Open season for Filipino

Reports of Taiwanese beating Filipino workers on the street and at work in retaliation for the killing of their countryman by Filipino Coast Guard on Balintang Channel is most disturbing. To state the obvious, these workers had nothing to do with the incident. And yet the newspapers carry stories of teens hunting down Filipinos as if they were some animals, to torment for sport.

Granted, the Philippine Government, under an incompetent leadership, may have handled the diplomatic row badly, but the Taiwanese are clearly over-reacting. The incident is under investigation by the National Bureau of Investigation. It would thus be a good idea for everybody to wait for the result. And our Taiwanese friends can rest assured there would be no whitewash, something they imply when they demand that a parallel investigation should be conducted. If they don’t know it yet, Filipinos are notorious for fault finding and the faintest hint of a whitewash would surely find its way to the media.