Times good or bad, China’s out in front, showing the way

WEDNESDAY, March 11, indeed was — as I wrote last time around — no ordinary day in so many ways. Now I understand why China’s Ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian didn’t make it to the launch that day of my book, Dr. Jose P. Laurel Nation Above Self, A Biography. That was the day he went to make a courtesy call on President Rodrigo Duterte to discuss a variety of concerns regarding China-Philippine relationship and, most particularly, the threatening coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) outbreak in the country.

The Philippines was only just beginning to feel the real menace of the dreaded disease and was quite aware of the vast suffering of China on account of the virus outbreak in Wuhan City beginning December 2019. Ambassador Huang must have taken it upon himself to sit down with the President and see how China can help to come up with measures in order that the Filipino people may not suffer what the Chinese people could not avoid in their own experience.