A disgusting penchant of the Yellows, even its oligarchs, has been to claim that their troubles are not just their own, but of others. The Lopez oligarchs claim their fight is that of ABS-CBN Corp.’s 11,000 employees and of the network’s millions of viewers. Maria Ressa claims that it is not she that the government has prosecuted for libel and tax evasion but the Press. Always, “Hindi sila nag-iisa.” The most repulsive of such claims was the previous Yellow regime’s assertion that the suit it brought against China in 2013 over disputed claims to exclusive economic zones in the South China Sea, was the “Filipinos’ fight to assert the country’s sovereignty” against what former Foreign Affairs secretary Albert del Rosario said was the bully in Asia — China. Del Rosario was really speaking not for you and me, but for the Indonesian-owned First Pacific Co. Ltd. Del Rosario had been for nearly two decades a director of First Pacific and/or its biggest subsidiaries such as PLDT Inc. and Metro Pacific Investment Corp.

Tiglao, R. D. (2020, July 24). Suit vs China: Oligarchs' last resort to salvage their gas project in Spratlys. The Manila Times, pp. A1, A5.