THE INSIDE LOOK :
by Redempto D. Anda

The Chinese connection

For having a big mouth and not-so-cunning ways, Lucio Ong has not only been disowned by his ethnic peers in the respected Palawan Chinese Chamber of Commerce but is also left hanging on his toe nails by his handlers in the Chinese embassy.
Ong, a businessman from Quezon, Palawan, reportedly tried to bribe Coast Guard and Navy personnel to settle the case of 59 Chinese poachers caught near Tubbataha Reefs last month. He never expected that his action will backfire in such a big way as to be exposed in a congressional inquiry.
Ong was recently held by the Bureau of Immigration to check on the validity of his papers and to investigate his alleged illegal activities and connection with poachers who habitually enter Palawan waters to conduct illegal fishing.
The House foreign affairs committee wasn’t amused at all with Ong’s tale. He wasn’t good at feigning difficulty with the local dialect and he was obviously ill-prepared to convincingly explain that he is supported financially by his Filipina wife’s and that he does nothing all day but play basketball and run errands.
Ong probably thought he could fool the committee with such a silly story about his joblessness, despite common knowledge in town that he is even the chief money source for local and provincial politicians where he lives. For someone used to getting away with bribery, Ong typifies the kind of person who’d just prefer to let his money do the talking. Too bad for him, the congressional inquiry wasn’t a venue he could manipulate. If he were in the prosecutors’ office as he had repeatedly been in the past trying to intervene in behalf of Chinese poachers, he would probably have been successful.
Committee chair Rep. Apolinario Lozada, an expert in Chinese diplomacy, knows whereof he speaks and there’s probably some merit to his conclusion that Ong could be a Chinese spy. The Chinese government, according to Lozada, had unleashed operatives some years ago to many countries including the Philippines which is one of its main rivals in the disputed Spratlys territory.
That matter is one that the Chinese embassy will have to deal with but it is expected that they will simply shrug off Lozada’s theory. In the first place, there is no evidence that would link Ong to espionage and that the former was merely being tapped as an interpreter in various occasions by his embassy.
According to a member of the local Chinese chamber, Ong is not one of their members and will never be one because of his reputation. He also said that in deciding not to anymore provide food and other supplies to detained Chinese poachers in Palawan, they intend to distance themselves from illegal activities.
Even the Chinese embassy has kept a low profile from the Tubbataha poaching incident, being fully aware that many among those arrested were already caught in previous similar incidents but were released at their behest. The cases that were filed recently against the Chinese poachers are the strongest so far and conviction is most likely.
Meanwhile, Ong’s seat has started to burn and is likely to become more intense as the congressional inquiry continues.

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