MEMBERS of the Vietnamese-Filipino Association commemorate a bloody conflict with China in the late 1970s, while warning against new confrontations in the West Philippine Sea. VAUGHN ALVIAR
Barely noticed by the media, a group of protesters in Makati City last week condemned China’s “bullying” of its neighbors—and they were not just Filipinos.
Aracely Doctolero, 43, introduced herself using also her Vietnamese name, Ngo Thi Ngoc, when the Inquirer met her and about 50 of her compatriots and local supporters at a midday demonstration in front of the Chinese consular office on Gil Puyat Avenue.
Members of the Vietnamese-Filipino Association (VFA) gathered to mark the 35th anniversary of the 1979 Vietnam-China Border War, the brief but fierce conflict sparked by China’s offensive in response to Vietnam’s overthrow of the Beijing-backed Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. With both countries claiming victory, the casualties were estimated to be over 100,000.
Participants in the rally remembered one of Vietnam’s bloodiest confrontations with its giant northern neighbor.
“Chinese troops opened fire without mercy on anyone and anything they encountered on their march,” according to the group’s statement. “They ruthlessly used cannons, missiles, guns, flamethrowers, mines and even gasoline to destroy one village after another, killing thousands of people.”
Minh Nguyen, a Vietnamese married to a Filipino woman, organized the rally after a meeting with Huynh Cuc Viloria, 63, a compatriot and widow who lost a brother in the border war.
Nguyen contacted some of his Vietnamese friends and took out a newspaper ad to invite more to the rally. “I think a lot of Vietnamese wanted to organize this event but did not know how.”
The protesters used the commemoration to air concerns over the present-day territorial dispute involving China and its neighbors, including their organization’s host country.
“We would like to express our deepest concern over what is going on in the West Philippine Sea—a potential flash point in the region where war is imminent,” said Janicee Buco, Nguyen’s wife and co-organizer of the rally. “We all expect responsible behavior from China.”
While some of the women in the rally donned the traditional Vietnamese ao dai dress and the non la hat, some of the men came in shirts marked “Yes to Unclos,” referring to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which the Philippine government invokes to assert its right over parts of the WPS being claimed by Beijing.
In one of the latest incidents to raise tension over the disputed waters, Philippine officials have accused China’s Coast Guard of firing water cannon at Filipino fishermen on Jan. 27 near Panatag Shoal, a rich fishing ground off Zambales province and a part the Philippines’ 370-kilometer exclusive economic zone.
Nguyen Hoang Long, 40, said he joined the rally to “add my voice and my spirit to the peace efforts of our countrymen.”
Long said the friendship between the Vietnamese and the Filipinos could prove to be a stronger weapon than China’s military hardware.
“I expect China to understand that small countries have a better asset than troops or weapons … and that’s the friendship between these countries,” he said. “Filipinos are willing to share the sorrow of the Vietnamese people whose relatives died in the illegal war.”
The Philippines was one of the countries that accepted Vietnamese refugees or “boat people” who fled their country after the Fall of Saigon to the North Vietnamese Army in the mid-1970s.