When China invades Taiwan, it is expected to neutralize perceived adversarial forces in Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and possibly as far as Guam and Hawaii through cyberattacks before going kinetic.
It can’t be clearer than that. Time is short to get ready. The President himself has sounded the alarm. Paging Secretaries Año, Teodoro, and Remulla to start the process backed by other NDRRMC departments.
Community resilience is crucial. The NSC, DND and DILG should mount this vital initiative ASAP with sharp focus on safety, security, and survival.
Our preparations should consider attacks on EDCA facilities, forward deployed units in Northern Luzon, vital infrastructure, centers of gravity in Metro Manila, Central and Southern Luzon; black operations by sleeper cells including disinformation, sabotage, assassination, and terror strikes.
Stockpiling essential goods and commodities, organizing community defense units, and adopting a bayanihan mindset are crucial imperatives.
We also will likely undertake rescue-repatriation operations for our OFWs in Taiwan, over 200,000, not counting Taiwanese who want to escape to the PH. Our HADR forces will have to crisscross hostile airspace and waters to accomplish their missions.
Whether we like it or not, that’s one plausible scenario that will require nationwide unity, solidarity, and teamwork.
That’s why community resilience to deal with infiltration, supply shortages, self-defense, information flows, etc., must be addressed while there’s still time.
We’re gonna be war victims whether we like it or not. Someone will start it, and we’ll be on the receiving end, not the other way around as the enemy’s choir wants us to think.
The basics we envy abroad are the luxuries we lack at home