Side A: Now and Then
ft former & current members, joined by a 30-piece orchestra conducted by Ria Villena Osorio
February 21 & 22, 2026 at the Metropolitan Theater
Tickets:
🗓️ Saturday, Feb 21
https://t.co/tGYZ5LKrMU
🗓️ Sunday, Feb 22
https://t.co/qNomtF2WQ0
Q? 09989990278
Ang gago, di ba? Kapag @unionbankph employees, bawal magkaroon ng UnionBank CC. Pero yung mga boss mga naka-UnionBank CC. Kapag rank and file at lower management ang daming bawal.
Beijing accuses us of “hyping.” Let us be precise about what actually happened. We observed a structure inside Bajo de Masinloc. We documented it, dated it, geolocated it, and released the aerial imagery to the public. That is not hype — that is transparency. And transparency is only threatening to the party that has something to hide.
To “hype” something is to exaggerate or invent it. We did neither. The imagery speaks for itself, and we put it in front of the Filipino people, the region, and the international community precisely so that no one has to take our word for it — or Beijing’s. The fact that China’s instinct is to attack the reporting rather than explain the structure tells you everything. What is irresponsible is not a coast guard doing its job and informing the public. What is irresponsible is the unilateral placement of structures in another country’s exclusive economic zone, in open defiance of the 2016 Arbitral Award — and then calling the act of documenting it a provocation.
And there is a reason we cannot simply accept Beijing’s description of these as “normal activities.” We have heard this before. When the People’s Republic of China first occupied Mischief Reef in 1995, it assured the world that the structures it was putting up were nothing more than shelters for its fishermen. Today, Mischief Reef is a fully militarized artificial island — runway, hangars, radar, missile capabilities — sitting squarely inside the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. The “fishermen’s shelter” was the cover story.
So when China waves away the structure at Bajo de Masinloc as “normal,” it is asking the region to forget its own record. That is precisely why these actions cannot be taken at face value.
If China genuinely wants to be believed, there is a simple way to show it: pull out. Remove the platform, halt the installation of buoys/communication towers, and respect the 2016 Arbitral Award and waters that are legally ours. Anything less only confirms the pattern — that China’s assurances at Bajo de Masinloc today are worth exactly what its word at Mischief Reef proved to be three decades ago.
The choice belongs to Beijing. It can preserve what little good faith the region and the international community still extend to it, or it can keep proving why that trust was misplaced to begin with.
Here is an animation depicting the spread of seismic waves across the globe and to the antipode from the M7.8 earthquake that struck the Philippines. The entire Earth shakes for hours after powerful events as such!