The Philippines has begun using a comic book, The Stories of Teacher Jun, to tell children about the Chinese threat.
“This comic book strengthens our goal to fight any attempts to blur something that is clear and true, that we own the West Philippine Sea,” says National Security Adviser Eduard Ano (Agence France-Presse, January 24, 2025).
It highlights “our maritime rights and entitlements while revealing China’s unlawful activities, aggressive behavior and bullying tactics. It is crucial for us to shed light on these actions as transparency is a powerful tool in combating misinformation.”
According to Jay Tarriela, a spokesman for the Philippine Coast Guard, the purpose is “to reinforce the awakened patriotism of Filipinos especially when we confront China’s aggression.”
The teaching tool counters Chinese Communist Party propaganda by telling the story “of a student’s fisherman father who struggles to go to sea due to the presence of the Chinese Coast Guard…. The student attends classes being taught by ‘Teacher Jun’—a character that resembles President Ferdinand Marcos—on international law using an analogy of house fences and backyards.”
Publication has been funded by donations, and by late January some 11,000 copies of The Stories of Teacher Jun had been distributed to schools and libraries.
Easy to understand
“It’s colorful and clear, and the text is big enough to read it easily,” Jolian Kaye Torres, a high school teacher, told BenarNews. “And the way Teacher Jun explains [the issue] is not complicated.”
The effort promotes knowledge of the threat and fosters the resolve necessary to meet it. Any student who doubts the veracity of the comic-book message can graduate from perusal of its glossy panels to study of newspaper reports and other evidence of Chinese responsibility for the “contrived disputes, armed clashes, bullying and brinkmanship” in the part of the South China Sea also known as the West Philippine Sea.
The current Philippine government is more open about the threat than its predecessor. Defense News recalls that two years ago, it “adopted a shame campaign by releasing videos and photographs of China’s increasingly assertive actions in the contested waters, including the use of powerful water cannons and dangerous blocking maneuvers, to domestic and international audiences. But the territorial spats, particularly between Chinese and Philippine coast guard forces, have continued.”
Also see:
StoptheCCP.org: The Spratly Agenda
StoptheCCP.org: Japan to the Rescue in the South China Sea?
