UNIVERSITY of the Philippines law professor Jay Batongbacal posted on X (formerly Twitter) an observation he made when he attended a conference sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on the South China Sea, where protesters bore slogans that read: 'US troops out of the Philippines! West Philippine Sea, atin ito!' While lawyer Batongbacal did not specifically label the ideological leanings of said protesters, I can only surmise that these are coming from the progressive left.

It is actually saddening, and unfortunate, that the Left has not evolved. In a world now enveloped with a new geopolitical narrative, it appears that leftist progressives remain fixated and trapped in tropes whose relevance has been overtaken by seismic shifts not only in politics but in all facets of life.