Aquino shows a lack of sense or sensibility

Philippines' President Benigno Aquino delivers a speech at the Upper House of parliament in Tokyo, Japan, June 3, 2015. [Photo/Agencies]

Philippine President Benigno Aquino's wild talk likening China to Nazi Germany is not helping his country's recent claims in the South China Sea. As a politician, his badmouthing will only further tarnish his own credibility and disgrace his country.

Aquino, on his sixth visit to Japan in five years, drew similarities between China's island building in the South China Sea and Nazi Germany's expansionist moves before World War II. "What if somebody said stop to Hitler at that point in time, or to Germany at that time?" he asked at a news conference in Tokyo on Wednesday.

This is not the first time Aquino has made a fool of himself through such rhetoric.

In fact, of all the countries in Asia today, it is the one that is playing host to him this week to which his expansionist remark is most apposite. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been keen on expanding the sphere of Japan's so-called Self-Defense Forces, having a cozy chin-wag with Aquino in their attempts to seize territory from China in the East and South China seas.

Like his guest, Abe has also appeared to be ignorant of history. Despite the best efforts of historians around the world to persuade Abe to face up to his country's past squarely, the Japanese leader continues to ignore the Potsdam Declaration of 1945 and the women forced to be sex slaves of the Imperial Japanese Army during WWII.

Historians and scholars around the world have to continue trying to teach Aquino and Abe the true facts of the past.

Manila's dispute with China over isles in the South China Sea and Tokyo's feud with China over the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea have apparently drawn the two countries closer.

Coveting maritime territory it is not entitled to, Manila has been begging military support from countries, including the United States and Japan, and Aquino's visit to Japan this time is reportedly focused on defense and security ties.

Against the backdrop of the international community increasing its pressure on Abe to abandon his repulsive historical revisionism, Aquino's voluntary embrace with Abe who keeps denying WWII Japanese atrocities against other Asians, the Filipinos included, will only tarnish him with the same brush.

Both Abe and Aquino should beware: Time has proved and will continue to prove that those going against the trend of history will sooner or later run into a stone wall.