Whoever fed Senator Imee Marcos the notion that the transfer of fuel to Subic from a US Navy depot in Hawaii was shrouded in secrecy did her and her brother, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., a disservice.

Revealing how out of the loop she is from her ading’s administration, Senator Marcos came out shooting from the hip anew, but with blanks, no thanks to sloppy research work.

“Not again! This is strike three in attempting to deprive the Filipino people of the right to know,” Marcos had said of the two countries’ purported “silence” about the planned transfer of 39 million gallons of oil.

She gingerly warned that the shipment fueled speculations that the US is prepositioning military supplies in the country amid predictions of an eventual war between China and the US over Taiwan.

A day after the senator aired her concern, the US Embassy in Manila shot down that “prepositioning” angle, saying the transfer was purely commercial, and not military. Our defense and military establishments provided the chorus to the US Embassy’s narrative.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines even went so far as to say that it would investigate the transfer, obviously to bolster its claim of not knowing anything or being a party to it.

Well, the transfer was aborted, and the next thing we knew, the top official of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority had been shown the door — most likely collateral damage in the hoopla.

To jaded observers of geopolitical moves, that denial by the US Embassy and our defense officials was to be expected for what may truly be a prepositioning of logistics—of oil to be processed into fuel for US Navy ships and planes that are now actively patrolling the South China Sea, and conducting joint patrols with the Philippines in the West Philippine Sea.

Who knows? That may truly have been a commercial operation but with an ultimate military agenda. After all, ships and planes do not run on fumes, and deploying them and providing them with munitions and fuel are almost always done in secrecy, especially in faraway theaters of operations.

People, including senators, even if one is the President’s sister, are told of such operations on a need-to-know basis, as the cavalier outing of such information would not only derail tactical operations but also compromise the very security of the country or countries involved.

But Senator Marcos could have certainly asked her brother, the President, about the transfer, and he may have obliged her with an answer if only she had not raised questions in public that had a huge potential to embarrass them both.

As it turned out, that concern over “secrecy” may just be too cloak-and-daggerish, a romanticized take or, if this Contrarian may, much ado over nothing, a thing that does not require a high-security clearance as the transfer was never a secret.

The Stars and Stripes news site, said to be funded by the Pentagon, had reported on the fuel shipment to the Philippines as early as October 2023, in line with the order of US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin dating back to March 2022 to decommission the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The website said Red Hill was ordered “emptied of gallons of fuel” over a leak that reportedly contaminated the local water table in 2021. Stars and Stripes said Joint Task Force-Red Hill revealed that 104 million gallons would be shipped to “San Diego, Subic Bay in the Philippines, the Port of Singapore, and a pair of fuel depots in Hawaii.”

Nonetheless, there may be something else in all this, considering the sacking of the SBMA chief and the scuttling of the oil transfer. Senator Marcos may know something more, over and above what she had spoken about in public.

Big sister is certainly watching little brother’s every move, and there’s no secrecy here too. Manang Imee has always said she only wants her brother to succeed in his presidency, thus her constant needling.

Who does not want that? Not the needling, but for any president to succeed if only so the country emerges triumphant, too.