REPEATEDLY and for the nth time, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. assured Filipinos that the increasing number of US military in the Philippines, particularly the three of the four new bases that directly pose a threat to China would not be used for “offensive actions.” This would not happen because he would not allow it.
Such assurance, of course, is not sufficient for the directly affected Filipinos in Cagayan and Isabela should war breaks out that they could sleep peacefully each night given that US Imperialism continues to ratchet up its war baiting of China over the issue of Taiwan and the South China Sea.
For let us be frank about it and pose the question, “who” really has sovereignty and control over those American bases? Who would decide when to push the button and launch the war with China when the time comes, is it the Pentagon and the White House or as our officials want us to believe, Malacañang?
Those bases may be on our territory but their effective control and management and the crucial decisions to be made when the moment arrives lies with the United States.
And the only way we can prevent US Imperialism from turning our country as the ‘Ukraine of Asia’ is not harsh words from our President as Commander-in-Chief, but when Filipino soldiers directly point their guns against the Americans to force them out of the country.
Although, this may be wishful thinking considering the shameful subservience of our national leaders, our military leaders included, to Washington.
Let us be frank too to recall that the only reason war came upon us during World War 2 with Japanese Imperialism attacking and conquering us was because we host the biggest US military facilities outside of the US mainland. Back then the Philippines is practically an American military garrison and therefore the “natural target” of Japanese military ambition.
It is an indictment of our national stupidity and slavishness that we have not learned any lesson at all from history; our present government is rushing its way to turn back the hands of time by again turning our country into an American military garrison to face a more formidable “enemy” that it created, China.
Ironic that in demonizing China, our leaders have blindly accepted US lies, forgetting that we have been friends with China for more than 1,000 years now and forgetting that in the many crises that we have faced, it is China and the Chinese people who are immediately beside us to help us.
From natural and manmade disasters that besieged us—Typhoon Yolanda, the war in Marawi to the fight against COVID-19 just two years ago and the opening of its economy to accommodate our exports, China is always at the frontline of assistance to us.
But the stupid people that we have become, we are ready to ditch everything aside including our millennium of peaceful and friendly relations with China just because our dear old Uncle Sam now considers China its “enemy.”
More than 125 years after US Imperialism bloodily quelched our fight for national independence that also resulted to our lands being converted to US military bases so they can be used to wage further US wars of aggressions in Asia, we remain as what we are back then—What Uncle Sam wants from us, Uncle Sam gets.
Shame.