What is “wrong” with our national mentality?

LAST October 22, 2022 (see link here) and then again last November 14, 2022 (see link here), and even as far back as September 26, 2022 (see link here), we editorialized our warning that, first, America has never been our ‘friend’ and that, unless we wake up, we would end up as ‘cannon fodders’ for America’s planned war against China.

Well, the small paper that we are, a ‘speck,’ so to speak, in the growing geopolitical hurricane that is of direct existential threat to us, we accept it that no matter how reasoned we are in our arguments, no one in our national leadership would care to listen to us as most, if not all of them, continue to be under the grip of colonial mentality in favor of the United States.

Over this ‘reality,’ we can only be amused each time DND secretary Carlito Galvez gave the lousy excuse that the “strengthening” of our “alliance” (read: servility) with the United States is to “protect” our national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Of course, this is a perverse reasoning insofar as we are concerned as it is also an insult to the ‘independent foreign policy’ that the Philippines claims to pursue where we are “a friend to all and an enemy to none.”

For is not the presence of any foreign troops, Americans included, not a diminution of our own national sovereignty and an assault on our independent foreign policy? Are we not breaking the bedrock of our own foreign policy because it is clear to everyone that we are only being a friend to one to the exclusion of the rest?

But such argument appears to be of no consequence right now. For as you are reading this, our Armed Forces is preparing (again) for another round of military exercises with the US and more insultingly, with Japan, in whose hands we also received a great dose of atrocities after American troops in the history of our country.

That there is a “problem” in our national mentality and of how we judge things is also shown over the revelation by Cagayan Governor Manuel Mamba during the March 1, 2023 hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he was visited and then “bullied” by US Embassy officials, accompanied by Philippine Army officers, over his staunch refusal to host US military bases in his province.

Heck, he was even “questioned” as to why he was “talking” to Chinese officials, as if all of us must know seek “clearance” from American officials before talking to anyone else, China especially. And that we should remember this as any American command to us is back by the guns of our own Philippine Army.

To us the incident in Cagayan is such a revelation that puts into focus the hallowedness of our pretense for national sovereignty and independence in the face of America’s insult and also puts into question as to “who” and “where” the loyalty of the AFP really belongs.

As far as we know, our national officialdom—the DND, the DFA, even Malacañang— never registered a note verbale to the US Embassy for the Gestapo-like questioning of an elected Filipino official, no matter how low his position maybe, such as being the governor of a Philippine province.

Even the Senate and Congress, after hearing out Gov. Mamba, declined to issue a resolution to condemn the bullying he received from the hands of the United States.

And yes, all the above are quick to condemn China over its violations of our national territory and independence both real and imagined.

And so, we ask, what is wrong with our national mentality?