Colonial mentality is the disease, not the cure
Published Feb 21, 2020 12:00 am
HOT SPOT
By TONYO CRUZ
Tonyo Cruz
As expected, our most colonial-minded friends are gnashing their teeth in fury over President Duterte’s termination of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA). They proclaim the end of United States protection and aid which they say are essential and indispensable to our national security.
How the VFA and the other military agreements with the US have actually protected us from China’s invasion and occupation of Philippine islands and seas, the colonial-minded pro-VFA officials cannot say.
Under the VFA, US military forces can freely enter the Philippines without notifying us of their number, duration, destination, and route. No visas, border control, import, and quarantine requirements whatsoever. Exactly how this arrangement has deterred China, we don’t know.
Under the VFA, US military forces have staged Balikatan war games with Philippine troops. After several dozens of such military exercises, the US troops have benefited immensely from the knowledge of fighting wars in an archipelagic country such as ours, while Filipino “counterparts” take orders and get supervised. Exactly how the games has deterred China, we don’t know.
Buried in the official and media reports on the controversial Mamasapano massacre were mentions of US troops participating in the operation, purportedly because the VFA made it possible for them to be present and to provide supervision and intel. Exactly how they prevented Filipino troop casualties, we do not know.
One by one, colonial-minded officials have denounced the VFA’s termination and warned we would lose a lot of military aid. It is a claim that raises the question: Aid for what and for whom?
Concerned Filipino-Americans and Americans have been asking the US government to stop aid that goes to death squads killing suspected “pushers” in the cities, and suspected “communists” in the countryside. If that’s the kind of aid we are getting and which the colonial-minded officials insist on receiving, then surely we are better off without it.
Remember the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement signed under Barack Obama and Noynoy Aquino, and implemented under Duterte? Under EDCA, the government consented to giving the US full access and control to five Philippine installations -- Basa Air Base in Pampanga, Bautista Air Base in Palawan, Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija, Ebuen Air Base in Cebu, and Lumbia Airport in Cagayan de Oro. Five new military bases for the US, courtesy of the Philippine government!
Is China shaking in fear that we have given the Americans untrammelled entry to the country, as well as five military bases? Absolutely not.
The problem of our colonial-minded friends is that they have believe their own myths, and would like us to do the same. But the fact is, colonial mentality in diplomacy and defense have brought us to where we are now, a laughingstock to Beijing.
For instance: On the West Philippine Sea, the most that the US has done is to state its position on the “freedom of navigation” for American civilian and military vessels.
Beijing knows that the US won’t defend the Philippines, even if we had a million military agreements with Washington, DC. The mistake of colonial-minded Filipinos is to assume that American and Philippine interests are one and the same, and that the Mutual Defense Treaty, VFA, and EDCA would automatically oblige the US to defend the Philippines. Not even the title “major non-NATO ally” means anything practical to the needs of the Philippines, but for the US it means the Philippines is a guaranteed doormat, refuelling post, military games venue, launching pad, or outpost in the region.
Notwithstanding his many concessions to Beijing, Duterte remains loyal to Donald Trump and to US economic and military interests. He has kept the onerous neocolonial relations intact: beneficial to the US, questionable as to our own national benefit.
It is entirely possible that Duterte is playing his pro-American card more deftly than the other pro-Americans elsewhere in government. Duterte’s termination of the VFA could be his signal to Trump that he’s open to renegotiating the terms of US military presence in the Philippines, on terms that are more to Trump’s liking.
When we shout “Atin ang Pinas” at rallies at the Chinese consulate and online. It cannot mean we want China out and the US in. It means we stand for our national independence, sovereignty, and territory. It means reexamining military and economic agreements, and terminating all unequal and onerous ones so that we could as a nation freely decide on our fate, needs, and aspirations.
Our neighbors Indonesia and Vietnam show us how to preserve national security, and to defend national sovereignty. It is to uphold one’s independence and self-determination and to rely on one’s own people. Definitely, they are succeeding because they do not depend on and are not a puppet or pawn to Big Powers who have their own interests to protect.
For so long, colonial mentality has been promoted as the cure. We should by now realize that it is the disease that afflicts the spine of the corrupt neocolonial state, and which gives us as a people untold shame upon shame.
Tonyo Cruz
As expected, our most colonial-minded friends are gnashing their teeth in fury over President Duterte’s termination of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA). They proclaim the end of United States protection and aid which they say are essential and indispensable to our national security.
How the VFA and the other military agreements with the US have actually protected us from China’s invasion and occupation of Philippine islands and seas, the colonial-minded pro-VFA officials cannot say.
Under the VFA, US military forces can freely enter the Philippines without notifying us of their number, duration, destination, and route. No visas, border control, import, and quarantine requirements whatsoever. Exactly how this arrangement has deterred China, we don’t know.
Under the VFA, US military forces have staged Balikatan war games with Philippine troops. After several dozens of such military exercises, the US troops have benefited immensely from the knowledge of fighting wars in an archipelagic country such as ours, while Filipino “counterparts” take orders and get supervised. Exactly how the games has deterred China, we don’t know.
Buried in the official and media reports on the controversial Mamasapano massacre were mentions of US troops participating in the operation, purportedly because the VFA made it possible for them to be present and to provide supervision and intel. Exactly how they prevented Filipino troop casualties, we do not know.
One by one, colonial-minded officials have denounced the VFA’s termination and warned we would lose a lot of military aid. It is a claim that raises the question: Aid for what and for whom?
Concerned Filipino-Americans and Americans have been asking the US government to stop aid that goes to death squads killing suspected “pushers” in the cities, and suspected “communists” in the countryside. If that’s the kind of aid we are getting and which the colonial-minded officials insist on receiving, then surely we are better off without it.
Remember the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement signed under Barack Obama and Noynoy Aquino, and implemented under Duterte? Under EDCA, the government consented to giving the US full access and control to five Philippine installations -- Basa Air Base in Pampanga, Bautista Air Base in Palawan, Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija, Ebuen Air Base in Cebu, and Lumbia Airport in Cagayan de Oro. Five new military bases for the US, courtesy of the Philippine government!
Is China shaking in fear that we have given the Americans untrammelled entry to the country, as well as five military bases? Absolutely not.
The problem of our colonial-minded friends is that they have believe their own myths, and would like us to do the same. But the fact is, colonial mentality in diplomacy and defense have brought us to where we are now, a laughingstock to Beijing.
For instance: On the West Philippine Sea, the most that the US has done is to state its position on the “freedom of navigation” for American civilian and military vessels.
Beijing knows that the US won’t defend the Philippines, even if we had a million military agreements with Washington, DC. The mistake of colonial-minded Filipinos is to assume that American and Philippine interests are one and the same, and that the Mutual Defense Treaty, VFA, and EDCA would automatically oblige the US to defend the Philippines. Not even the title “major non-NATO ally” means anything practical to the needs of the Philippines, but for the US it means the Philippines is a guaranteed doormat, refuelling post, military games venue, launching pad, or outpost in the region.
Notwithstanding his many concessions to Beijing, Duterte remains loyal to Donald Trump and to US economic and military interests. He has kept the onerous neocolonial relations intact: beneficial to the US, questionable as to our own national benefit.
It is entirely possible that Duterte is playing his pro-American card more deftly than the other pro-Americans elsewhere in government. Duterte’s termination of the VFA could be his signal to Trump that he’s open to renegotiating the terms of US military presence in the Philippines, on terms that are more to Trump’s liking.
When we shout “Atin ang Pinas” at rallies at the Chinese consulate and online. It cannot mean we want China out and the US in. It means we stand for our national independence, sovereignty, and territory. It means reexamining military and economic agreements, and terminating all unequal and onerous ones so that we could as a nation freely decide on our fate, needs, and aspirations.
Our neighbors Indonesia and Vietnam show us how to preserve national security, and to defend national sovereignty. It is to uphold one’s independence and self-determination and to rely on one’s own people. Definitely, they are succeeding because they do not depend on and are not a puppet or pawn to Big Powers who have their own interests to protect.
For so long, colonial mentality has been promoted as the cure. We should by now realize that it is the disease that afflicts the spine of the corrupt neocolonial state, and which gives us as a people untold shame upon shame.