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Now playing out in a hitherto-neglected region of the world – but not that far from our own beleaguered corner – is the escalating tension between the United States and China.
The US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty, nearly 75 years old now, is being dusted off in the light of “current and emerging threats” to the two countries – read: China’s increasing belligerence about Taiwan and its own maritime claims over almost the entire South China Sea.
Yesterday, the US and Philippine military forces formally ended their 18-day joint war games under the 38th version of the Balikatan. The various exercises, held in Northern and Central Luzon, involved more than 17,000 troops and live-firing of a variety of US modern weapons systems.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said those investments “will spur job creation and economic growth in local Philippine communities.” His enthusiasm may have exhilarated the current administration, especially the defense establishment. But to us, the Filipino people, one crucial issue remains unclear, even disturbing: how exactly or to what extent the American forces will use the EDCA sites.
It’s Holy Week, a moment of reflection, getting together, family and friends bonding moment, a break from hectic days, or a celebration from heydays. Wherever we are, I assume that we pray and reflect on these days apart from gallivanting and jubilating.
We don’t have a next move, that is the extent of our involvement with the ICC. That ends all our involvement with the ICC. Because we will no longer appeal, the appeal has failed and there is, in our view, nothing more that we can do in the government and so at this point we essentially are disengaging from any contact, from any communication with the ICC.”
This week, the United States and the Philippine militaries – with enthusiastic support from Ferdinand Marcos Jr. – kick-started the implementation of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), the 2014 bilateral executive accord which had been delayed for eight years.
Live-fire training, using naval artillery gunfire and aviation rockets and bombs to sink a vessel in the West Philippine Sea, where China continues its aggressive maneuvers. And the first live-firing here of a US Patriot missile as part of a drill in coastal defense.
The death of Adamson University student John Matthew Salilig at the hands of his presumptive fraternity “brothers” is a wake-up call to everyone, especially those with a relative in a college or university, that hazing is a continuing problem in many schools as well as in other Philippine institutions. Salilig’s case is in fact provoking other citizens who had so far been silent to reveal how their own kin were similarly victimized.
Into the eighth month of the new administration, the government’s virulent red-tagging campaign is still being waged by the mouthpieces (official or otherwise) of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict – now nominally headed by Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as chairperson.
As the visiting European Union (EU) parliamentarians were declaring that the human rights situation in the Philippines has “improved,” a 17-year-old male and two others had apparently been abducted in a Batangas town. Very few details were available as this column was being written, but it was only one of the many abductions that are still happening despite the change in administration last July, 2022.
A news report on Thursday in Business Mirror that headlined “Senate grills defense brass on plans for EDCA expansion, sites” raised much curiosity for its sheer lack of detailed information. I found this unusual for a reportage by veteran newsman Butch Fernandez, whom I have known for decades.
The irony cannot be ignored. Today’s 37th observance of the Filipino people’s historic peaceful uprising – which led to the ouster of the 14-year US-backed dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. – happens with his namesake-son sitting as president in Malacañang.
The Marcos II administration has declared that part of its foreign policy is strengthening Philippine relations with other ASEAN countries and with China. But it is still the US on which the country has to depend for its external defense because, despite the billions spent on its supposed “modernization,” the Armed Forces of the Philippines cannot even protect Filipino fisherfolk from Chinese harassment and is most expert only at the suppression of dissent and social unrest. No government is to blame for this predicament except the Philippines’ own.
Last month, the Philippine Navy acquired its first ground-based air defense system (GBADS), consisting of Israeli-made SPYDER missile batteries. Objective: to “neutralize” any potential aerial threat or foreign aircraft intrusion in the country’s airspace. However, this system is categorized as a secondary air defense cover after the PAF’s FA-50PH light jet fighters, earlier acquired from South Korea. This acquisition – costing P6,846,750,000 – is not mentioned in the USSD report.
Should Congress decide to either convene itself into a constituent assembly or to call for elections for delegates to a constitutional convention, the citizenry must closely monitor the process — not because the 1987 Constitution is Corazon Aquino’s most outstanding legacy, but because, at this critical stage in the country’s history, it is among the people’s few remaining means of defense against the return of authoritarian rule and the further ruin of this country.
Considering all these revelations from the US and NATO, one may ask: What is the world’s lone superpower thinking? Is the US flexing its military muscles and consolidating its regional and global alliances to deter an impending war with China? Or are these actions meant to prepare for war?
Mr. Marcos could use his new-found skills in international relations to convince the rest of the world of that need. But rather than just globe-trotting, he could also craft and implement the policies that can combat the ravages of global warming here, in frontline Philippines.
Invoking the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty – acknowledging and repeatedly stressing its applicability in the West Philippine Sea (a Philippine proposition earlier rejected by the Obama administration) – the United States appears to be angling to use Subic Bay once more as its naval base in this part of the world.
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