Friday, August 31, 2007 Roperos: Americans in Jolo By Godofredo M. Roperos Politics Also
THE recent visit of American congressmen to southern Philippines should be taken as being made for no other reason than to have first hand information of the situation in a place where elements of the American military are involved as “advisers.” This is a standard American ploy in areas where it has serious political and military interest.
Questions have often been asked how gravely entangled our foreign policy is with that of the United States. While a certain measure of detachment was achieved some years back when the Philippines opted to end the US bases agreement. Still, the traditional ties that had been set since the early days of the American colonization of the Philippines have somehow remained.
Across the decades since the US granted the Philippines its independence in July 1946, the social, economic, and political relationship of the two nations blew hot or cold. With the scuttling of the bases agreement, the relationship went so cold the US “dismantled” its consulate in Cebu in retaliation and imposed stricter rules that made it more difficult for Filipinos to enter the US.
When wily terrorists struck in America and toppled the World Trade Center twin towers in September 2001, the US declared an open war on terrorism and called on the Philippines to help out. This was expected as we have a long-standing problem with Muslim separatists in the South, some of them having reportedly established ties with the Al Qaeda terror groups in the Middle East.
The current problem in Basilan and Jolo should not be considered as something new, since it is a recurrent one. But American involvement, or should we say “support,” in the present conflict may spell a difference towards its immediate resolution. The Muslim problem, in fact, is a feature of the national condition that refuses “to say die,” a Joloano of Christian descent said to me when I was in Jolo on assignment by the Sunday Times Magazine.
However the current offensive would turn out in the end, there will never be immediate definite solutions to the issue.
There is a better than even chance that blood kin of those who died in the on-going shooting war would nourish the pain of loss, and keep the “anger” burning in their hearts, the easier to rekindle the flames of conflict when another opportune time comes.
Muslims are a very close-knit people and the sooner they can be truly integrated into the national mainstream of Filipinos, the better for us.
