I USED to imagine a lesser evil guard one of our shores from a bigger evil, to help us ward off the latter’s incursions into our shores. I once believed myself to be anti-US imperialism, but when China began menacing the Spratlys, I softened up on the idea of having a US base in the country again. What about Palawan, I thought.
US imperialism is real, true. American multinational companies have oppressed and exploited us so they can gain bigger profits from their operations worldwide. But here’s the problem: China is outrightly claiming what is ours and bullying us into submission. We hate that, except that the current dispensation seemingly does not.
I also used to dream of an independent Philippines that is free from oppression and exploitation by foreign forces. But is there such a setup? Look at Vietnam. That country battled US aggression and attempts to split its soul in half. It won and realized the dream of unification at the cost of thousands killed and displaced. But Chinese imperialist designs is driving Vietnam back to US arms, although on different terms.
People can be fickle. When President Rodrigo Duterte announced his pivot to China, his diehard supporters, and they are many, also began singing praises to China, even wanting the country to give up its claim to the Spratlys. Thus my dream of us defending our territory, even to the point of allowing at least one docking area for US warships in Palawan to deter Chinese aggression there, will no longer become reality.
This setup has apparently split the anti-imperialist forces in the country. There are those anti-imperialists before who are now diehard Duterte supporters or DDS who are trying to put an anti-imperialist spin to their idol’s foreign policy, but that isn’t working. These are the same people who made voters believe in the past presidential election that Duterte is a progressive.
Ah, so the Visiting Forces Agreement or VFA is not good for the country? What then do we make of the billions of dollars worth of aid that we would be losing once the military agreement is cut? The tongue may be in US President Donald Trump’s cheek but there was a modicum of truth to his statement that the US would save money from the VFA termination. That may not be prime dollars but are dollars nevertheless.
The truth is, many of the diehard Duterte supporters actually hate the anti-imperialists for disparaging in the past the terms of the VFA agreement. Some of these people love to travel to the US, buy anything “stateside” and even have relatives in the “states.” Now they have suddenly become anti-US and pro-China. They are clapping with glee at the government’s decision to terminate the VFA.
The lack of principles and the blind loyalty of these people to their “idol” show every time. I wonder what they would do in a change of administration. What if the new administration would be diametrically opposed viewpoint-wise from the old one? Oh, I forgot. That is precisely why the word “balimbing” was invented.