Freedom of navigation gone bad
Credit to Author: MAURO GIA SAMONTE| Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2019 17:44:46 +0000
First of 2 Parts
My worst fears are coming true. According to reports, the United States and the Philippines have engaged in bilateral talks validating and improving on the provisions of the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) signed by them in 1951. I do not have the luxury of time to look deeply into the matter before treating it in this column, but at any rate, the very idea of the treaty being continued, instead of abrogated, raises horrors in my vision.
My readers will recall that Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana made a public suggestion toward the end of last year that the MDT be reviewed. I immediately agitated for the creation of a movement called Scramdt (acronym for Scrap the MDT).
The germ of the idea came about during a meeting with like-minded individuals headed by former ambassador Alberto Encomienda, who disclosed that the developments in the region no longer augured a continuance of the MDT. Encomienda particularly cited the dissolution of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (Seato), which was one of the major rationales for creating a mutual defense arrangement between the US and the Philippines.
I would even cite a public declaration by President Ferdinand E. Marcos in this regard, made in answer to a question thrown at him during a press conference held in connection with his visit to the US in 1982. Was it true that he was demanding $1 billion as rental for US military bases in the Philippines?
Marcos’ answer was prompt and precise: No, he never asked for that kind of arrangement.
What he was demanding was to correct imperfections in the MDT whereby in the event of an attack on the Philippines, thus, went his words, “you must go through your constitutional processes… the Senate, the House of Representatives… while we are all dying there.”
The US media attendance burst in lusty applause.
In one recent edition of the Kamuning Bakery Pandesal Forum, in which prominent personages Butch Valdez, Mon Casiple and Gabriela party-list Representative BLANK composed the panel, I addressed the group, recalling that Washington DC press conference: “And yet where were we in 1982? Out in the streets shouting ‘Marcos! Hitler! Diktador! Tuta!‘”
What we only now are agitating about, Marcos was already condemning the Americans for nearly four decades ago. It’s sad then, that instead of being done away with, it continues to bind the Philippines to, if I may use a metaphor, US apron strings.
Let’s not fool ourselves. We don’t need America to defend us. Neither is it a correct view that we cannot defend ourselves. We don’t need to defend ourselves. We’ve got no enemies to defend ourselves against.
When was the last time the country was invaded? In 1941, by the Japanese. But were we at war with Japan? No. It was the Americans who the Japanese were up against. As the late President Dr. Jose P. Laurel would put it, Filipinos in World War 2 were made to fight a war that was not their making. The readers would be interested to note that after the successful Japanese bombardment of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, practically wiping out the entire US Pacific Fleet, their targets the next day were the US military installations in the Philippines: the Camp John Hay in Baguio, the Subic US naval base in Zambales, and the Sangley Point in Cavite, among other naval and air bases.
Why was this so? Because the real enemies of the Japanese in World War 2 were the Americans, not the Filipinos. If only you would care to dig up some memorabilia of Manila in the wartime period, you would discover that the Japanese forces entered the city unopposed, with many of the city folks, in fact, cheering the Japanese troops, waving stick Japanese flags and holding up slogans of welcome. Catholic priests were among those who feted General Masaharu Homma and other top officials of the Japanese Expeditionary Forces at the Manila Hotel when they entered Manila at the advent of 1942.
Not the Filipinos but the Americans were the enemies of the Japanese. Otherwise, you would find it illogical that Japan would hit Hawaii first. It was in Hawaii where the mighty US Pacific Fleet was based; it was that Hawaiian base which thousands of Japanese spies cased preparatory to the sneak attack. The attacks on the Philippines the next day amounted to nothing but mopping-up operations over US military installations in the country.
Had the US not maintained those military installations in the Philippines, the Japanese would not have found reason to attack.
Now we are into the MDT. Would China find any reason to attack the Philippines if that treaty were not in place in the country? As I pointed out in my column last week, China has never been known to attack another country unless it is hit first.
That’s why I concluded that for the Philippines to deny China all reasons to attack, it must abrogate the MDT once and for all. And abrogating the treaty, I pointed out, is as easy as President Duterte telling the US he is unilaterally abrogating it. Under the provisions of the MDT, after one party serves such notice to the other, you count a year and the treaty is deemed abrogated.
For that reason, I remain wishy-washy over the President’s real connection with the US. That he has not, even now, seized upon the cited provision of the MDT in order to end it once and for all would tend to indicate that he isn’t quite ready to really sever ties with the US.
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