1 week Ago By Orlando P. Carvajal
Today is Araw ng Kagitingan (Day of Valor), the day we remember the fall of Bataan (April 9, 1942) and honor the bravery of Filipino and American soldiers who fought to defend our nation. Days earlier, on orders of President Roosevelt, Gen. Douglas MacArthur left the Philippines for Australia.
As fate would have it, he managed, as he promised, to return and liberate us; but the fact remains that the US left the Philippines to the mercy of the Japanese to attend to their other national security priorities. There’s no way we can blame the US for that. We need to instead learn to do the same and behave as a self-respecting nation by attending to our own national security priorities.
This means putting the eradication of mass poverty ahead of the modernization of our armed forces. This means the common sense not to be sucked into buying billions worth of F16 fighter jets that will cost billions more to maintain. The purchase not only takes away a huge slice of resources that could be applied to the solution of mass poverty but is also of no help in the protection of our rights to the West Philippine Sea.
Common sense should tell us a few more jet fighters will never balance the military equation between us and China. It would not be a surprise if the prospect of huge commissions made our leaders defy common sense. The Philippines is definitely not closer as an ally to the US than Canada and Denmark.
Yet, what is Trump doing to them? He wants to make Canada the 51st State of the US and annex Denmark’s Greenland into US territory. He has also said he will not help defend Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) members who do not pay their dues to the alliance. Ukraine has to cough up to the US half its rare earth minerals in exchange for military aid.
What do we have to give up for the US to honor what the US Defense Secretary, in his recent visit, referred to as our “iron-clad alliance?” With that as context, it is a no brainer to see that this “iron-clad” alliance has a price tag. Trump has proven to be transactional. It could easily enter his unhinged mind to annex us for our strategic geographical location in his drive for world hegemony.
Like Ukraine we don’t have all the cards. All we have is the common sense and hopefully the smarts to avoid becoming a pawn in America’s power game. All bets are off as to what Trump will do next.
He is shaking global trade to an unprecedented degree of instability. Europe is pushing back and leaving America out of their future trade and political plans. They are not depending anymore on unreliable (because of Trump) America in their pursuit of national security.
Where does that leave us? The oriental mind is reputed to be inscrutable. Yet, our national officials are anything but inscrutable in their dealings with Uncle Sam. In the age of Trump this could be disastrous.
More than modern weapons we need the smarts and common sense of a self-respecting nation. Otherwise, the Bataan defenders would have died in vain..
