Here and There
VFA’s ‘soft approach’ in Sulu
By Gerry Garcia
TODAY, after more than half a century of independence from Mother America, there are still protests and rallies, though launched in harmless clusters mostly by so-called militants, daring “imperialist Yankees” to keep hands off matters that are not their business here, and to go home!
We find this attitude odd, are in fact against over accusations of imperialism directed at the United States of America… as if it was a colonial power ruling over and exploiting countries of the Third World, which she truly is not.
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The Philippines came into US hands by accident, as a result of the Spanish-American war when the US went to the assistance of Cuba, which was fighting for independence from Spain. Military strategy calling for bottling up the Spanish navy in the Pacific, led to the battle in Manila Bay where US Commodore George Dewey and his fleet emerged victorious. American troops occupied the country, ceded to the US by Spain for 20 million dollars. After nearly half a century of American control, the Philippines became an independent, sovereign, democratic nation on July 4, 1946.
The transition of the country from colony to a free nation showed the United States in the unfamiliar role of colonial power. It was a position alien to American philosophy then as it is today.
There had been much opposition in the US to annexing the Philippines based on constitutional grounds. The US constitution did not provide for the acquisition of territory on moral grounds — it was incompatible with American ideals. On practical grounds — the Philippines were 6,000 miles from the pacific coastline of the US.
The US Senate resolved however, it is not intended to incorporate the inhabitants of said islands into citizenship of the United States, nor is it intended to permanently annex said islands… but it is the intention of the United States to establish a government suitable to the wants and conditions of the inhabitants of said islands, to prepare them for local self-government.
Presently, the same thing is happening, though in violent chaotic way, in Iraq.
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Meanwhile, the annual balikatan exercise jointly held by both the American and AFP forces in the province of Sulu, part of visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) resulting from the Mutual Defense pact signed by American and the Philippines in 1951, started on Feb. 13, Tuesday heavy with humanitarian missions. Bulldozers, not tanks and guns, had been brought over for road projects, school and clinic renovations — a “soft approach” in helping the Armed Forces defeat the Abu Sayyaf and Jemah Islamiya by isolating the terrorists from the civilians in Sulu. This is a far cry from the imagined threats of control and exploitation of a colony by “imperialistic America.”
(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/here-and-there/)
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