A third war for freedom

On June 2, 1899, the First Philippine Republic officially declared war against the United States. That was more than a hundred years ago. The cause of the war was the Filipinos of the First Philippine Republic did not accept the Treaty of Paris in which Spain ceded our country to the US for an agreed sum. Our heroes had fought hard for their independence and won it against Spain but they would not be allowed the independence.

So Filipinos had to go to war again for their independence this time against the US, the new most powerful nation in the world.

It is time to summon the memories of this war and how the so-called special relations with the United States came to be.

Few understood that the war against the United States in 1899 was a continuation of the Philippine struggle for independence that we had already won against Spain. The Americans were interlopers but they played an adept game of colonialism. It was a double game giving us our independence formally in 1946 while keeping the country under the US under a neo-colonial structure exemplified by the Laurel-Langley agreement which gave Americans equal rights with Filipinos. This double game blinded Filipinos from seeing the new form of imperialism.

There were Filipinos who continued their war for independence. Led by veterans of the Katipunan they continued to battle American forces.

We must remember them now for it is in remembering them that we will realize that we have it in us to build a truly Filipino nation.

Among the leaders was General Macario Sacay, a veteran Katipunan member who assumed the presidency of the proclaimed “Tagalog Republic,” formed in 1902 after the capture of President Emilio Aguinaldo.

There were others that fought lonely wars in remote areas and islands. They were isolated from the general populace by being branded as outlaws by America’s soft power imperialism.

These hardy men and women fighting in isolation left a legacy that paradoxically remained dormant in Filipino psyche. The defeat in our third war for independence came from our own – the treachery of our oligarchy, the Paternos and Buencaminos who called themselves ‘moderate.’ While their brave companions were dying and fighting they fostered intrigues that weakened Filipino resolve. That is the theme of the film Heneral Luna that  our own people destroyed our will to fight for our independence. The Filipino oligarchy took over as our masters when the foreign conquerors left.

Filipino intellectuals know that among other things President Mckinley demanded we adopt the unitary presidential form of government. That was disastrous for the Philippines. We became known as America’s patsy in the region.

Although more subtle it ensured that the governor general who represented US authority led the country. That system went on through the presidential system through an elected Filipino president who acted as a native Governor General. The politics behind it gave rise to the dynastic rule of the oligarchy. This was the more effective conquest. It has lasted for more than 100 years and continues to this day with Philippine presidents having to toe the American line to stay in power. Was this the special relations between the Philippines and the US?

More knowledgeable Filipinos know that the Smartmatic PCOS machines and a media prompted by the same script that made Noynoy Aquino president because of a funeral was re-used for the purpose. His father, Ninoy sought the help of a psychiatrist friend for his troubled son. Walang-ka drive drive.

We had a six-year presidency that made sure we would stay locked in our dependence on the US in the US-China conflict on the South China Sea. He was a lazy president who had no idea on the geopolitical implications of US-China rivalry.

Duterte was the right person to end the servility that the oligarchy made us to be. He is the Heneral Luna of our time. He describes his war as against drugs, graft and criminality but it is more than that. That is why he resonates in countries around the world especially in our region.  He has declared independence from America’s foreign policy dictates. He will be friends with all countries in the interest of the Philippines. Perhaps this time with Duterte as president and promising the shift to parliamentary federal government, we will become truly independent.

American imperialists’ attempt to destroy Duterte by using international media will fail. Filipinos are slowly awakening as our forebears Sakay and Heneral Luna.

Times have changed and other countries understand why the crowds follow Duterte wherever he goes. He says what others have kept silent about the treachery of Americans and their minions – the oligarchy.

If you have a chance to see the movie Heneral Luna do so to understand the war between the oligarchy and our freedom fighters.

The growing awareness of Filipinos on why they lost the war of independence against the US is obvious.

Filipinos are encouraged to ask questions about the evolution and identity of their nation, and to draw parallels between contemporary political events and those in Luna’s time.

“I detest war, but I detest compromise more,” Luna says. But his companions did not agree with him. Luna clashed with the oligarchy’s brokers Pedro Paterno and Felipe Buencamino.

“Heneral Luna” is concerned with examining how internal rivalries was the undoing of Luna and destroyed any chance of the Philippines gaining genuine and lasting independence.

By the way among those who took his side was Gen. Jose Alejandrino, a forebear of the Jose Alejandrino who now advises Bayan Ko. The older Alexandrine also wrote the Spanish lyrics of the song.

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Ironically it is the New York Times which reported that the Philippine problem on drugs can be traced back to the Benigno Aquino III rule.

 “It might seem that the Philippines’ trouble began when it elected Mr. Duterte, a brash provincial politician who has for decades embraced extrajudicial killings as a legitimate method of crime control,” NY Times said.

“But the true roots of the problem can be traced to the administration of Mr. Duterte’s predecessor, Benigno Aquino III.

In 2010, Aquino was elected on high hopes that he will support the rule of law and human rights. However he failed to fix the Philippines’ corrupt and ineffective justice system.”

And, perhaps most critical, Mr. Aquino was perceived as lazy and soft, unwilling to take the necessary steps to solve the country’s problems,” NY Times said.

With the previous administration’s failures to respond to the Filipinos’ needs and frustration with the government’s inability to provide basic security, the people demanded a new kind of leadership that would take more decisive action to provide security.