Abrogating the VFA, a good gambit with wrong timing
While we support the president on the eventual abrogation of a bilateral covenant that does not promote our national interests, like the Visiting Forces Agreement, we express disagreement on the timing of such a draconian move.
President Duterte, no doubt, is a very bold and decisive head of state and head of government. He is passionate, bullish, albeit at times could be impulsive and even reckless. But nobody could accuse him of failing to decide. This is the biggest distinctive character of this president. So unlike President PNoy who, with due respect, like his late mother, cannot even decide on very mundane and even trivial matters, without consulting a battery of advisers, many of whom had personal agenda and selfish interests. President Duterte's gambit to withdraw from the VFA, to the minds of many, was a correct move in the long run. But the timing was a knee-jerk reaction to some US interventionist moves.
Abrogation, we dare say, is good in the long run, because that one-sided agreement favored the US 90% and our country only 10%. By allowing our sovereign territory as staging grounds for war games, the US has gained, absolutely free of charge, a venue to display its war prowess, and to hone the skills of their soldiers, within our jungles and seashores, our islands and marine territories, without paying anything. Some of their servicemen have raped our women, and their embassy here had sheltered the accused, who did not want to honor our jails and prisons. There was one who killed a transvestite in Subic and their behavior during the trial bespeaks of their patronizing and condescending attitudes towards our judicial system.
It is a mutual Visiting Forces Agreement, and yet, it is only the Americans who could visit us. Our armed forces are never given the chance to stage war games in their territories, not even in Hawaii, Samoa, or Puerto Rico. It is one-sided, like all other agreements we have had with Americans. The Laurel-Langley Agreement, entered into by President Roxas gave the Americans free, unrestrained and total access to the ownership, use and exploitation of our natural resources, including gold, silver, copper, timber, and our marine and agricultural lands. The Filipinos were not granted the same rights to their natural resources. We gave them the US bases which Marcos shortened. Thus, FM was ousted by the US via a disguised peoples' coup. We helped them in South Korea and Vietnam. Thousands of our men died. What did we get in return?
The Filipinos are like paupers begging for visas in the US Embassy, and many are rejected for no reason at all. It is their sovereign right to reject and the Pinoys must accept that beggars do not have the right to insist. But Americans can come here anytime without getting any visa. And the Filipinos give them red carpet treatment, as if they are all like General Douglas MacArthur, returning to save us from the Japanese Imperial Army. They were bombarded treacherously by Japan in Pearl Harbor, but after bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US poured billions in aid to Japan. The Philippines was left with miniscule aids always with many strings attached.
Thus, we have a president who could not be controlled by the US, not even by that pompous Trump. But, I hasten to add that the timing is not good. We cannot break up yet with an ally, no matter how arrogant it is, because China could be more dangerous, unreliable, and scheming. Between two evils, I would choose the one we already know. China is a big mysterious box of panda and Pandora. Too risky to jump from the frying pan into the fire.
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