Power of the empty space

President Rodrigo Duterte made a departure from the main text of his State of the Nation Address last Monday on his thoughts against US bases in the Philippines.

We may just gloss over it as folksy, like engaging the people in one-on-one while shooting the breeze one afternoon over a cup coffee.

But if you see its wisdom and its far-reaching effect on future Filipino security and well-being, his idea is the result of a long and deep reflection, perhaps something he had thought of many decades before.

Allow me to explain.

The President’s objection to the installation of the US military bases in the country comes from the so-called power of the empty space. Simply put, an empty space does not pose any attraction for a military strike from an opposing or enemy force.

On the other hand, the presence of US military assets and stockpile of nuclear warheads will surely be a priority target of attack and neutralization. Its resulting destruction in the cost of lives and infrastructure is easy to imagine, painful to accept and foolish to regret. It is so real and macabre that the President barely uttered it in a sense of disbelief, weighed by the heavy burden to deal with the issue of bases’ reinstallation when the request comes. After all the US is still a friend and ally.

In the past, countries who did not have the oil, gold, the slaves to capture, the natural resources to covet had been spared from the plunder and colonization because they had nothing, or their empty space was the power against greed.

It is yet the most potent argument against the installation of a foreign military base in the Philippines. If the statement was made by the late President Cory Aquino during the campaign for the retention of the US Bases in the Philippines in the early 1990s, it could have dashed early the debate for the bases’ retention and could have spared her from being soaked in the rain to dramatize her support. Of course, President Cory’s hand may have been forced in the face of mounting military opposition to her administration.

The invisible pressure from the US for a Philippine President to agree to a US military base was not unique to Cory. It was the albatross on the shoulders of all past Filipino Presidents to accede to US strategy of maintaining their presence in the Philippines as a forward defense of the American mainland.

It can also be recalled that earlier in the late 70s, the reduction of the 99-year lease of strategic and vast land assets of Subic and Clark was reduced to 25 years through former President Ferdinand Marcos’ adroit diplomacy. He eventually paid for it!

We can more or less imagine the consternation it caused in the US embassy and the US State Department by the President’s matter-of-fact statement during the SONA.

It will be back to the drawing board for them. Will they offer substantial aid to the Philippines to change the President’s mind or will they start looking for a viable candidate which they can influence in the next Presidential election?

Surely, the President has not been sleeping by having various options in his foreign policy.

Meanwhile, the Filipino must be vigilant and wise.