The United States does not like how the Philippines is conducting its war on illegal drugs, which has killed roughly 6,000 drug suspects who chose to put up a fight against authorities in legitimate police operations than heed calls to surrender. It is a skewed position to take for the first and only nation on God's earth ever to use atomic bombs to obliterate entire populations of innocent people.
America also does not like the Philippine government's incarceration of opposition senator Leila de Lima, calling the charges against her politically motivated. Again, this is a strange position for the United States to take given its history of incarcerating thousands of innocent people during World War II for no other reason than that they were ethnic Japanese.
America anchors these wobbly positions on its supposed adherence to freedom and democracy, an assertion that falls flat in face of the aforementioned historical perspectives. America is not really about freedom and democracy but its own interests, simply and purely. It has no qualms propping up dictators if it suits the moment. George H.W. Bush once famously toasted Ferdinand Marcos' "adherence to freedom and democracy."
And who is Leila de Lima to merit a proposed travel ban to the US by the American Senate against Philippine officials involved in the illegal drugs charges filed against her? Is she such an exemplar of freedom and democracy that America would go to the extent of meddling in the domestic affairs of a sovereign state on her behalf? Is De Lima even innocent?
Prior to becoming a senator (she placed 12th and last in the 2016 election, edging the 13th placer by just a little over a million votes, the population of one fairly-sized city) De Lima served as justice secretary in the Noynoy Aquino government. Her most notable achievement in that position was to defy a Supreme Court order allowing former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to leave the country for medical treatment abroad.
Without a warrant, which came so much later, De Lima had Arroyo stopped at the airport. Between the Supreme Court and her president, who was probably the one who ordered her to stop his number one political enemy from leaving abroad in the first place, De Lima knew exactly where her marbles should lie.
Had the American senators simply taken the time and the initiative to even just Google up De Lima before casting their lot with her, they would have been able to steer clear of the awkward position they now find themselves in. They would have found out in no time that she is not what she claims to be. But then again, they are not really after the truth, or even for freedom and democracy. They are just after their own interests.
And it is to their interest to continue propping up the illusion of righteousness, especially with a presidential election fast coming up. Never mind if in perpetuating the illusion of righteousness, America has to step on the toes of others, or mangle the truth at somebody else's expense. America only knows justice if it is the one seeking it, freedom if it is the one enjoying it, democracy if it is the one dictating it. All else is just what others think it is.