FILIPINOS have fought in foreign wars in the past. There were Filipinos who have reportedly fought in the US Civil War, in the First World War, in the Spanish Civil War and in the Korean War. They fought for different reasons, but they were a relatively tiny minority.
If a large-scale, attrition war were to break out tomorrow, however, I would not be surprised if there would be a lot of Filipinos fighting in the front lines, even if the Republic of the Philippines decides to stay out of the fighting.
This is because, as we know, there are millions of Filipino expats, so it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary if some of them were to get caught in the fighting – whether they want to or not.
I’ve written about how the US is thinking about bringing back the draft. If so, there’s a good possibility that it will be brought back to fight a war, probably with China and/or Russia. If that scenario does happen, Fil-Ams will likely be drafted to fight.
The same will likely be true in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. If America is forced to go back to the draft, those countries will need to draft their own citizens as well. If that should happen, I wonder if Filipinos living in those Western Countries are willing enough to fight in a war that may include Russia and/or China.
How do you feel about this?
Filipinos travel to Western countries because they don’t want to endure the Philippines’ relative poverty. The West is relatively peaceful and relatively prosperous. When war comes, and there’s a good chance that – in this particular political climate – it will come, would they be willing to fight and die?
How would Filipinos still here feel about our kababayans fighting in a foreign war and dying for a foreign flag?
How would we feel if a Filipino male nurse is drafted to be a corpsman in a foreign expedition and blown up by Russian artillery?
These are questions that all Filipinos both here and abroad will have to face eventually. And once we do, we have to face the next question: In a new, uncertain world, what should we do next?/PN
