By HERBERT L. VEGO
THIS corner believes that with or without the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) between the Philippines and the United States, the latter would exert greater military presence here to deter “bullying” by China or any other unfriendly foreign power.
China’s “provocative” actions in maritime disputes with us, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam have already strained its ties with the United States.
As US Vice President Joe Biden and other top US officials have candidly told visiting General Fang Fenghui, chief of general staff in China’s army, Beijing’s behavior in the maritime disputes “is dangerous and provocative, and so must stop.”
It is unthinkable for the US to just look while China is reclaiming land on a reef in the oil- and gas-rich South China Sea; and while it is building what appears to be an airstrip on it.
The choice is ours: Our tested alliance with a democratic super power, or with a communist bully?
To reiterate, it is undisputable that with or without EDCA, the United States would meddle undeterred to preserve its political and economic sovereignty.
In his book, “Sitting in Darkness”, American author David Howard Bain wrote that because of rampant poverty in the Philippines, Filipinos would not want to be left alone. Any contrary argument would be shrugged off as a cover-up akin to a painted wall that keeps poverty “out of sight.”
A balikbayan aunt was telling me that a television documentary he had seen in New York had named Manila “the second dirtiest city in the world” – second only to Cairo, Egypt kuno.
Documentaries like that negate the claim of President Benigno Aquino III that we are now the “best performing economy” in Southeast Asia.
No less than Dr. Jose Rizal – believing we were not yet ready for independence in his time – had actually wished that United States would take over our country from almost four centuries of Spanish colonization. In his famous 1890 essay, “The Philippines, a Century Hence,” he predicted: “Perhaps, the Great American Republic may someday dream of foreign possessions. This is not impossible.”
I take it to mean that Rizal foresaw the transition of the Philippines, among other countries, from being a colony of Spain to that of the United States in the hope that the latter would prepare us for self-rule.
Indeed, by the time the American naval squadron under Commodore George Dewey bested the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay in 1898, American business expansion had already taken the islands by storm. The American Sugar Refining Company controlled 95 percent of sugar trade. The American Tobacco Company enjoyed similar near-monopoly.
A year earlier in 1897, Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo had issued a decree establishing a dictatorial government following the mysterious death of Andres Bonifacio. His government, however, was ignored by the United States. To our forebears’ dismay, he even agreed to go into exile in Hong Kong in exchange for P400 thousand, a princely amount at that time.
To make the long story short, Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States on December 10, 1898 through the Treaty of Paris.
Between that year and the final grant of Philippine Independence in 1946 was a period of 48 long years, during which we had familiarized ourselves with the workings of American democracy.
Democracy, American style, worked for us from the time of the Philippine Commonwealth to the Philippine Republic until President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972.
We have never had a tuwid na daan since then – and unfortunately until now.
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Kudos to Atty. Ernelito G. Aquino, the new collector of the Bureau of Customs in Iloilo City. Under his watch, according to our kumpare Danny Baby, the office has collected P128,993,907 in the month of August – almost P29 million above the goal for the month.
Aquino keeps his fingers crossed that he would reach his annual goal of P844 million.
This is an indication that the Iloilo Port has regained the patronage of overseas vessels bringing in imports and shipping out exports./PN
