The Philippines is the loser – 3

By Modesto P. Sa-onoy

Another reason supporting the termination of the VFA complains that the “desultory flow of US materiel to the AFP underscores not only the unsatisfactory speed, quantity and quality of the goods delivered but also the political strings attached to them.” Do we expect the US to provide things we needed under our standards?

Political strings are usually part of the game. The US, China, Russia or any other are not charitable institutions. There is always a reason for supporting another with materials costing billions of dollars – there’s always a quid pro quo, if not directly then just to gain friendship.

There are charges of US meddling in domestic affairs. Duterte is very vocal about the conditions attached to US aid like complying with American standards on human rights. Is the requirement that recipient countries should respect the human rights of its citizens a despicable condition? If a country is indeed respectful of human rights, what is there to complain?

Would the Philippines help a country that violates the rights of our overseas Filipino workers? Do we not complain and even ban our people from working there?

If the conditions attached to the aid or assistance were well-meaning should it not, in fact, make a government think better of it?

The news of February 16 quoted Prof. Carlyle Thayer, defense force lecturer at Australia University of New South Wales, saying the “termination of the Visiting Forces Agreement will have a negative if not shattering impact on regional security as Southeast Asian countries that rely on US military presence as counter-weight to an aggressive China. ASEAN members publicly and privately count on a US military presence to counter-balance China.”

The US Navy regularly conducts Freedom of Navigation Operations in the South China Sea that deters the Chinese navy from threatening other nations from using this sea passage. We have already experienced the expansionist plans of China that took over some of our northern islands and had even constructed military facilities there and we watched helplessly.

The scraping of the US naval and air force base in Subic and Clark in 1990 gave China the opportunity to occupy the Mischief Reefs and we were helpless to do anything. China knows we have no means of stopping its navy and because we told the Americans to stay out, we could not ask for US help. The leftists of Corazon Aquino’s presidency won that day.

President Duterte’s administration took another step that will embolden China. Only the Coronavirus has postponed its march but temporarily.

Our armed forces officers usually go to the US for further studies. The Australian military analyst believes that “the scrapping of the defense arrangement would have a knock-on effect on the professionalism of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and on its interoperability with American forces. The VFA allowed the deployment of US forces in the Philippines on a rotation basis. In return, Filipino military officers go to the US for professional military education and training.”

With the VFA officially gone after six months, another Philippine-US defense arrangement – the Enhanced Defense Cooperation will likely be the next to go.

EDCA is a component of the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty that requires one country to come to the aid of the other in case of external attack. EDCA allows the US military to pre-position its forces here.

Thayer also warned that if MDT and EDCA are likewise discontinued, the Philippines will become an “orphan” state in the region, just as it had been in the years after the removal in the 1990s of Clark Air Force Base and Subic Bay Naval Base.

Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian supported the termination of the VFA considering it as “good” and that Congress will allocate a bigger budget for modern equipment and supplies for the AFP and to “develop and independent Armed Forces to prove that we can stand on our own.”

Easier said. How do we replace the billions that VFA provides? Not from Gatchalian’s billions but from higher taxes. Negotiate with other nations? The best bet is China.

Senator Panfilo Lacson said the US extended some $1.3 billion in assistance since 1998 and that $900 million of that was under Duterte. Can Gatchalian replace that?

Lacson has described the new situation well: “No man is an island. It’s bravado if we insist, we can do it all alone.”