Can’t the Philippines be a third elephant?

THE Kamuning Bakery Café Pandesal Forum went online last Thursday, and I was invited to participate by perennial host Wilson Lee Flores. But as I am an ignoramus in the high tech operations of online conferencing, I shortly became uncomfortable with the proceedings: me having to continuously turn on-off my connection, switching it on only when I would want to talk, then off again afterward.

I would not have enjoyed taking part in the first place. The subject of the event was the United States presidential election, to take place three days hence, and how it would impact upon the Philippines. I thought the slant was passé. Over the years, the US presidency has changed hands many times between the Republicans and the Democrats, and US policy toward the Philippines has not experienced any qualitative change, i.e., in terms of attitude.

There remain for instance the country’s military ties with the United States — the Military Defense Treaty or MDT of 1951; the Visiting Forces Agreement or VFA of 1998 (whose termination by President Duterte last year continues to be suspended to this day); and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement or EDCA, which has been an effective substitute for the Military Bases Agreement or MBA of 1947 scrapped by the Senate in 1991 — which constantly threaten to embroil the Philippines whenever the US gets into trouble in international military disputes.

Had we not contributed troops to US war adventures the world over: the George Bush-led Coalition of the Willing attack on Iraq in 2003, the Vietnam War in the 1960s and the Korean War in the 1950s?

Particularly in the case of the Korean War (known in China as the “War to Resist American Aggression and Aid Korea”), whose 70th anniversary was celebrated last October 23, this discussion must relate.

In his speech commemorating the event, Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to one account, framed the Korean War as an existential threat to China itself, a nefarious plot “to strangle New China in the cradle.” But though equipped with “less steel,” the Chinese military, fighting with “more spirit,” defeated the Americans who though equipped with “more steel” fought with “less spirit.”

“The forces of China and North Korea defeated their armed-to-the-teeth rival and shattered the myth of invincibility of the US army,” intoned President Xi.

The discussants at the Kamuning Bakery forum just neglected the fact that the infant new China had escaped the designed US strangulation and over 70 years had leapt out of the cradle and went on to become the very tormentor now of its failed strangler.

According to latest reckoning, China has already upped the United States, which has actually slipped to third place among the world’s leading economies, with India rising to second slot. Nobody in the world but diehard American partisans would dispute that.
The same thing goes in the nuclear arms race. China’s DF31s are capable of reaching the very heart of America, which by admission of its top war officials, would be simply indefensible against such an attack, if ever. For this reason, in fact, the United States must station troops and warships in the South China Sea region, hoping to gain positional advantage for delivering a first strike against China. From the looks of it, China has frustrated this US military ploy as well with its occupation of features in the area, instantly turning them into forward military bases, both naval and aerial.

It is to these circumstances that those attending the Kamuning Bakery forum should have confined their discussions if they were to be true to their pretensions as advocates of Philippine interest.

To the US, the Philippines is there primarily for advancing American interests in the Indo-Pacific region. So, the question of who between Trump and Biden will win is of no moment as far as Filipinos are concerned. Any which way the Tuesday US presidential polls go, to maintain the Philippines as a US vassal state in the Asia-Pacific remains America’s top priority.

I was amused at one speaker bringing up in relation to the US-China conflict the analogy of two elephants trampling the grass when they fight. I was reminded of the speech of President Duterte at the virtual 75th General Assembly of the United Nations recently where, among other brilliant pieces, he said, “When elephants fight the grass is trampled flat.”

Actually, I came upon this analogy in an Ateneo forum months ago where it was suggested that for the Philippines to escape the confrontation, it must grow from grass to tree so it doesn’t get trampled when the elephants fight or get eaten when the behemoths are at peace. I screamed at the allegory, paraphrasing Nora Aunor’s aria in “Minsa’y Isang Gamu-Gamu”: “My brother is not a pig!” I cried, “The Philippines is not a grass!”

According to the Pandesal forum resource speaker, the Philippines must play its cards cleverly to benefit from both the fighting elephants, i.e. the United States and China. I would have launched into invectives had I been IT-proficient enough to get myself heard in the session. Crass opportunism! I would have blurted out.

Particularly in geopolitics, you don’t go fence-sitting. You make correct analysis and go for the winning side. Otherwise, when the behemoths crash through the fence you are sitting on, you are the first to really get trampled upon.

Toward the end of the Second World War, Italy, hitherto a staunch ally of Germany in the Axis Powers, jumped the fence to join the Allies in the march to victory.

Clearly, two powers are contending for world domination — the United States and China. It is to the best interest of the Philippines to recognize that China’s Belt and Road Initiative or BRI, a most ambitious program of bringing development uniformly over all the countries of the world, is anathema to the United States’ America First policy and its promotion of that policy throughout all of the countries of the world. By that it hopes to retain its foothold as a world hegemon.

Which side to take?

All speakers at the Pandesal forum would play safe by proposing to make the best of both worlds. No such option in contradiction; either you are on one side or the other. For this reason, I wrote in this column as far back as more than a year ago:

“Filipinism does not exist in a vacuum. It relates to all development in geopolitics, particularly to the conflict between China and the United States both over the South China Sea and world trade. In both areas, China is winning, and the United States is losing…
“For Filipinos to stand by the United States is to take up a losing cause. It is in this respect that the question is raised: Can one be pro-Filipino without being pro-Chinese?”

Nobody at the Kamuning Bakery Café Pandesal forum ever thought of the question, but by taking up China’s side and thereby becoming beneficiary of all perks of development for turning the Philippines into another elephant, why not?

President Duterte actually did already make a proclamation to that effect when he proposed to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping: “The three of us against the world.”