The greatest irony ever told

Is there really a “historical irony” in the declaration of Philippine Independence as it relates to the mendicancy of the present Aquino government in asking for U.S. protection in its ongoing dispute with China?

Rodel Rodis, co-convenor with Loida Nicolas-Lewis of the U.S. Pinoys for Good Governance (US4GG), an organization of Filipino-Americans in the United States known to be rabid supporters of Philippine President Noynoy Aquino, wrote in the Philippine Inquirer issue of June 13 about the irony in the declaration of Philippine Independence on June 12, 1898.

The “historical irony” Rodis pointed out referred to the phrase “under the protection of the Powerful and Humanitarian Nation, the United States of America,” which was included in the Act of Declaration of Independence by Ambrosio Rianzares Bautista who wrote and read the said document during that momentous day in Kawit, Cavite. This phrase raised the ire of Apolinario Mabini who later asked General Emilio Aguinaldo to remove it when the first Malolos Congress convened in Barasoain. Mabini objected to the original proclamation which essentially placed the Philippines under the protection of the United States. Aguinaldo, however, insisted that the phrase be retained.

The  Act of the Declaration of Independence was read in Kawit, Cavite on June 12,
1898. Click link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwOjtc0-Z4o, to view "Military
  security complex is creating another conflict," an interview with Paul Craig Roberts
 as he gives an insight on what's  going on  between the U.S.and China in the Pacific.

 

Here’s the twist. According to Rodis, a former student activist during the late ’60s in the Philippines, President Noynoy Aquino might eventually get this U.S. protection that our forefathers inserted in the Declaration of Independence when U.S. President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promised military support for the Philippines in its maritime dispute with China. But where’s the irony?

Rodis totally misinterpreted the U.S. support for Noynoy Aquino as ironic. What Aquino really asked the United States was simply to reaffirm continuing U.S. direct involvement in Philippine affairs, something which the Philippine government would fully embrace like a loyal colonial subject. One may call it support or a form of military protection from the United States, but the United States never really cut off the Philippines from its umbilical cord since Spain ceded the islands to the United States for a measly US$20 million under the Treaty of Paris. The U.S. stole the victory of the Philippine Revolution against Spain in 1898, then colonized the islands until July 4, 1946, continued to treat the Philippines as its vassal until compelled to give up their military bases in 1992, and up to the present time, maintain their control of the Philippine military with the RP-US Visiting Forces Agreement which the United States wrung from the Philippine government in 1999. In other words, the United States never left the Philippines or gave us true independence when they transferred sovereignty to the Filipino people in 1946.

Nothing ironic in the U.S. promise of protection now that the Philippines is begging for it in the face of an illusory threat of Chinese invasion. The false threat of China’s creeping hegemony in Asia and the Pacific is the necessary justification the U.S. needs to reinstate its presence in the region. The moribund Mutual Defence Treaty between the Philippines and the United States is also even being waved around as the legal authority for American involvement in the South China Sea dispute between ASEAN nations and China.

Just like in 1898, Aguinaldo and his close advisers needed to invoke the protection of the United States as warships from Britain, France, Japan and Germany began arriving in Manila Bay upon hearing of Dewey’s victory against the Spanish armada. Germany’s fleet of eight warships was especially aggressive and menacing, according to one Philippine historian. All these imperial powers had recently obtained concessions from China for naval bases and designated commercial spheres of interest, which bothered the Americans that if they left they might be excluded from the Asia-Pacific trade altogether. Aguinaldo and his men knew that the U.S. would not honour their declaration of Philippine Independence in 1898 but ensured that they would call upon U.S. protection in case the new nation was caught between a bigger conflict with the other imperial powers. Now, what makes this different from Noynoy Aquino’s prayer for American military support should China, an emerging superpower, flex its muscle in the South China Sea?

The efforts of President Noynoy Aquino in begging for U.S. protection are not altogether different with a similar position taken by his mother President Cory Aquino in favour of retaining the U.S. military bases at a time when the Filipino people had already voiced out their opposition. Where is the historical irony in our independence from Spain in 1898 when our forebears under Aguinaldo summoned American protection in the face of other imperial powers lurking on Manila Bay, and today’s comparable plea from President Aquino for U.S. assistance in its rift with China? The analogy is very obvious, but there’s no irony. The similarity though is odious: Aguinaldo and Aquino claimed independence, yet both were asking for protection from the United States. Perhaps, therein lies the irony after all; we proclaim out loud our independence but we cannot help but ask the United States to give us protection.

But what is really behind the shift in U.S. foreign policy to Asia and the Pacific that looks more like an undertow in the ongoing South China Sea dispute rather than an authentic pivot to Asia? The U.S. has justified its refocusing on Asia as necessary in engaging the threat of China in the region. But Trefor Moss, a British journalist based in Hongkong who writes about Asian politics, especially on defence and security, believes this is pure hogwash.

Moss wrote that the rhetoric about the U.S. Asian comeback glosses over the fact that in large parts of Asia, the United States is facing a serious loss of influence. It used to be that Central Asia was the cockpit of U.S. foreign policy but the United States’ post-9/11 gains in Central Asia are being wiped away. The U.S. has failed in retaining any kind of presence in Iraq and is also beginning to draw down on Afghanistan which is likely to be under a Taliban comeback-government as soon as the U.S. military leaves.

The current lease of the U.S. military base in Kyrgyzstan will expire in 2014 and is very unlikely to be renewed. Russia already closed the door on the possibility of U.S .Central Asian involvement, persuading former Soviet republic members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) into agreeing that no foreign military base could be established on any member state’s territory without the consent of the other members.

In Pakistan, the United States has already been evicted from the Shamsi airbase, from which it used to launch drone strikes against militant targets in Pakistan’s tribal belt. The imminent U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan greatly diminishes Pakistan’s relevance as a partner; and the United States can’t continue to direct military aid to a country that values China as an ally more than the U.S. itself. Aside from retaining a limited interest in Pakistan’s nuclear security, Washington’s involvement in the country could soon be over.

According to Moss, the United States has effectively been outmanoeuvred in Central Asia by Russia, Iran, China, the Taliban and Pakistani military intelligence, which is a grim development from a security perspective.

Balancing against China in the Pacific by boosting ties with Asian countries like Singapore and the Philippines is reasonable enough, Moss said. But the major threats to American security will not come from the South China Sea. Moss emphasized that war with China is really just a bottom-drawer contingency: it’ll never happen. The real threat to American lives is more likely to emanate from Afghanistan and Pakistan, just as it had during the last decade, or from Tajikistan, whose government is failing to contain a range of jihadist insurgencies; or from restive areas of Kyrgyzstan or Uzbekistan.

All the talk of re-engaging with the Asia-Pacific only makes for smart politics during a presidential election year and the rise of China is fuelling the imagination of the American electorate. But in eliminating the enduring threat of Islamist extremists, the killing of Osama bin Laden and stationing U.S. marines in Northern Australia for redeployment in the South China Sea won’t make up for the dangerous disappearance of American influence in Central Asia.

Yet, the Philippines has willingly sucked into this U.S. foreign policy shift to Asia as if this is really in the best interest of the Filipino people. President Noynoy Aquino, like General Emilio Aguinaldo in the past, continues to shamelessly beg for U.S. protection against the illusion of threat from imperial powers waiting in the shadows (China at the moment), while he ignores the real danger of what Philippine complicity with future U.S. military adventures may bring upon the country.

True independence

Celebrations of Philippine Independence Day every June 12 at home have been focused more on fanfare and parades, and here in Toronto, on festive galas and beauty pageants. Many Filipinos tend to gloss over that period of the revolution against Spain that began in 1896 and ignore the complete picture of the continuing struggle of Filipinos for nationhood and self-determination.

President Benigno Aquino III reviews the honor guard in front of the Barasoain
 church in Malolos, Bulacan to celebrate Philippine Independence Day, June 12, 2012.
Photo by Reuters Pictures. Click  link to view "Aquino-Obama Meet to Affirm Neo-
Colonial Ties - Bayan,"   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X90CyJwKwQM



There has been very little mention, for instance, in official Independence Day celebrations of the Filipinos’ bloody struggle against the United States, which ruled the Philippines for some five decades. It is not surprising that Ambeth Ocampo, a Filipino historian and professor, would write that “many Filipinos and Americans are not aware that there was such a thing as the Filipino-American war.’’ The fact is, that war and the pacification campaign from 1899 to 1902 waged by the American government under a policy of ‘‘benevolent assimilation,’’ ‘‘civilising’’ and ‘‘Christianising’’ the Filipinos was marked by torture, cruelty and racism.

It therefore makes sense for every Filipino to fully understand the history of our struggle for nationhood so that it will open our eyes and minds to what actually transpired in history and what could be unfolding before us, instead of being simply caught up in the joy of many or despair of some over the celebration.

The war of Philippine independence against Spain started in April 1896 when members of the Katipunan gathered in Pugad Lawin to declare the country’s independence in what is now historically remembered as the Cry of Balintawak. It was the Philippines’ first public expression of the nation’s aspiration to be independent from colonial rule.

On June 12, 1898, a month after General Emilio Aguinaldo returned from exile in Hongkong and resumed command of the Filipino revolutionary forces, he proclaimed the independence of the Philippines from the balcony of his house in Kawit, Cavite. This was the official date which President Diosdado Macapagal decided to choose in 1962 to celebrate Philippine independence to replace July 4, 1946, the original date the Philippines commemorated its independence from the United States.

These are two contrasting dates of national independence, indicative of how the country was torn between two colonizers—Spain and America. Philippine independence on June 12, 1898, was short-lived when the Americans took possession of Manila on August 13, 1898, during the Battle of Manila Bay—the first hostile engagement of the Spanish-American War. The Battle of Manila Bay was actually an arranged show of resistance since Spain had already agreed to surrender Manila and the mocked resistance would preserve the Spanish sense of honour, and worse, excluded General Aguinaldo’s revolutionary forces. Knowing that the United States did not intend to recognize Philippine independence, Aguinaldo moved his capital in September from Kawit, Cavite, to the more defensible Malolos in Bulacan. That same month, the United States and Spain began their peace negotiations in Paris.

The Treaty of Paris was signed on December 10, 1898, with Spain ceding the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico to the United States for the sum of US$20 million. The Philippines became the first colony of the United States, but the campaign for Philippine independence continued on. On January 23, 1899, Aguinaldo proclaimed the Malolos Constitution and the First Philippine Republic. A month later, the Philippine War of Independence against the U.S. began on February 4, 1899, which would last for two years. Aguinaldo was captured by the Americans on March 23, 1901, and was persuaded to swear allegiance to the United States and called on his soldiers to lay down their arms. The United States declared an end to military rule on July 4, 1901, and America’s colonization of the Philippines would continue on until July 4, 1946, when the U.S. Congress passed the Tydings-McDuffie Law transferring sovereignty to the Filipino people.

Which of these two dates—June 12, 1898 or July 4, 1946—accurately reflects genuine Philippine Independence?

While most Filipinos are always beholden to the United States for its tutelage of Filipinos for self-government, the public education system it implemented during its colonial rule, and the colonial mentality it has embedded in every Filipino’s mindset, the July 4th celebration had always been considered as the Independence Day that wasn’t. Rightly so because the American gift of independence in 1946 had numerous strings attached. The U.S. retained sovereignty over dozens of military bases in the islands, and the U.S. Congress made sure that granting independence to the Philippines would keep it a virtual economic ward of the United States. Furthermore, the Bell Trade Act prohibited the Philippines from manufacturing or selling any products that might “come into substantial competition” with U.S.-made goods and required that the Philippine constitution be revised to grant U.S. citizens and corporations equal access to Philippine minerals, forests and other natural resources.

So in 1962, Filipino nationalists prevailed upon President Diosdado Macapagal to change the date to celebrate Philippine Independence Day to a day which was closely linked with our “revolutionary identity, rather than our colonial identity,” according to Dr. Samuel Tan of the National Historical Institute. Thus, June 12 was chosen when Filipino revolutionaries in 1898 proclaimed their freedom from Spain. Except that this Filipino declaration did not lead to actual independence as the United States annexed the Philippines as its colony.

Why would it matter then if June 12 would be the official Independence Day?

Although it did not lead to independence from Spain, its significance is not necessarily diminished. The Philippine revolution was the first Asian uprising against a foreign imperial power, and the Filipino revolutionary forces would have eventually defeated Spain had it not been for the short-lived Spanish-American War which resulted in Spain ceding the Philippines to the U.S. for $20 million, thus paving the way for American colonization of the Philippines.

If Filipinos were asked today when their country achieved independence, many would vacillate between the historical significance of the Philippine revolution against Spain and their undying fascination with the United States. Filipinos who knew their history would emphasize the process that began with the 1896 uprising against Spain by Andres Bonifacio or the 1898 declaration by Aguinaldo. Some would pay lip service to the July 4, 1946 date, noting its limitations.

Still others would insist that Philippine independence was finally achieved when the Philippine Senate on September 16, 1991, refused to extend the U.S. lease of the Subic Bay Naval Station. Alex Magno, a political scientist at the University of the Philippines, said that in a “psychological” sense, Filipinos were not free of the U.S. until then. He explained that the Senate’s refusal to extend the lease of Subic Bay to the Americans liberated the Filipinos from the idea that Washington was responsible for their fate and allowed them to think as a nation rather than an American appendage. “Until 1991, the ghost of the Philippine-American War still haunted us,” Magno said.

Professor of comparative literature at the University of the Philippines Vivencio R. Jose similarly expressed the same sentiment: “We declared independence in 1898, established a republic in 1899, but in 1991, a certain part of the cycle was completed.” According to Jose, the Senate vote demonstrated a sense of “self-determination” that was missing in the grant of U.S. independence, and it symbolized “the fulfillment of our national aspiration.”

But this sense of the Filipino aspiration to become fully independent from a foreign power would not last long and would be shattered in 1999, seven years after the Americans transferred control of their military bases to the Philippine government. In 1999, the Philippines and the United States entered into a Visiting Forces Agreement allowing American troops under the moribund Mutual Defence Treaty between the two countries to conduct military exercises in the Philippines, but only for short periods. These military exercises overlap one another, with an exercise being started before one even wound down, thus making the “temporary” visit of U.S. forces virtually permanent.

Filipino protesters led by nuns demanding U.S. troops to leave the Philippines
now. Photo courtesy of slavishtubesocks.

The visiting American soldiers are not only involved in military exercises with the Philippine military. The troops are also known to be engaged in the war against terrorism in Mindanao and other areas of the country where local communist rebels are operating. With the ongoing dispute in the South China Sea among six ASEAN countries including the Philippines over territorial sovereignty claims to the Spratly Islands and surrounding waters, the American forces are expected to stay for longer periods pursuant to the U.S. new foreign policy of engaging China in Asia and the Pacific region.

Part of the foreign policy pivot of the United States to Asia and the Pacific, the United States is already realigning its military strength in the region based on its naval facilities in Darwin, off the coast of Northern Australia. Americans would have access to their former Subic Bay Naval Station, either under permanent basing rights or on the basis of the rotating presence of U.S. troops and ships in the Philippines. This would be similar to the old Olongapo set up when the U.S. had full control of the Subic Naval Base and where U.S. naval vessels could go in and out for refueling, repair and redeployment, and as a port for rest and recreation of American troops.

Again, the Philippines is being used as a vital cog in America’s shift in foreign policy and military strategy under the pretext of containing the threat of China’s hegemony in the region. The South China Sea dispute is already drawing the involvement of the United States into the fray, and the Philippines is actively courting (begging, perhaps is the better word) for U.S. military assistance to defend its territorial claims against China in case hostilities broke out.

This brings us to the more relevant question of whether the Philippines has achieved true independence. A question more serious than simply picking a date to commemorate Independence Day. If the Americans were able to snatch the victory of the Philippine Revolution against Spain, it is beyond doubt that the U.S. is again repeating history, thanks to the RP-U.S. Visiting Forces Agreement and the obsequiousness of the present Aquino government who has cast hook, line and sinker to the new U.S. foreign policy of engaging China in Asia and the Pacific region.

Parades, festivals, galas and beauty pageants will not give meaning to our celebration of Philippine Independence Day when the United States continues to mock our aspiration and struggle to become a truly independent nation—the spirit of yearning for self-determination which was begun by our revolutionary forebears during the Philippine Revolution of 1896.