Ironclad deception

By Alfredo Garvida Jr.

The political analysts in Manila are busy spinning US President Barack Obama's seemingly contrasting pronouncements during his state visit here. Obama stressed during his state dinner at Malacañang that the US will “not contain China” in her obvious expansionist tendencies against her neighbors such as Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines. But on his address to Filipino and American troops in Taguig the following day, he stated that the US defense of the Philippines when attacked is ironclad. 

The latter statement, at first glance, was viewed as an act to atone the impact of the first statement on the delusive sense of the Filipinos, but a deeper introspection on the matter merely suggests that his Taguig statement was just complimentary to the first. 

Obama's "ironclad defense" rhetoric was a safe statement against China’s interest on her territory-grabbing binge—because the United States president knows too well that China will not attack any nation militarily but merely unilaterally annexing her neighbors' territories using the reputation of her military might dangling before her victims' eyes. What a convenient way to escape from the trap of the Mutual Defense Treaty Agreement? 

Yes, there will not be an armed confrontation between the Philippines and China over the Spratlys issue because the other party just does not have the weapon to decently confront the other with. This is no longer the age of bolos against grease guns and canons. This is the age of submarines, missiles, aircraft carriers and battleships, attack helicopters and airplanes, and yes, nuclear weapons, armaments that China runs a surplus of that the Philippines possesses not a single thing in its arsenal. 

So when an armed-to-the-teeth robber invades your house and snatches valuable things off your vault and you have nothing to protect your life and property with but a small butter knife, would you resist the robbery physically or call the police? The saner option of course is to call the police. But what if the police know the robber personally and they owe him say US$1.3 trillion and has other more important agenda on the ledger to be reconciled between them, in your fair and truthful belief should the police come to your rescue? The answer is obvious, and the police will just say that you did not get hurt anyway, so just let your property be gone since it is not that significant as your other neighbor's property is. Further, we, the police could cut a deal with the robber to let him get away with your property in exchange of not aiming anymore for your neighbor's property, which is more important to keep for our own purposes.

This is the analogy of how the United States—which owes China US$1.3 trillion—is handling the territorial rift between Manila and Beijing over the Spratlys. The chance of recovering the islands already in the possession and control of the Chinese is next to impossible. And that chance is limited only to the occurrence of a forcible recovery off the Chinese hands by a power equal to or more potent than China's. This scenario will not transpire, however, because America will not go to war for the Philippines, besides, Americans are not prone to going to war this time around given the devastation on their economy by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars that their country has just been through. And there is no better testimony to this fact than Obama's refusal to get involved significantly in Syria's ongoing civil war and Russia's intervention in Ukraine. Assad and Putin have tested America's resolve and they succeeded.

Here in the Far East, China is also testing America's resolve and it is succeeding, although the latter has put some saber-rattling stance to slow down the Chinese advances, like that just concluded Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) between the Philippines and the US, which was preceded by the latter's strong and assertive warning to defend Japan against any China's aggression over the latter's overt design to annex a Japanese island.  

The China-Japan territorial conflict all the more lessens the Philippines' chance of recovering the Spratlys from China as this issue could very well become the quid pro quo of that China-Japan rift. 

The EDCA will not serve anyone's interest  but America's in terms of upgrading its presence in the Pacific aimed at checking China's ongoing direction of expanding its military and economic powers in the region. China's monopoly  of power in the Pacific would be disastrous to the West's interest, especially America's, reason why the EDCA was conceived regardless that it is now unlawful to maintain foreign military bases here.

This latest US-Philippine military agreement calls for a 10-year life wherein the United States and its contractors will have unimpeded access to the identified military camp "for all matters relating to the prepositioning and storage of defensive equipment and materiel."

The Philippines, except for some routine functions, will not have control over the camp. So it is a military base of America in effect which she can use for all purposes suiting her interest. And Obama used this as a ploy to hoodwink the Filipino people into believing that the United States' defense of the Philippines is ironclad. The EDCA could be a deterrent to external aggression as no nation in its right senses would attack a country housing an American base. But this rhetoric is only good after the fact. China has now the Spratlys and there's nothing we can do except to pray for a miracle to happen at the world arbitration court. 

So, the "ironclad" rhetoric was laced with nothing but deception, intended to soften the nation's expected opposition to America's re-building a military base here. We must leave the illusion that we can recover the Spratlys with America's military presence here. The big boys can always strike a deal to serve their mutual interests to the exclusion of small nations such as ours. Let's just close ranks as a nation and continue to remind the world that the Spratlys have been ours since time immemorial and we need help to ultimately convince China that it is supremely immoral and ungodly to grab a property from someone else's possession without cause or at least due process.