It would serve as a litmus test to our defense agreement with the US should President Duterte proceed with the plan to purchase arms from Russia and China. If the sale materializes, it could put to a test whether the US military assistance pact, which we signed in 1947, is still relevant or is already a scrap of paper designed to ward off potential arms sellers. Many are saying this for it seems the sentimentalist pro-US lackeys are quivering in fear that breaking that colonial chain might invite sanction from the US.
Maybe our purchase of P400 million worth of 750 RPG-7B rocket-propelled launchers from Russia’s state-owned Rosobonexport constitutes a violation to our defense agreement. Nonetheless, it can never be interpreted to restrain us from exercising our sovereign right as an independent state. As in our right to freely engage in trade, our military assistance was not intended to supersede our right to secure arms for our own defense and security. This is why President Duterte had to reiterate that political mantra that the Philippines will deal with any other country provided there are no strings attached.
Our purchase of arms with Russia, with China or with any country not under sanction by the UN Security Council is an exercise of our right as an independent state. This cannot be aligned to what is economically, militarily and politically beneficial to the interest of the US. The US threat of sanction to punish Russia for its 2014 annexation of Crimea, for its support for the Assad government in Syria, and of the charge of alleged Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election are issues that should be resolved exclusively between the two. That should not be stretched to include the Philippines even if the US has been dangling our unflinching loyalty through the years. It does not even have the right to block our arms procurement on the basis of the opposition’s claim of alleged human rights violation by the Duterte administration for its vigorous campaign against illegal drugs which they claim to have killed thousands of our people.
Except for the so-called “ironclad” interpretation by the US of our military assistance pact, the threat of sanction is rather symptomatic of its growing insecurity, characteristic of a declining economic power. To begin with, our military assistance pact with the US is a misnomer. All our arms procurement were all paid through arms sales credit and soft loans extended to us as client-state obligated in suppressing our own people to protect their interest and in doing the dirty job of fighting for them in countries where their imperial interest has gone awry. In other words, there has never been a free meal in our relationship with our former colonizer.
The second consideration which many of us have failed to take into account is that the Philippines has become the most lucrative and profitable outlet to what President Eisenhower feared as “the US military industrial complex.” The Philippines has become their dumping ground for outmoded war materials. Often they are being sold under pressure to countries obligated as an ally to purchase them at extortionist prices. The Philippines has become the ready market for these weapons even if they would not serve to defend this country in the event of an all-out conflict. The Philippines is simply forced to buy them to allow their own bankrupt economy afloat. It is to break from that status that is considered threat to the US economy.
Take for instance our purchase of the two Hamilton-class cutters that have been docked in the US at a staggering cost of P750 million. The cutters made their début service 40 years ago with some even considering them worthy for consignment to the world’s biggest ship graveyard in Gadani, Pakistan to be cut to pieces for scrap metal. The purchase by that lackluster Aquino administration of a dozen T-50 trainer jets, a US made Lockheed Martin, but assembled in South Korea at a fantastic cost of more than P1 billion each. The jets were reclassified F 50 to denote that they have been converted to fighter jets just to make them palatable to the public. To this, day many are wondering just how could a dozen jets which lag behind by two generations to its present class of F 35 to intercept enemy planes that might cross our sea.
Most dangerous, our military assistance pact with the US has been politicized to cater to the demands of their local lackeys. The end of the Cold War has redefined US role in the South China Sea emphasizing on the US presence than in winning over its enemies. Our procurement of arms to live up to our role has become dependent on the whims that it has become evident it is their interest than that of its allies it is trying much to protect.
Take the case of the terrorists siege of Marawi City. One could clearly see the pattern in the disposition of US military assistance to which it has consistently and loudly proclaimed the country as its staunch ally. It was not until after June 2018 when the US decided to deliver humanitarian assistance and for the recovery work of the City in the amount of P296.2 million.
While the country is nonetheless grateful, it was expecting a military assistance consistent to an existing defense commitment that calls for that situation. Instead, the US sent drones and communications equipment for their own use and Special Forces to help in the battle which meant their direct participation in the local conflict. The use of those mat materials were intended only for their exclusive use. While China, for which we have no military assistance agreement, it donated of P1.1 billion on Nov. 15, 2017. In addition, it gave P370 million worth of weapons and heavy equipment for the rebuilding efforts of the City.
Most political analysts now predict US-Philippine relations could worsen should the Duterte administration insist in acquiring weapons other than from the US. The US would logically find it odd to continue the military assistance pact with while the Philippines persist in seeking assistance from other countries. The US would argue that its commitment to defend this country would only be good and effective for as long as we extend to them a monopoly in the purchase of their costly armaments, and observing certain guidelines on how we are to use them often contrary to our own national interest.
On the other hand, the Philippines cannot continue these unequal relations that have already reached its peak of contradiction that aside from being costly would subject our leaders to political blackmail. In other words, the direction to which the Duterte administration is going is telling that our mutual defense agreement with the US has already outlived its usefulness and our parting of ways would be mutually advantageous.
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