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US – A Renewed Hydra in Mindanao and Sulu* |
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Julkipli Wadi
The closing of the US Bases in 1990 is, no doubt, one of the most symbolic victories of Filipinos against what used to be the last vestige of US imperialism in the Philippines. By voting to kick out the US Bases, the Senate displayed one of the rarest feats the country ever had since 1946. Unfortunately, that feat would probably not be repeated in the near future given the deterioration of the country's major political institutions. While that period of the '90s was placed in the pedestal of history owing largely to the heroic act of the Senate, a sober review of that period may give us a clearer idea why the US left Clark and Subic. And it may give us, too, the hint why the US simply left and rested for a while in the '90s but came back like a new hydra in Mindanao and Sulu and subsequently used many forms of engagement like military exercises, counter-terrorism trainings including camouflaged works masquerading as civic, humanitarian and medical missions which are more cunning and treacherous on Philippine sovereignty and on Moro struggle for self-determination.
On the eve of the US Bases' protest that time, the US government was actually in the process of redefining its traditional military posture the world over in favor of easier, swifter, and lethal forward presence engagement brought about by the demand of the so-called New World Order with the dawning of the post-Cold war. Aided by nature's fury of Mt. Pinatubo, the more the Pentagon developed a second thought whether to maintain old military bases in rather boring and isolated places of Luzon. These two developments are more than enough to explain why the US government did not really take a good fight to defend the retention of the US Bases then; for if the US was still interested in maintaining them, Washington would have moved heaven and earth to pressure the Philippine government to retain the US Bases. What is the wish of US government she is not able to get from the Philippines?
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Feedback on FOP Mindanao Issue (August 2008) |
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Mon Casiple
Executive Director
Institute of Political and Electoral Reform (IPER).
You can see my blog moncasiple.wordpress.com. On some points in the three articles, let me briefly state my position.
1. Re US role. I think that the US govt. is playing a low-key but definite role in the MOA-AD negotiations and that it is in favor of it. Having said this, I think it is also rethinking its position after the whole ruckus. I think this will be more definite after the US elections.
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