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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

‘US soldiers not liberators but

oppressors’
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 12:07 AM October 22, 2014

“I HAVE tried hard, and yet I cannot for the life of me comprehend how we
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got into that mess…  I thought we should act as their protector—not try to TECHNOLOGY
Smart levels up Signature
get them under our heel.” In these words did the great American author
Plan 599 with double data
and humorist Mark Twain openly oppose the US colonial conquest of the and shorter lock-in
period
Philippine Islands in the early part of the 20th century, where some 200,000
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Filipinos were slaughtered under the banner of US President William DFA: Marcos Jr. phone
call with Ukraine’s
McKinley’s “Benevolent Assimilation.” Patriots then like Gen. Macario Zelensky needs to be
Sakay were branded as bandits, while the new colonizers were hailed arranged first
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Then came World War II; Bataan fell into the hands of the invading
Forum
Japanese. Both Filipino and American soldiers were said to have had their WWW
China affirms
share of sacrifices in that conflict—except that the former suffered twice or commitment to maritime
even more than the latter. When the United states regained full control of cooperation amid South
China Sea dispute |
the Philippines in 1945, it gradually transformed it into a neocolony. The INQToday
Mutual Defense Treaty was reinforced, legitimizing and perpetuating the NEWSINFO
House energy committee
US military presence in the country. chair Arroyo bats for
cheap electricity
From Claro M. Recto’s crusade in the 1950s to the resurgent nationalist TECHNOLOGY
movement that led to the removal of the US military bases in 1991, GIs Make New Year
resolutions happen with
were involved every now and then in various crimes and misconduct vivo
against local Filipinos. Films like Aquino-Kashiwahara’s “Minsa’y Isang
Gamu-Gamo” and Brocka’s “PX” may help refresh our memories or
understand what it’s like during those times.

But then in 1999, the Senate ratified the Visiting Forces Agreement, paving
the way for the “Balikatan” joint military exercises that resulted in an
infamous rape of a young Filipino woman by a US serviceman a few years
later. And then, showing no fundamental difference at all from his
predecessors, President Aquino sponsored the signing of the Enhanced
Defense Cooperation Agreement early this year, like a servant eager to
impress and get a pat on the back from his master.  In all (un)fairness,
we’ve never got the commitment from the US government that it would
defend us against the bully China in case of the latter’s aggression. This
came as no surprise. What then would you expect from America whose
business partnership with China is nothing but invaluable to their
imperialist interests?

Today, another military serviceman is facing charges for the killing of a

Filipino transgender. One can’t help but doubt if the United States would
not indeed use its political influence to manipulate the case as it did in the
rape case against a US soldier.

The brutal murder of the transgender should prompt us to reexamine the

“friendly” relationship between the Philippines and the United States. It
has been 118 years since “the eagle clamped its talons” on our land; we
should know by now that the presence of the US military in the country is
never meant to help in our territorial dispute with China nor to modernize
the Armed Forces of the Philippines (that should have happened a long time
ago, if that were so). Through the years, we’ve been trained and
miseducated to become faithful colonials while the almighty United States
continues to siphon our natural resources and strengthen its hegemony not
only in the Philippine but also in the Southeast Asian region.

It’s now time to realize that those US soldiers are not liberators but
oppressors who would only drag us into wars.

—DANIEL ALOC,

tierra.giya@yahoo.com

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TAGS: Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (Edca), Mark Twain, mutual

defense treaty, transgender murder, US military presence, Visiting Forces
Agreement (VFA)

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