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Issue That Never Was, and Never
Will Be
Jan 2012
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Kapatiran Issue
That Never Was, and Never Will Be, January 2012
REVIEWS
- Jeremy Agar
“FORGING
A NATIONALIST FOREIGN POLICY”
by Roland G Simbulan, Ibon Books, Quezon City , 2009
Roland Simbulan is a Filipino academic, active in the
movements to free the Philippines from nuclear weapons
and American troops. Nationalism, he insists, is not
about “advancing your country’s interests at
the expense of those of other peoples”. On the
contrary, it can be an aspect of what the Americans might
call a good neighbours policy. To Simbulan, nationalism
and internationalism are linked.
The Philippines ’ struggles have been partially
successful. Simbulan sees a 1991 Senate vote to close the
country’s US bases as a highlight of his
country’s history. The Philippine archipelago,
handily off the East Asia mainland, had served as an
anchor on an American chain of foreign bases. For a
century the US saw the Philippines as vital for the
projection of its military power to key places like China
, Vietnam and Japan . The host elites, Simbulan writes,
had been traditionally servile and opportunist. So why
did they surprise everyone and give Uncle Sam his
marching orders? Simbulan suggests that it had a lot to
do with the late, unlamented President Ferdinand Marcos.
Marcos, who grabbed dictatorial power in 1972 as his
American sponsors squatted in the Philippines , began to
lose his grip, forcing the Yanks to increase their aid,
and Marcos his terror, so that he could hold on. This
showed just how much the two countries’ interests
were incompatible and some Senators were emboldened.
US Military Back
Since the door was locked, the US has been rattling the
windows, trying to get back in. The resulting tensions
are Simbulan’s theme. In Manila Presidents come and
go, sometimes promising democracy but never delivering.
Local elites, who often need soldiers to prop them up,
have to keep out a complex number of opponents. Violence
lurks below, emerging in crisis into the open. Basilan, a
small island with a mixed Christian and Muslim
population, is known variously as “the kidnapping
capital of the Philippines ” and as “the second
front in the war against terrorism”. There, as
Simbulan sees it, US troops support the Philippine Army
against a “rag-tag bandit group” whose average
age is 18 (McCoy – see my above review - says they
were originally a Muslim group but degenerated into a
kidnapping gang. It’s a typical regression). The
Governor, a former member of the rebels - and believed by
some to be secretly loyal still - conducts a
“balance of terror” policy, exploiting the
situation to settle personal accounts.
That’s just one island. Others have quite separate
dynamics. Given the Philippines ’ difficult and
exploitative history, it’s not surprising that Uncle
Sam is still around. The Visiting Forces Agreement allows
the US military to enter the country to carry out
“activities” that don’t have to be
specified and to stay for as long as they like, immune
from local law. There might not still be a Clark Air
Force base or a Subic Bay Naval base, but they’re
back. With all the conflicting agendas being enacted,
Simbulan muses, the countryside is a “free-fire
zone”. This book, a collection of essays and
speeches, is an authoritative account. The author has a
long and consistent record in speaking up for the
Philippines . Those wanting to look closely will find the
appendices useful. They contain photocopied texts of the
key agreements.
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