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Issue Number 32, October 2009
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Kapatiran Issue
No. 32, October 2009
SCRAP THE VFA!
- Murray Horton
This was published in Bulatlat (an online Philippine
publication www.bulatlat.com) 26/5/09.
In September 1991 I was one of the tens of thousands of
jubilant, soaking wet people who gathered outside the
Senate when the historic vote was taken to not renew the
bases treaty with the US. It was quite a night, marking
the culmination of decades of struggle by one of the most
successful anti-bases movements in the world. Coming only
a few years after People Power astonished the world by
peacefully getting rid of Marcos, the Philippines once
again earned the admiration of the world’s peoples
for its courageous and principled rejection of the
presence of American or any other foreign military forces
on its soil (those had included New Zealand, which had
regularly used the US bases for training purposes during
the Marcos dictatorship).
I had seen the effect of those US bases for myself,
having been in Olongapo when the US fleet was in Subic
Bay Naval Base and the sailors were out on the town. And
I had been in Angeles City and seen the concentration of
brothels, many of them owned by foreigners, around the
entrance to Clark US Air Force Base. To be honest,
witnessing that made me ashamed to be a white male. In my
home town of Christchurch, New Zealand, there has been a
continuous US military presence at our airport since the
1950s but it will come as no surprise to Filipinos that
GIs behave very differently in white First World
countries than they do in brown Third World ones. Suffice
to say that the US military in NZ has never been able to
enjoy and/or exploit any equivalent of Olongapo or
Angeles.
So, it has been with sadness and alarm that I, and
millions of likeminded people around the world, have
witnessed the Philippine government determinedly
undermining the clearly expressed will of the Philippine
people and doing their damnedest to get back into bed
with the US military in every way except offering it
permanent bases again. It is no surprise that the
dynasties who comprise the ruling class want that
relationship restored to exactly how it was. Every
Philippine President since Marcos has actively promoted
the restoration of such ties. Gloria seized the
opportunity presented by 9/11 to offer the Philippines on
a plate to George Bush. Bush has gone, Gloria is still
there and nothing much appears to be changing under
Obama.
The legal justification of all this is the Visiting
Forces Agreement but the way that it has been utilised by
both the US and Philippine governments is that the US
military is back in the country as the visitor that never
goes home. The VFA means that, once again, the US treats
the Philippines as a door mat, with the Philippine
government and military as the obsequious doorman. In
this master/servant relationship, even the tips
don’t amount to much. The US military has never
entrusted its Philippine counterpart with very much in
the way of its most modern and expensive equipment, only
the outdated castoffs that it no longer needs. And once
again US GIs are treating the Philippines as the place to
sow their wild oats. If the Philippines actually asserts
its sovereign rights to punish such behaviour, as it
reluctantly did in the case of Marine Lance Corporal
Daniel Smith, then the US pulls out all the stops to
remind the Philippines just who is the boss. The message
that it sent via the Smith case was: “Don’t
mess with Uncle Sam”.
The Sky Didn’t Fall In NZ & It
Won’t In Philippines
The Philippine government and military peddle the line
that a close military relationship with the US is
indispensable to the country’s national security;
that the Philippines cannot manage without it. There is a
parallel between our two countries. The US used to have
no more loyal ally in the South Pacific than New Zealand,
which had fought in every American war of the second half
of the 20th Century (and, before that, in every British
one, including those in the Philippines’ nearest
neighbours). But, in the 1980s, after a prolonged and
heroic people’s struggle, the Government declared NZ
to be nuclear free. This provoked a thunderous reaction
from the US (NZ was expelled from the cornerstone ANZUS
Treaty between it, Australia and the US). NZ’s
“American Boys” declared that the sky would
fall. One by product was that the NZ military was no
longer able to use the US bases in the Philippines for
training.
But, guess what? A quarter of a century later, after
several changes of Government, NZ remains nuclear free,
the policy has become the status quo among all parties,
the servile military relationship with the US has never
been restored (Iraq was the first US war that NZ refused
to join), and the sky has not fallen. NZ currently has a
Rightwing government but it did not automatically cede to
the formal request from the US to, once again, commit
combat troops to Afghanistan, saying that it wanted to
think about whether that is the best use of NZ’s
military (after several months’ “thought”
the Government agreed, in August 2009, to send the
Special Air Service back there and committed NZ to a
continued military presence for at least five more
years). So, take it from us – the sky won’t
fall if the Philippines kicks out the US military. After
all, you’ve done it once and earned the admiration
of the world. Scrap the VFA, show Uncle Sam the door,
stand on your own two feet, be masters of your own
destiny by finally ending the colonial relationship and
being truly independent of the US.
Both parts of this article were originally published in Peace
Researcher 38, July 2009, online at http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/prcont38.html. It has been
slightly updated. Peace Researcher is the
journal of the Anti-Bases Campaign, Box 2258,
Christchurch, New Zealand, cafca@chch. planet.org.nz www.converge.org.nz/abc.
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