AT the memorial for the late president Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in 1989, a youngish Junior uttered the resolve: “I am faced with the awesome responsibility of filling in the shoes of my father.”
Three decades thence, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. overwhelmingly captured the presidency.
Quite expectedly, among the responsibilities he had sworn to uphold was the continuance and improvement to the optimum of friendly China-Philippines relations.
He was veritably just a tot when the Marcos family was given a pomp-filled welcome in Beijing by no less than Chairman Mao Zedong.
That was June 9, 1975, the establishment of China-Philippines diplomatic relations.
It signaled the Philippines’ determination to rise above its lowly status as a Third World country.
In the realm of the Cold War wherein America was intensifying its assertion of dominance in nuclear weaponry, the elder Marcos must have been embracing the firm assurance by Mao Zedong that in a world nuclear explosion, one-fourth of the Chinese population would survive.
The Philippine population at the time was 42 million.
Would China be kind enough to accommodate such modest humanity into the Chinese that would be saved?
But the Philippines was beholden to America. This was mainly due to the Military Bases Agreement of 1947 and the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) of 1951. These treaties practically made the Philippines a cog in America’s world defense and security machine. And the obvious target of that machine is doubtlessly what the United States has been parroting as Chinese expansionist strategy.
The claim is unfounded.
At no point in history has China ever embarked beyond its historically mandated borders.
It is the US that needs an effective deterrent to the potential of China effectively combating America’s real expansionist intentions in Asia-Pacific.
The Philippines’ geographic placement makes it perfect for advancing America’s own strategic expansionist designs.
Under these circumstances, the diplomatic play store, as certain sectors suggest, for dealing with the US would be a disaster for the Philippines.
In today’s world politics, particularly in the case of the antagonism between China and the US, Bongbong’s expressed stand of being “friend to all and enemy to none” is empty verbiage.
The Philippines must take a stand.
Either it sides with China and avail of all the promised benefits now enjoyed by all those who subscribe to its Belt and Road Initiative or stay on course with America’s steadily sinking status in all aspects of world existence.
Bongbong had already been proclaimed president when he was invited to be the guest speaker at the 2021 Awards for the Promotion of Philippine China Understanding. Co-guest speaker in that event was Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian.
It was a truly poignant occasion — two nations bonded together since antiquity, expressing undying brotherliness.
That is why it stuns the serious observer that as soon as Bongbong stepped into Malacañang, he was yodeling the good old American ditty. That ditty was revealed during the visit of US Vice President Kamala Harris in 2022. Bongbong committed to grant America four more Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) sites, on top of the initial five granted in 2016.
This must not be the Bongbong in the 1989 memorial for his father.
What made Bongbong turn around?
This column can only make a historical parallel.
For all of the three years that had passed prior to the iconic return of General Douglas MacArthur in 1945, Manila remained untouched by the violence and destruction of World War II. And yet despite General Tomoyoki Yamashita having declared Manila an Open City and all his forces having retreated to the Cordilleras, MacArthur ordered the fierce bombardment of Manila, turning it into the second-most ravaged city in World War II next to Warsaw, Poland.
Why?
To make the Philippines continually beholden to America despite the grant of independence in 1946.
True enough, the Philippines was reduced to a beggar, contented with a measly $700-million aid for war damages.
That, in exchange for further surrender of the country’s patrimony — the Parity Amendment to the Philippine Constitution giving Americans equal rights as Filipinos in the exploitation of Philippine natural resources.
In Bongbong’s case now, he inherited a P6-trillion indebtedness from the past administration of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte. Given the reality of the American Deep State control of world finance, there was no other way Bongbong could manage that gargantuan indebtedness but to stay glued to America.
The stay of EDCA and the additional four sites were an indispensable imperative for the Philippines if only for the essential need to push on.
In a conversation with US Vice President Kamala Harris prior to her visit to Palawan in 2022, President Marcos joked that she was not going there for the beaches, implying she was particularly interested in seeing the additional EDCA site, the Balabac Island.
Sure, Harris laughed at the funny sarcasm, but in a way as to betray it hurt her.
Did she feel it was spoken as an ache of the heart?
An admission of helplessness against America’s ceaseless seizure of Philippine territories?
Thus a slap to Harris’ face?
Accept the undeniable: Bongbong is beholden to America.
But it is a bind under duress.
Under the MDT, an attack on either the US or the Philippines in the Pacific is an attack on the other, which is obliged to retaliate.
In the 2023 laser beaming by the China Coast Guard resulting in alleged temporary blindness of Philippine Coast Guard personnel, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken instantly agitated for application of the MDT. Then and there, the US could have entered into war with China.
But no, Bongbong objected.
At the past APEC Summit in Seoul, South Korea, Bongbong broke protocol by approaching President Xi Jinping through his security detail to extend his congratulations on China’s chairmanship of this year’s APEC meet. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who was seated behind Xi, instantly stood to intervene, but the president gestured it was OK, and warmly accepted Bongbong’s handshake.
Little sincere human touches punctuate the development of friendly China-Philippines relations.
The dilemma Bongbong actually faces is this: the Taiwan flash point will never be triggered by a Chinese attack on the renegade Chinese province. The One-China policy assures Taiwan is part of China. What will trigger that flash point is a Taiwan move to declare independence, supported certainly by the US.
Will Bongbong allow the US to use its military facilities in the Philippines to attack China?
Bongbong can take the stand: No.
The MDT says, use it in instances that any of the US or the Philippines is attacked in the Pacific.
In the Taiwan flash point, it is the US, in supporting Taiwan, that will be attacking.
The MDT will not figure.
Bongbong can write the treaty-provided letter telling the US president that the MDT is abrogated. A year after such writing, the MDT is ended.
Fifty years ago, the father Ferdinand Marcos Sr. opened the floodgates of long-lasting China-Philippines brotherly relations. The next 50 years is for full flowering of those relations as bequeathed this time by the son, Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
