SHERWIN Gatchalian’s election as Senate president on June 17 has now turned the once-independent upper chamber of Congress away from the flood-control scam and toward the trial of impeached Vice President Sara Duterte, as the camp of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. — especially recipients of suitcased billions of pesos in infrastructure bribes — wishes.
The talk now is that besides 13 senators who elected Gatchalian, including two facing corruption or plunder cases, at least two more could be pressured to convict Duterte by squeezing their billionaire family’s conglomerate. Then her ouster is just one vote away, which more graft charges or International Criminal Court warrants may deliver.
Also smiling are foreign powers fearing that another Duterte presidency would reverse the surge of American, Japanese, Australian, and other Western forces aiming to use our land for possible war with China over Taiwan. Plus, oligarchs are still smarting from then-president Rodrigo Duterte’s moves against powerful enterprises, citing public interest.
So, the biggest corruption scam in Philippine history is de-headlined; so are multiple sworn testimonies detailing and picturing alleged bribe deliveries totaling billions of pesos, and courts and regulators are harnessed to get impeachment conviction votes.
Is God smiling over all this? Yes and no.
For sure, He does not want corrupt politicking to be rewarded and perpetuated. Nor is he pleased when democratic processes for truth and justice are compromised by underhanded machinations. And the buildup of rival forces in Europe, the Middle East and Asia tends to undermine the peace our loving Father wishes for the world.
Still, our Lord allows humanity to move as we wish, even as He eventually leads the world toward His will, as we shall recount in recent developments.
When the mighty fall
That seems to have happened to Western powers deploying forces to cow rival nations and maintain global dominance. And this very policy of military buildup not only triggered war, but also spurred adversaries to develop armaments that have now defeated weapons and armies of the West and its allies.
In Europe, the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia’s predecessor state, offered a blessed opportunity to end superpower rivalry and build regional peace. But despite warnings even from top Western strategists and diplomats, including George Kennan, architect of the United States’ Cold War program to contain communism, the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) expanded closer and closer to Russia.
Thus, in 2008, after two rounds of NATO expansion, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that bringing Ukraine into the alliance would lead to its destruction. In 2014 and 2022, Russia invaded to show its opposition to Ukraine joining NATO, which could bring nuclear-armed forces just minutes by missile from Moscow.
Just weeks into the 2022 conflict, Ukraine and Russia agreed to end hostilities if Ukraine stayed out of NATO, as they did in 2014. But the US and the United Kingdom pressed Ukraine to keep fighting with NATO arms and aid. That has led to Ukraine’s destruction after over four years of war, which also depleted Western armaments and unleashed Russian weaponry like hypersonic projectiles against which NATO has no effective defenses.
The election of US President Donald Trump, who wants out of the Ukraine war, further blunted the West’s drive to sustain hostilities. Now, with America less willing and able to send arms to Ukraine, its European allies face a grim choice: end the conflict under Moscow’s terms, which include holding on to one-fifth of Ukraine and restricting forces in the remaining four-fifths; or entering the conflict despite overwhelming military disadvantages.
Thus, the West’s blocking of the March 2022 Ukraine-Russia peace deal has led to battlefield defeat in Ukraine. And if the Europeans insist on continuing hostilities, they face devastating, perhaps nuclear war with Moscow, probably without Washington’s support due to US weapons depletion in the Iran war.
It’s much the same story with the US-Israel war on Iran, but in months, not years. Prodded by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Trump joined Israel’s attacks on Iran, first in June 2025, then on Feb. 28 this year.
Now, less than four months after attacks and assassinations against Iran, Israel and American bases and allies in the Middle East have suffered crushing Iranian retaliation, expending anti-aircraft rockets and losing multibillion-dollar air defense radars.
With defenses diminished, Arab nations pressed Trump for a ceasefire with Tehran and new antimissile batteries, which are now running short just when Iranian hypersonic projectiles are flying.
Like the West blocking peace in Ukraine, America and Israel waging two wars against Iran have also lost, with the US-Iran peace deal adopting nearly all of Tehran’s terms. And two entities advocating war — Israel and the hugely funded Jewish lobby in America — have lost much credibility and support, making it harder to drag the West into more Middle East hostilities.
‘Fear no one’
In sum, the warmongers got enough rope to hang themselves.
The very wars America and its allies waged against Russia and Iran have created conditions for peace through military defeat and depletion. Top Washington think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies has reported that “US weapons stockpiles will take years to replenish after Iran war” (https://tinyurl.com/5r9bp2zb).
Asia, too, gains some peace. With loss to Iran pointing undeniably to worse defeat against China’s even more formidable arsenal and forces, President Trump implied during his mid-May visit to Beijing that he was not keen on Taiwan’s independence or fighting a war over the island — reversing his predecessor Joe Biden’s provocative policies.
Of course, the geopolitical pendulum could again swing toward war. Israel wants renewed hostilities. Some European leaders, even Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, seem bent on provoking devastating Russian retaliation to get Washington battling Moscow. And all major powers will stockpile and develop even more fearsome arsenals in the years ahead.
In the June 21 Sunday Mass Gospel reading from Saint Matthew (Mt 10:26–33), Jesus told his disciples, “Fear no one,” assuring them of his Father’s loving care for all.
Especially when enemies of His peace, truth and justice are raging.
Amen.
