Fugitive Gringo finally falls

More often the heroes the country produces from its citizen were those who became martyr while doing heroic deeds. Those who live and see their deeds celebrated as heroics thru time got mired with the villains and turn colours. Marcos was himself pronounced a WWII hero. Had he met his fate fighting the enemies, he’ll be remembered today as one of our great heroes fighting the invaders. Too bad he live to become a President. Honasan, after playing a major part of overthrowing the Marcos Regime, was celebrated also as a Hero, he too stayed too long and just could not play the role a little longer. Oh well, temptations turn a hero into a villain. Prove true quite too often

Change can only be effectively achieved if we can synchronize our action to the dynamism of time. Staging coup d’etat to effect changes in society maybe was effective decades ago. Today however, it is already considered as an outdated and obsolete because a couple of years after the event it’s deja vu all over again- the same power players who were ousted in a coup are back again and the cycle goes on and on. The actual negative effects like the disruption or stagnation it caused to the progress of a country is not outwheighed by its necessity.

Likewise armed revolution and going communism as the Left is advocating will not help either because primarily people not only love freedom more than the fabled Utopian equality in communism but also because of the people’s distrust over the would-be-leaders. And since there would be no meaningful elections in a communist regime their fear is not unfounded. There is no guarrantee that these people will live true to their promises. That’s why, the communist movement in the Philippines is not getting ground despite waging “war” with the government for the past 30 years or so that wasted taxpayers billions pesos, sacrificing countless innocent lives and being ostracized by most-needed investors. Communism therefore is another obsolete or dead ideology and the world has rejected it already.

As I mentioned in my past blogs, the only remaining and the effective ideology in this millennium is capitalism or business. Technology and inventions have virtually shrunk the world such that commercial intercourse among nations is just the same as transacting business with your next-door neighbor. Going global is now the name of the game and we should take advantage of this innovations if we want to succeed. The question therefore is how we could do this? Again, my simple answer is through Demo Capitalism. (not Democratic Capitalism by Novak, etc.)

Demo Capitalism is basically capitalism by the masses (“demo” being Greek for people.) Ironically, pure Capitalism (capitalism by the rich) produced unintended results- it created wide disparity in society and “modern-day slaves” because of greed by super rich capitalists. Demo Capitalism is therefore the anathema to pure Capitalism. This is feasible in Philippine setting if the people have only that collective will to free themselves from the bondage of modern slavery.

Hinuli nila si Gringo para lang matakpan ang usapin tungkol kay kurATONG ANG.

tounge (oh, the learned lawyer): anak ng tinapay, si GRINGO inilalagay mo pa sa pedestal? NAMAN! NAMAN! Hmmm, for you it’s anybody but Gloria huh?

Learn from experience great lawyer. In the ’80s it’s anybody but Marcos and look what happened, we’ve got CORY, pwe! MAG-ISIP KA NAMAN!

It is GMA who should be imprisoned for plunder and treason.

The following items indicate that the Philippines is under American and Chinese rule thru their puppet GMA government:

U.S. Troops In The Philippines

During the early part of 2002, in Zamboanga City in Southern Philippines, supposedly within the Area Of Responsibility of Southern Command of the Armed Forces of the Philippines which is our institution entrusted with the maintenance of our security, peace and order and sovereignty, two foreign soldiers who happened to be Americans in civilian clothes brandished rifles in front of a bank while fellow soldiers withdrew cash.(1)

In General Santos City ISM participants investigated several facilities including the local airport, the Makar Wharf, the fish port, and a new luxury hotel and concluded that they are grossly out of proportion to the actual needs of the people of the city and the region. The fact that these huge infrastructures were built recently with US funding in a region that is strategically favorable for military use raises the suspicion that they were constructed for future use by the US military.

68 participants in the International Solidarity Mission from the Philippines, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China (Taiwan), Japan, South Korea, Netherlands and the United States visited Zamboanga City, Basilan, General Santos City and Manila from July 24 to 31, 2002 to gather information and asses the impact of the presence of U. S. troops. They investigated the shooting of an unarmed civilian among us by a US soldier in a small village of Tuburan town on the island of Basilan. The wife and mother of Buyong Buyong Isnijal testified on what happened just after midnight on July 25 when American soldiers directly participated in the raiding, shooting and arresting in their home without any warrant. The wounded victim was taken by the military after the incident and his family was left uninformed about Isnijal’s whereabouts. Other relatives, neighbors and medical personnel corroborated this information.

Delegates of the ISM decry the fact that US soldiers seem to have been given free reign to play the role of military and even police in local matters, bypassing the civilian authorities.(2)

Chinese Control Of Philippine Territory

GMA recently agreed to allow Chinese intruders, disguised as “fishermen” to go into the Philippine-claimed part of the disputed Spratlys archipelago. In effect, the Philippine military can no longer drive away the Chinese when they show up near the Kalayaan reef. The Chinese have built a garrison nearby.(3)

Chinese Control of Philippine Political-Economic Lanes

Chinese President Hu Jintao met on April 28 the officers and members of the Federation of the Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Inc. (FFCCCII) with some 1,500 businessmen in attendance. FFCCCII Chairman Emeritus Lucio Tan, President Francis Chua, and honorary president Robin Sy hosted the luncheon with the Chinese leader.

This is in addition to FFCCCII’s presence when China President Hu Jintao addresses the joint session of Congress on April 27. Some 400 of its members will attend the session at the Batasan.

But it is the 90-minute luncheon co-hosted by the FFCCCII at Manila Hotel that promises to be the major highlight of Hu Jintao’s three-day state visit, outside, of course, of the signing of six major agreements.

It is a recognition of the federation’s role in the past 50 years to foster the growth of the trade industries and to unite under one roof the various trade, business, industrial and financial institutions in the Filipino-Chinese community.

GMA immediately after attending the Rome funeral for John Paul II, went to Manila Hotel for the biennial convention of the FFCCCII.

Also, the Chinese in the Philippines are making significant investments in China in such areas as banking, property, shopping malls, food retailing, and manufacturing.

And with China making huge investments in strategic areas like infrastructure and mining, its is members of the FFCCCII likely to pave the way for the realization of these projects.

An FFCCCII official suggested, “Media has to be less negative about the Philippines.” Another FFCCCII official complained about the interference of the judiciary in economic issues. He cited the case of a decades-old restraining order that has prevented the widening of Circumferential Road north of Manila.

To preserve the Chinese language, Lucio Tan makes it a point to send some 400 Filipino Chinese students to China to learn Chinese.(4)

English education and the Catholic Church

The Catholic Church was disestablished, and a considerable amount of church land was purchased and redistributed. However, the bulk of the land was quickly bought up by American companies with little going to Filipino peasants.

During the U.S. occupation, English was declared the official language, although the languages of the Philippine people were Spanish, Visayan, Tagalog, Ilokano, Pangasinan and other native languages. Also, six hundred American teachers were imported aboard the USS Thomas. The first task of the Thomasites was to reform the education system to one that maintained an anti-Spanish curriculum but glossed over existing American atrocities.

The English requirement barred many from political office and ensured a dependency on American administrators.(5)

Collaborationist Politics

Philippine politics was born to serve colonial ends, to allow the Filipinos a semblance of participation in colonial affairs the better to disguise the conqueror’s game. Thus from the very beginning Philippine political parties were adjuncts of colonial policy. Ostensibly, they were the voice of the people’s aspirations; in reality they became the transmission belts of American rule. Political parties served to gild the democratic façade, thus making Philippine democracy safe for American rule. As a vehicle of colonial rule, Philippine political parties allowed the Americans to dominate by indirection. Through these parties, the United States was able to maintain a regime with a semblance of local autonomy and educate the people to accept the image of American benevolence and altruism. These parties worked within the circumscribed spheres allowed them. More and more they become transformed into the right hand of the colonial master. This has been the tragedy of our political life. That the people followed their leaders and acquiesced in the subtle subversion of their sovereignty is another tragedy.(6)

Published on Monday, November 17, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
Resistance to US Military Occupation: The Case of the Philippines
by Heather Gray

It is baffling that any American might not understand the Iraqi disdain of a US military occupation. How would Americans like being accosted by another country’s military…being arrested by them, controlled by them, dictated to by them, tortured by them, killed by them…. exploited by its corporate entities and losing sovereignty? Americans should look at the Philippines’ century long struggle for some answers to that question.

Bush referred to the Philippines as a model for the US relationship with Iraq and I would like to briefly describe that model. It was and remains a fiasco and tragedy. After being occupied directly or indirectly by the United States since the Philippine-American War (1899-1902), the Philippines has been victimized in this relationship. While the Filipino elite have always benefited from US interference in their country, the masses have suffered indignities, violence, extreme poverty, racism and no substantive reforms.

It is particularly important to highlight the initiation of “low intensity conflict” policies by the United States against Filipinos in 1901 – a practice the US continued to implement throughout the 20th century in Vietnam, Angola, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Columbia and elsewhere.

During the Spanish-American War in the late 1890’s, US Commodore George Dewey descended upon the shores of the Philippines and destroyed the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay. Americans had a number of goals for occupying the Philippines. One was to create a military presence to then access the markets of China. The second was to utilize the Philippine raw materials for US industry. US President William McKinley described the third. After praying to “Almighty God”, McKinley said that a message came to him that Americans were in the Philippines to “uplift and civilize and christianize” Filipinos. He was obviously not aware of the fact that the Filipinos had been “christianized” for 400 years by Spanish colonizers, against whom they had consistently rebelled.

As Howard Zinn notes in his People’s History of the United States, the “Filipinos did not get the same message from God” and the resistance to US military intervention began in 1899 in what has remained, up to the present time, organized efforts by Filipinos in opposition to US interference.

Initially, Filipinos thought that the Americans were there to help them kick out the Spanish and end 400 years of repression. After fruitless attempts to negotiate, however, the reality of the US intention became clear. The Filipinos were forced to acknowledge that the Americans intended to replace the Spanish as the colonial rulers. In The Philippines Reader, Daniel Schirmer and Stephen Shalom provide first hand accounts of this period. On February 5, 1899 Philippine President Emilio Aguinaldo urged his people to fight in response to the “outbreak of hostilities between the Philippine forces and the American forces of occupation, (which were) unjustly and unexpectedly provoked by the latter…. The constant outrages and taunts, which have caused the misery of the people…and finally the useless conferences and contempt shown the Philippine government prove the premeditated transgression of justice and liberty.”

The American reaction was swift and the slaughter by US forces is legendary. Philippine scholar Luziminda Francisco refers to that brutal imperial American war that launched the 20th century as the “first Vietnam War” in which estimates of from 600,000 to a million Filipinos died. She states that the estimate of up to a million deaths might “err on the side of understatement” as one US congressman, who visited the Philippines at the time, was quoted as saying “They never rebel in Luzon (Philippines) anymore because there isn’t anybody left to rebel…our soldiers took no prisoners, they kept no records, they simply swept the country and wherever and whenever they could get hold of a Filipino they killed him.”

In response to a massacre of 54 Americans by the Filipino resistance in Samar, Francisco describes how US General “Howling Jake” Smith launched a “reign of terror” on the island. “Kill and burn…” Smith said “the more you kill and burn the more you’ll please me.” When asked the age limit for killing, he said, “Everything over ten.” The order from Smith was that Samar becomes a “howling wilderness” so that “even the birds could not live there.” The Americans had begun to utilize the deadly “water torture” against Filipinos – forcing huge amounts of water into their stomachs to then gather information – and Smith insisted on its use in Samar.

There were four US regiments of Black soldiers in the Philippines during the Philippine-American War. Many were outraged at the abuses and attitude of the white soldiers toward the Filipinos. Zinn refers to a letter from a volunteer from the state of Washington who wrote: “Our fighting blood was up, and we all wanted to kill ‘niggers’…. this shooting human beings beats rabbit hunting all to pieces.” David Fagan, one of the Black soldiers, left the US ranks to fight along side Filipinos and “for two years wreaked havoc upon the American forces.”

The Philippine resistance fought valiantly against the well-armed Americans. Francisco states that the “Filipinos had to adapt to their limitations as best they could…with darts, the ubiquitous bolo, and even stones, prompting (US) General Lawton to remark, ‘they are the bravest men I have ever seen’….”

It is also noteworthy that once the Americans captured Aguinaldo in April 1901 they expected hostilities to cease and were “dismayed” that this was not the case. As the movement against the American presence had massive support, the fighting continued “unabated.” This revelation led the leader of the US campaign, General Arthur MacArthur, to resign.

The American policy was so brutal that even American personnel were skeptical. Francisco quotes a US civil servant in the Philippines at the time who said that because of the “burning, torture and other harsh treatments” the Americans were “sowing the seeds for a perpetual revolution. If these things need to be done, they had best be done by native troops so that the people of the U.S. will not be credited therewith.” Obviously this warning was heeded, as in 1901 the Americans created the Philippine Constabulary, comprised of Filipinos, who would work at the behest of and ruthlessly serve US interests during the U.S. colonization of the Philippines.

With its creation of the Philippine Constabulary (PC), the United States launched its “low intensity conflict” (LIC) strategy in the Philippines – in other words “don’t get the US hands dirty, let someone else do the brutal work.” So while it might be “low” intensity for the United States, it is exceptionally “high” intensity for its victims. The PC is still in existence today, and its reactionary and mercenary origins have remained in tact. Throughout the 20th century it has played a key role in suppressing peasant revolts and anti-US intervention movements.

At the end of World War II the Americans claim to have given the Philippines its independence. The US, however, insisted on maintaining a military presence in the country, with its major bases being Subic Naval Base and Clark Air Force Base. In return for these bases the US offered the Filipino elite the creation of the “Joint US Military Advisory Group” (JUSMAG) to help reassert its authority over the peasant movements for land reform and other issues objectionable to them.

The resistance to the US interference has always been intense in the Philippines. Nationalist movements and armed struggle from the early occupation period to the Hukbalahap guerrilla movement after World War II to the New People’s Army in the 1960’s through to the present, including, of course, peasant movements for land reform, factory workers rights, on and on. In every instance the US administration and US military have worked in tandem with their Filipino government and military counterparts in an attempt to ruthlessly quell these movements.

After Filipinos had successfully ousted the dictator and American puppet Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, the goal of many was to continue on that wave of success by attempting to end US interference altogether – particularly by ousting the US military bases. While many Filipinos demanded countless reforms from the new government of President Corie Aquino, they recognized that the American military presence and CIA involvement made their reform efforts next to impossible. The Military Bases Agreement (MBA) that allowed the US bases to stay in the Philippines was to expire in 1991 and the Philippine Senate, to the dismay of the Americans, did vote against the extension of the agreement, which finally closed that disastrous chapter in Philippine history. Prior to that vote, however, violence raged in the Philippines.

To organize against the extension of the MBA, a broad based anti-bases and nationalist movement developed in the Philippines in the 1980’s. The US intention, however, was to maintain its bases, and to accomplish that the CIA hired retired US General John Singlaub (head of the World Anti-Communist League) to launch a relentless and cruel LIC campaign (1987-1989). President Aquino assisted in this effort in what the Filipinos refer to as “Total War” against the people. The result was a rise of death squads, vigilante violence, human rights abuses and massive numbers of refugees from evacuated areas. Assassinations and harassments of church workers, labor leaders, peasant leaders and others became a daily occurrence. In 1989, US Colonel James Rowe of JUSMAG, who had been training the Philippine military in LIC strategies, was assassinated in Manila.

While the Filipinos have had brief respite, since 1991, of living without the presence of the huge US military bases, JUSMAG has remained in tact and the Bush administration is attempting to reverse some of that victory. Today, in violation of the Philippine constitution, which does not allow foreign troops on Philippine soil, the Bush administration successfully lobbied Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to send US troops into the Philippine hinterlands. The goal, according to Bush, is to destroy Muslim terrorists. Once again, in the Philippines, there is a growing movement to oust the US military (see http://www.nispop.org/).(7)

Charles de Gaulle of France

When Germany invaded part of France, Charles de Gaulle made the most important decision in his life and in the modern history of France: he refused the humiliation of a French surrender and instead rebeled against the apparently legal (but illegitimate in his eyes) government of Pétain, returning to London and calling for the continuation of war. De Gaulle decided to reject French capitulation and to set about building a movement which would appeal to overseas French, opponents of a separate arrangement with Germany.

From London, de Gaulle formed and led the Free French movement. Whereas the United States continued to recognise Vichy France, the British government of Winston Churchill supported de Gaulle, initially maintaining relations with the Vichy government but subsequently recognising the Free French.

On 4 July 1940, a court-martial in Toulouse sentenced de Gaulle in absentia to four years in prison. At a second court-martial on 2 August 1940, de Gaulle was condemned to death for treason against the Vichy regime.

In his dealings with his British allies and the United States, de Gaulle insisted at all times in retaining full freedom of action on behalf of France, even where this might embarrass or inconvenience his partners in the war. “France has no friends, only interests” is one of his best-remembered statements. Working with the French resistance and supporters in France’s colonial possessions in Africa, after the Anglo-American invasion of North Africa in November 1942, de Gaulle moved his headquarters to Algiers in May 1943. He became first joint head (with the less resolutely independent Gen. Henri Giraud, the candidate preferred by the USA) and then sole chairman of the Committee of National Liberation.

At the liberation of France following Operation Overlord, in which Free French forces played a minor but symbolic role, he quickly established the authority of the Free French Forces in France, avoiding an Allied Military Government for Occupied Territories in France. He was flown into France from the French colony of Algeria a few hours before the liberation of Paris, and drove near the front of the column of liberating forces into the city alongside Allied officials. De Gaulle made a famous speech upon the liberation of Paris which caused raised eyebrows amongst the other western Allies. After his return to Paris, he moved back into his office at the War Ministry, thus proclaiming continuity of the Third Republic and denying the legitimacy of Vichy France.(8)

Compared with how Gen. de Gaulle responded to the Vichy puppet government of Germany, how do our soldiers respond to the GMA puppet government?

If our soldiers were Gen. Artemio Ricarte, how would they respond?

1)http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/southeastasia/02/14/phil.us.troops/
2)International Solidarity Mission, Statement of the, “Against U. S. Armed Intervention in the Philippines July 24-31, 2002,” http://www.yonip.com/main/articles/intervention.html
3)Lopez, Tony. “Why President Arroyo warms up to China, Sun Life vs Philamlife”, Virtual Business for Monday. April 25, 2005 posted by Biznews Asia
4)Lopez, Tony. “Filipino Chinese Federation wields considerable influence and power”, BizNewsAsia, Apr 24, 2005
5)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language
6)Constantino, Renato. Insight & Foresight, Foundation for Nationalist Studies, Quezon City, 1977 p.43-44
7)http://www.commondreams.org/
8)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_de_Gaulle