Speaking of the RH Bill, I read the March 7, 1970 speech of former Rep. Romulo B. Lumauig of Manila entitled “The New Colonialist” and somehow this article reminded me of how much influence America had in our country back in those days, and the presence of US military bases in Clark Air Base and Subic Naval Base were the symbols of America’s stranglehold on our country. It was this reason why our homegrown Communist insurgency with their allied front organizations constantly marched in our streets fighting against American imperialism.
But on that fateful day of Sept. 16, 1991, 12 Philippine Senators, notably, Senate President Jovito Salonga. Juan Ponce Enrile, Agapito “Butz” Aquino, Joseph Estrada, Teofisto Guingona Jr., Sotero Laurel, Orlando Mercado, Ernesto Maceda, Aquilino Pimentel Jr., Victor Ziga, Rene Saguisag and Wigberto Tañada (who authored Resolution No. 1259 of Non-Concurrence to “A Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Security”) voted to approve the Tañada resolution, thus rejecting the proposed treaty that would have extended the presence of the US military bases in the country.
I wrote articles against those Senators, as I really wanted the US military bases to stay because of the huge amount of money that the US then poured into our country to operate these bases. I submit that while it gave a lot of jobs in Clark and Subic, it also allowed prostitution to flourish in Clark and Subic. But the Senators were adamant and at the risk of an economic fallout, they rejected the treaty and the US bases became history.
When the 12 Senators threw out the last vestiges of US imperialism from our shores, one would think that the Philippines had finally cut its umbilical cord with America and in a way, this has happened to us. If today the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has been considerably weakened as compared to those times when the US military bases were here, it was due to the fact that the presence of the US bases was a great boon to our military. Indeed, old PAF pilots would tell me that when they landed in Clark, they could get fuel for their planes courtesy of the USA. That’s how it was then.
Today, the AFP has to contend with a miniscule military aid from the United States government who are still sore at us for kicking out (if we didn’t kick them out, Mt. Pinatubo would have done it anyway) their US military bases. Incidentally, I was in Clark last year and toured Angeles City that night and the honky-tonk bars or the sex trade were still very much in business. But because the 12 Senators booted out the US military bases, the Communists ran out of reasons to march in the streets against US imperialism.
A couple of weeks ago the controversial WikiLeaks issue finally entered the Philippine area of responsibility... where cables from the US government to and from the Philippines were exposed in what I would call “Wiki-Tsismis”. Despite Sen. Pia Cayetano’s insistence that the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill will not lead to abortion, Wiki-Tsismis apparently confirms the role of the US government in promoting population control initiatives in the Philippines, through USAID. Perhaps Sen. Cayetano is pretending not to know that almost all contraceptive drugs are abortifacient.
One of these cables apparently revealed that then US Ambassador Kristie Kenney said, “The US Government continues to be the largest donor in the Philippine population sector supporting efforts to improve local government service delivery and increase private sector contributions to family health outcomes.” This cable was sent from Manila to Washington D.C. in July 2008 during the intense debate in the Philippine legislature about state funding for contraceptives and family planning services.
When US State Department Secretary Hillary Clinton came for a visit, she made it clear that the Philippines should pass an RH bill. Now wasn’t that “pressuring” the Philippine Legislature, especially the Senate to follow the “orders” of the United States? Sec. Clinton probably thought that the Philippines is still a colony of the United States... or perhaps she maybe right... that we are still a colony of the United States. So we ask our Senators, notably Sen. Pia Cayetano and Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago... will they be the instruments for the return of American imperialism to the Philippines? The ball is now in the court of the Senate and our pro-RH Senators!
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For email responses to this article, write to vsbobita@mozcom.com or vsbobita@gmail.com. His columns can be accessed through http://www.philstar.com
