IF I AM LECTURED BY
IF I AM LECTURED BY
By Jose Alejandrino
UNCLE SAM: Your country must fight for democracy and freedom by assisting other countries in the fight for theirs. We will assist you in this fight by providing the resources at our disposal as we did to Ukraine. Now, Taiwan needs your country’s help because you are next to them and we need access to your military bases to support the Taiwanese.
JOE: Firstly, before asking my country to fight for democracy and freedom, should you not begin by fighting at home for yours? Your former president Jimmy Carter said the US is no longer a “functioning democracy.” Secondly, if we are invaded by any country, certainly Filipinos will fight to preserve their freedom and independence. But what resources have you provided us in the past? You have given $75-billion to Ukraine. You are giving $3.8-billion annually to Israel and $12-billion to Taiwan, and billions more to other countries that host no US bases while you are offering us $100-million of which $82-million is to upgrade our facilities for the use of your troops and store your equipment. How do we fight an enemy that invades us when our armed forces have no modern equipment?
UNCLE SAM: Don’t worry, Joe, our navy is there with its Seventh Fleet to protect you. It has its aircraft carriers loaded with fighter planes.
JOE: And what if an enemy sinks your aircraft carriers with its hypersonic missiles which your navy brass admitted it has no defense against? Remember that after Pearl Harbor, your navy was unable to re-supply Bataan and Corregidor, your Gen. Douglas MacArthur was ordered to flee to Australia, Bataan and Corregidor fell, thousands of our troops there had to surrender and many died during the Death March to Japanese concentration camps.
UNCLE SAM: That was unfortunate, Joe. Pearl Harbor was an isolated incident. It shouldn’t have happened.
JOE: Shouldn’t? Yes, it shouldn’t have happened. But now the records show American Intel had been warning about a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor but the warning was ignored by the White House. What if today the aircraft carriers of your Seventh Fleet are sunk? How can you be so sure they won’t? And how do you expect us to fight only with bolos against missiles and drones? We would be better off by just being neutral instead of being involved in your war.
UNCLE SAM: If your people fight with us, we will compensate those who die and rebuild whatever is destroyed in your country.
JOE: Yes, I remember US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt promising the same thing. He said he will “redeem every chicken and carabao lost.” Manila was the most destroyed city after Warsaw in Poland. After the war, you gave billions to Japan to rebuild it while we were left to rebuild our country by ourselves. After the war, the thousands of Filipino veterans who had fought with you had to beg for their pensions which was only given after many of them had died from old age. Isn’t that what our President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos told you when he was in Washington on a State Visit? He didn’t mince his words. I have the video if you don’t remember. Promises are cheap. We want something solid like the Rock of Gibraltar.
UNCLE SAM: What do you call solid?
JOE: We want what you give to others as a sign of goodwill. For our armed forces modern defensive weapons like the immediate delivery of F16V block 70 fighter planes, Himars artillery rockets, Patriot air defense missiles, Arleigh Burke-class destroyers armed with Tomahawk anti-ship missiles, and other state-of-the-art weapons systems the AFP will require and submit to you as compensation for access to our military bases which will remain exclusively under our command and not under your Indo-Pacific Command, revision of the PH-US Mutual Defense Treaty to include a provision like Article 5 of the NATO Treaty that in case of attack, you will automatically respond in kind. There will have to be other provisions like the Philippine courts acquiring jurisdiction over erring US personnel like what is contained in other agreements with other countries like Spain.
UNCLE SAM: Joe, it will take time to manufacture those weapons. We cannot guarantee immediate delivery.
JOE: That is what you told Zelensky. In the meantime, his army was decimated. You can give us the weapons we need by drawing on what your armed forces have in service. All you need is to remove the US emblem and paint our emblem on them.
UNCLE SAM: I don’t know how much time it will take.
JOE: Take your time. Until then, we’ll place your access to our military bases on hold. Ok?
Source: FB
4 May 2023
