By Caloy Bueno
Lifted from FB
13 July 2024
Why is it important to realize that the USA ~ if it continues to bait China into losing its temper, resulting in a shooting war (and heaven forbid, even an all-out nuclear global conflagration!) ~ it will only lead to a very dangerous possibility of our own country's total destruction?
But first, let's consider the question ~ Why in the first place did the USA covet the Philippines, that led to the Spanish-American War of 1898, when the Spaniards were facing (and already losing) the revolution started by Andres Bonifacio back in 1896, because the Katipunan was exposed to the Spanish clergy as a popular people's movement willing to even take up arms against the Spanish colonial masters, rather than just advocate for political and other reforms (but still remain an insular part of the Spanish empire), as first proposed by Dr. Jose Rizal?
While the US narratives try to sell the idea that it was meant to enable Filipinos to have 'democracy' and eventually become properly developed (in their 'image and likeness'), it was actually our geopolitical significance and strategic military position in Southeast Asia that they wanted to have and control ~ to have a foothold in Asia (specifically the Far East) to enhance the US chances of effectively projecting their own economic power (through advantages in trade and commerce) and geopolitical influence (backboned by their military strength that is based in the Philippines).
Obviously, the Americans early on realized the supreme importance of the South China Sea as a common trading corridor up and down the western Pacific rim, important to all the countries situated alongside it or having access to the South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean. So, they promised us freedom so that we wouldn't rebel anymore (especially after Aguinaldo gave up the fight and surrendered).
Through mass education they taught us American English ~ so that they could also control our minds (not anymore needing to resort to the old-style 'divide-and-conquer' principle effectively used for 333 years by the Spaniards).
But were they able to properly develop us economically? Maybe just partly ~ because economic progress could only be achieved by "graduating" (into the industrialized level) from an agricultural base, which the Spanish colonizers had largely relied on (through their so-called 'encomienda' system of royal land grants, much of which were controlled by the Catholic religious orders).
However, in order for the Americans to achieve their overriding interests (of propagating their economic and politico-military agenda in the region), they also had to compromise on certain objectives ~ they needed to accommodate the native elites' demands, thus resulting in the entrenchment of political dynasties in the 'democratic-republican' form of government the Americans established for us.
In short, the Americans had to sacrifice the interests of the Filipino masses ~ in order to succeed in accomplishing their own interests/agenda (which were of course unsaid, or simply just underlying their "avowed" aims and altruistic intentions for the country and the Filipino people).
Thus, our agriculture never had the chance to improve or 'level-up' (such as becoming mechanized, and nor did our farmers become more sophisticated in their entrepreneurial abilities). And what exactly were we ~ during the agricultural dominion of the previous Spanish colonial era? We were no more than just serfs (agricultural workers) ~ i.e., colonial slaves.
Today, analysts commonly say that we now have one of the "fastest growing" economies in Asia. Maybe that simply means that so many other countries are rushing and/or competing to exploit the Philippines ~ a very resource-rich country, but peopled by a very poor population that is only eager to please and be hospitable to everyone ~ because we are very much humbled by our abject poverty.
And who are our real masters? The Americans, of course ~ represented by their local "clones" ~ the native elites, who not only wield their massive economic wealth to their privileged advantage, but also control dominant political power, so that none of us humbled idiots (by 'virtue' of our poverty) are able to challenge them seriously. In fact, we are still being exploited in that old and tired strategy of "divide-and-rule" through our stupid politics (complete with sordid or ludicrous zarzuelas, supposedly to "entertain" us ~ if not actually stupefy us into submission).
So, if ultimately America will go to war against China ~ whether under the complete incompetence of the geriatric POTUS Joe Biden, or by the MAGA-nificent stance of a resurgent Donald Trump ~ none of those aforesaid depressively pathetic experiences we've had throughout our history (since becoming just puppets of the Western powers) will even matter. Because China, which is in fact a fellow Asian country and our neighbor historically trading and interrelating with us even before the Spaniards first came in 1521, will probably have to devastate our country in their efforts to prevail over the Americans ~ if war does break out between them.
If America will indeed go to war against China, it is us and our country that most likely could lose everything . . .
#PagMayTime
