Why Are We In The Philippines?

Why Are We In The Philippines?
Emil Guillermo, Special to SF Gate
Tuesday, January 22, 2002
©2002 SF Gate

URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/01/22/eguillermo.DTL

Sending 600 troops to help fight a war on terrorism sounds benevolent enough. Fighting global terrorism is justification for just about anything these days.

So why should it matter that the U.S. is sending military advisers to the Philippines?

Three words: "Little brown brother."

That awkward phrase was born at the turn of the last century, after the Spanish-American War turned into the Philippine-American War and the U.S. tried its hand at imperialism. If the Dutch could have colonies, why not America, right?

We certainly were serious about it. William Howard Taft, the man who would later become our country's 27th president, was the first so-called civil governor of the Philippines. (That's "civil," because clearly anything that came before was just some wild jungle-heathen thing.) Taft is believed to have been the first person to publicly utter the phrase that characterized the patronizing mind-set of the time.

The U.S. has long since given up on empire building in the traditional sense. It did give the Philippines independence and a turn-key democracy. But the country has been troubled by the issue of self-identity ever since.

This is what happens when the U.S. and another country like the Philippines have a "special relationship."

It's within this historical context, then, that we must consider the arrival of 600 military advisers to the Philippines.

For decades, the Philippine government has been battling Muslim rebel forces in the southern part of the country. During this time, most Americans have been paying more attention to the marriage wars of Hollywood celebrities.

But this time a splinter group of the rebel forces fighting for an Islamic state, the Abu Sayyaf, is alleged to have ties to al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden.

Now, suddenly, it's America's business.

For several months before Sept. 11, the Abu Sayyaf -- whose primary strategy is kidnapping for ransom -- held hostages, including Americans in the Philippines. Guillermo Sobrero, an American citizen, was even beheaded early last summer. Where were the Green Berets then? Not in the Philippines.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld last weekend downplayed the recent deployment. "We are working with the Philippines shoulder to shoulder to provide training in a whole host of techniques and things that are appropriate to chasing down terrorists," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

From reading the American press, you might be led to believe the Philippines wants America's help. After all, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo did meet with President Bush last November to obtain pledges of assistance to root out terrorism.

The president is one thing. But other elected officials in the Philippines are wondering about the legality of an arrangement that would allow the U.S. military to come in and operate within their country.

Last week, Jovito Salonga, a former president of the Philippine Senate and one of the nationalists who spearheaded the drive to shut down America's Clark and Subic Bay military bases in 1991, was among the first to openly question the validity of the deployment.

If the U.S. troops are involved only in training exercises, then why are the maneuvers being done in the heart of combat, rather than in a nonhostile area? Filipino leaders say that fact turns a training exercise into a real military operation, which brings with it the potential for direct combat. They say that would be a violation of the Philippine constitution, which since 1991 has prohibited foreign military troops and facilities in their country.

Said Salonga to a reporter for the Philippine Inquirer: "In my view, [the mission] will destroy the self-respect of the military...and the respect of our people [too]... This is an internal problem. We wage our own battles."

Salonga suspects the U.S. is looking for a nice, quick hit -- something easier after Afghanistan -- to boost morale during the global effort against terrorism. There is no Tora Bora in Mindanao.

But there are other things.

Filipinos are wary that the U.S. will linger beyond the Abu Sayyaf hostage situation. The Abu Sayyaf is but a subset of a much larger Muslim movement for Islamic self-rule in the Philippines. The other day, 32 people were killed at a pro-Muslim rally -- not a combat operation. If Abu Sayyaf falls, will the U.S. get out then? Or will the American presence only bolster the overall Muslim resistance there, and "force" the Americans to stay?

Salonga believes it will only exacerbate the situation. And then the U.S. troops will be stuck. "They will not [leave]," he said, because "it's an ongoing war on terrorism."

As we all know, lingering is what military advisers seem to do best -- cue reference to Vietnam. Filipinos, however, prefer to go even farther back, to the turn of the century, when the Spanish-American War suddenly turned into the Philippine-American War.

Fighting side by side with the U.S. has never has worked out for the Philippines, World War II notwithstanding. To Filipinos, the mere presence of 600 U.S. soldiers marks the arrival of a new American paternalism and the return of "little brown brother."

Emil Guillermo can be seen on NCM-TV: New California Media most Friday nights in the San Francisco Bay Area at 7:30p.m. on KCSM-TV (PBS) Ch.60/Cable 17. And in Los Angeles on KLCS-TV 58. E-mail: emil [at] amok.com