Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts

Volume 2, Number 24              July 21 - 27,  2002                   Quezon City, Philippines







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The State of Puppetry

Under Arroyo, the puppet show is well-scripted with an American director par excellence to boot. The star performer will always be applauded particularly by those lusting for a good entertainment. But, like all other performances, the curtains will always fall and the play must come to an end.

By BOBBY TUAZON
Bulatlat.com

When Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo faces the nation in her SONA address on Monday, she will be speaking not as president of this republic but as a puppet president of George W. Bush.

Under her watch, Arroyo has practically turned the government under the dictat of her American allies as shown by the fact that the U.S. ambassador has taken the liberty to lecture Filipinos on how to run the bureaucracy. Early last week, U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone reminded the Filipinos that unless government is purged of corruption no significant foreign investment would come in to prop up the economy.

The issue of corruption has been used by U.S. neo-colonizers over the past 50 years to pressure their client regimes in the Philippines to make sure the political and economic climate remained favorable to the Americans - or run the risk of being unseated. Corruption – a bureaucratic disease endemic to a semi-feudal and semi-colonial system – traces its roots in Spanish colonialism and, under their tutelage, had the blessings of U.S. colonial rulers so long as the country’s ruling elite remained beholden to America.

Since taking over as president in January last year, Arroyo has practically placed the future of her presidency into the hands of her U.S. mentors. Before sealing this presidential destiny, Arroyo, as a senator, worked hard for the ratification of the onerous General Agreement in Tariffs and Trade (GATT) that tied the Philippine economy to globalization plunder. As a vice president, she committed the country to support the United States’ “counter-terrorist program” in Southeast Asia – a pledge she would implement in a deal last November allowing U.S. armed intervention in the Philippines.

In her pact with the Washington hawks last November, Arroyo could not have opened the door for increased U.S. armed meddling without being aware that such blind hospitality would lead the way to a military base in the Philippines. U.S. military presence in the Philippines has deepened with the deployment of special operations forces (SOFs), continuing joint military exercises and the installation of military facilities under the Mutual Logistics and Support Agreement (MLSA). Ultimately, the U.S. armed presence will be used for Arroyo’s counter-insurgency campaign and this plan has gained the support of the president’s own generals and political allies in order to get rid of what they claim is the country’s real security threat – the Marxist New People’s Army.

Constitutional issues have been raised against the U.S. militarization of the country but there is absolutely nothing constitutionalists can do with a global superpower that is able to impose its own international fiat and rules of engagement. Not even powers like China, Germany and Japan can do anything with America’s bullying tactics.

Having dictated his own terms in the November deal, Bush then paid back Arroyo with a package of military and economic assistance. However, the assistance pledge will remain just that – a pledge that is calibrated upon proofs that the Arroyo administration is able to enforce its own part of the deal. For instance, tranches of the economic aid and multilateral loans are being conditioned on the results of a proposed new free trade agreement between the two countries. There was a veiled warning from Ricciardone that unless the Philippines tore down its tariff walls to allow more U.S. exports into the country, no significant economic aid would be expected.

Topping Arroyo’s own agenda in perpetuating this system of subservience is a tacit support by the Bush government in the 2004 presidential election. With a shaky political coalition, low popularity rating and – despite rosy forecasts – poor economic performance, Arroyo is bound to hang on tighter to the Americans to stay afloat. She is just willing to go all the way and seal her country’s future to the American hawks in her bid to clinch that valuable election support. In the Philippines, no politician has become president without America’s blessing.

In its bid to restore its geopolitical hegemony in Southeast Asia and contain its rising peer competitor – China - the U.S. government is counting on the Philippines to serve as a jump-off point for its military expansion. The Philippines is vital to the Americans partly because of the relative ease – thanks to Arroyo’s puppetry – with which its military presence is increased until it is able to restore its fixed military base, probably either in Gen. Santos City or Basilan island. Mindanao is a strategic point for projecting U.S. military power because it scans the Southeast Asia region from where it can fortify its naval stronghold.

The U.S. armed interventionist mission in the Philippines is also a test case that is aimed at guaranteeing U.S. congressional budgetary support for larger military operations in the region. And if Pentagon succeeds likewise in expanding its military access in South Asia particularly in Pakistan (which it has already achieved through a military base) as well as in India and Sri Lanka, then the U.S. geopolitical design to militarily encircle China would have been effected.

Arroyo fits well into the U.S. search for a stooge who is willing to be manipulated to support Mother America’s grand design in the region at the expense of the people’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. While Washington has extended the search in Indonesia and elsewhere in the region, they can remain satisfied with the Philippine president for as long as she remains useful to them. Given the United States’ strategic interests in the region, however, it is immaterial to the Americans whoever is in the presidential seat so long as there remain assurances such interests will be protected effectively.

Under Arroyo, the puppet show is well-scripted with an American director par excellence to boot. The star performer will always be applauded particularly by those lusting for a good entertainment. But, like all other performances, the curtains will always fall and the play must somehow come to an end. Bulatlat.com


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