| She Will Run By Antonio C. Abaya May 22, 2003 It was the kind of praise guaranteed to make any Philippine president squeal with orgasmic delight. And judging from the photos that accompanied the gushing news stories, that seems to have been the effect on President Arroyo. Imagine the Philippines being called, by no less than the American president himself, "a major non-NATO ally!" Why, every Filipino president since, well, the founding of NATO in 1949, has been hoping for just such a Good Housekeeping seal of approval from the Great White Father himself. It is the unalloyed good fortune of President Arroyo that Bush the Younger is the sitting emperor, er... president at the White House. Wasn't it the father of Dubya, Bush the Elder, who once similarly tickled pink the tinpot dictator Ferdinand Marcos with his gushing endorsement, "I just love your adherence to democracy!" with a pronounced and lingering emphasis on 'love'? Or some other meaningless words to that effect? What's with these Texans, anyway? Their limited command of the English language, learned at home on the range where the deer and the antelope and the longhorn roam, seems to have put them in a permanent expansive mood and made them prone to hyper-bola (pun intended). A major non-NATO ally? We who have neither the economic nor the military nor the scientific nor the industrial nor the technological nor the financial nor the intellectual nor the geopolitical muscle to impress anyone except, perhaps, the Grand Duchy of Fenwick, how can we ever be a major ally in anything other than the race to populate this planet to Standing Room Only status? But never mind that the encomium is hollow. The praise was spoken, in public, by the most powerful person in the world. It is the most signal honor bestowed on this country by the Americans since Filipinos won the Mambo Contest in Clark Field in the 1950s. Fictionist Gilda Cordero-Fernando was right after all. We Filipinos are super-beings. We are even possibly divine: we can make something out of nothing. Congratulations, Mrs. President. ***** The question must be raised, however: what was the snow job for? The most obvious seems to be that the Americans, specifically the war party in Washington DC, want Mrs. Arroyo to remain in power beyond 2004 for reasons that may have to do with the new Bush Doctrine of Pre-emptive Strike. As I wrote in my article titled "Why the Americans are in Basilan and Sulu" (June 6, 2002), the Americans are worried about the activities of the Jema?ah Islamiyah, a major Islamic fundamentalist organization in Indonesia, and its avowed aim to carve out a pan- Islamic state embracing the territories of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, plus parts of southern Thailand and the southern Philippines, which are populated by Muslim minorities. This concern over JI has attained more serious proportions after the Bali bombing in October 2002, which has been blamed by Indonesian authorities on JI members. The group?s spiritual leader, the cleric Abubakar Ba'ashir, has in fact been arrested and is at present on trial, but for earlier bombings of foreign embassies and Christian churches. The Americans are concerned that if the pan-Islamic state were to take hold, the region's immense wealth in oil and natural gas, and the human resources that go with it, would slip out of their control, which would adversely affect not just US prosperity but the prosperity as well of some of its most important trading partners: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia, which source their oil and gas from the region and/or whose maritime commerce must pass through it. Just as the US has gone to war in the Persian Gulf twice in the past 12 years to ensure their continued control of Middle East oil, so are they prepared to go to war in the future, if necessary, to ensure their continued control of Southeast Asian oil. In anticipation of that eventuality, the Americans want a listening post in Basilan-Sulu to more closely monitor the activities of JI, as well as a friendly outpost (like Kuwait and Qatar in the Gulf) from which to launch their pre-emptive strike if and when that becomes necessary. That is the reason why President Arroyo has to remain in power. She is a known quantity and her commitment to the American war on terror has been tested and proven. The other contenders, Panfilo Lacson, Danding Cojuangco, Fernando Poe Jr., Noli de Castro and Raul Roco are all unknown quantities; who knows who among them may harbor romantic ideas about national sovereignty and silly negotiations with terrorists. It's GMA all the way for the USA.. ***** AL QAEDA UPDATE. CNN?s resident buffoon, Richard Quest, was figuratively scratching his head on May 22 over the alleged taped message from Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's second-in-command, urging their followers to attack the US, the United Kingdom, Australia....and Norway? Why Norway? The Norwegians haven?t done any harm to anyone since their Viking ancestors pillaged Britannia and conquered a part of France that was later named after them, Normandy (from 'Norseman') in the 9th and 10th centuries. In the 11th century, the Frenchified Vikings invaded the British Isles again, this time as Normans, and this time to stay, thereby enriching English culture and the English language. Quest invited CNN viewers to email their theories as to why peaceful Norway, home of the Nobel Peace Prize and host to the watershed Oslo Accord between the Jews and the Palestinians, was included in the al-Qaeda hit list. While most said it was probably a mistake, I argued that it may have been a deliberate ?mistake,? that 'Norway' may be a code-word for the country that they will attack next, a country that is north of something. Such as, perhaps, US-ally-over Iraq Spain, which is north of Casablanca; or, perhaps, US Central Command HQ site Qatar, which is north of Riyadh; or, perhaps, Lebanon, which is north of Israel. All north of recent scenes of carnage. Which one will it be? Abangan. ***** SARS UPDATE. In my article "SARS Could Kill Millions"(April 23), I wrote that, based on the WHO's study that SARS was spreading death and infections at an average rate of 22% a week (which is about 100% a month), there could be a cumulative total of 500 deaths and 8,000 infections by May 23. The latest data from WHO (www.who.int) shows that as of May 23, there have been 689 deaths and 8,117 infections due to SARS worldwide, the overwhelming majority in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. So my projection was uncannily accurate, even though I had been accused by an angry viewer of "negative thinking." Will the totals climb to 1,000 deaths and 16,000 infections by June 23? Highly unlikely at this point. The weekly rate has dropped way below 22%, although the WHO has expressed skepticism about the numbers coming out of China showing a sudden drop in new cases and deaths. The only area now admitting what looks like a runaway outbreak is Taiwan, where new cases are appearing mostly in hospitals and where more than 100 doctors and nurses have resigned from their posts because of the danger to their own health and lives. And Taiwan authorities had the nerve, two weeks ago, to issue a travel advisory to their citizens against traveling to the Philippines! Would Filipino authorities have the nerve to issue a travel advisory against traveling to Taiwan? I doubt it. The danger of losing thousands of jobs for our OFWs, as ever, makes cowards of us all. ***** The bulk of this article appears in the May 31, 2003 issue of the Philippines Free Press. |
 |
 |
| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �She Will Run� Sorry for the blank message. Didn't mean to send you one. Just pushed the wrong button. Apreciate what you've been sending. Your pieces give me cause to think about what's happening back there. Could you please resend your Burnham piece? Angie Coll�s-Dean, [email protected] May 27, 2003 MY REPLY: I do not know what you mean by my �Burnham piece.� Please check the index of columns in this website and determine for yourself which column you are referring to. ������������������������������ lAST WHEN THEY ANNOUNCED THAT SHE WOULD NOT RUN i SAID THAT SHE WOULD AND EVERYONE LAUGHED AT ME........ Andra Al. Stone, [email protected] Texas May 27, 2003 �������������������������� Tony of course GMA has to run: significantly the question is what deal she must strike with the Reglious Sector for its backing and whether this deal progress or regress the Philippine Economy because as sure as the road to hell is paved with the very best of intentions without population management and sustained broad economic growth of between 7-10% a year, the Philippines will NEVER EVER defeat poverty let alone banditry or terrorism whatever its form.... stark reality .... Brett Taylor, [email protected] May 27, 2003 ������������������������ --- In [email protected], "Antonio C. Abaya" <acabaya@p...> wrote: > Wasn't it the father of Dubya, Bush the Elder, who once similarly tickled pink the tinpot dictator Ferdinand Marcos with his gushing endorsement, "I just love your adherence to democracy!" with a pronounced and lingering emphasis on `love'? Or some other meaningless words to that effect? ---- The toast went "we love your adherence to democratic principles and to the democratic process". Jim Ayson, [email protected] May 27, 2003 ����������������������������� (Through neveragain egroup) Tony, would you consider the gold, oil and deuterium in the Mindanao- Sulu-Palawan as three other reasons for the hyper-bola? A consultant of Sonny Alvarez once told me that the gold triangle in Mindanao, bounded by Cagayan de Oro in Misamis Oriental, Diwalwal in Davao del Norte (then) and Panabo in Davao del Sur, is known to international geologists as the second largest gold triangle in the world. Homobono Adaza claims that NASA satellite photos have established a large oil deposit running from Palawan to the Sulu Sea, at one point turning right inland into Cotabato. And there is, of course, the proverbial deuterium in the Philippine Deep, off the coast of Surigao, the northern tip of which is parallel to the northern tip of Samar (where it is supposedly the deepest part of all the oceans of the world), and the southern tip of which is parallel to the southern tip of Mindanao. Deuterium is a moderator for nuclear fission. With it, you don't form an atom bomb; you form nuclear fuel. The Japanese, it seems, have already found a way of siphoning it off the seas in the Marianas, ahead of the Americans. Actually, I don't know if any of the above are true. Have no time to research it. Would you or anyone else here be interested? Mila Aguilar, [email protected] May 27, 2003 MY REPLY: Gold and oil are two other possible reasons, but the �proverbial deuterium in the Philippine Deep� is a hoax. You are right. Deuterium is used only as a moderator for nuclear fission. There is currently no use for deuterium as fuel. Experimental fusion reaction uses it, but only in infinitessimal amounts. Nuclear fusion will probably not graduate to commercial use because of the tremendous costs. It will in all likelihood be overtaken by fuel cells, which use ordinary hydrogen (deuterium is an isotope of hydrogen) from tap water or methane gas. Besides, deuterium is present as deuterium dioxide in sea water all over the world. The Philippines does not have a monopoly of it even if someone develops a system for siphoning it off the bottom of the Philippine Deep. ������������������������ Dear Mr. Abaya: The Philippines has now joined Israel, and Egypt as one of the Non-NATO allies of the United States. And, as we all know, the benefits of this status come in the Billions of dollars which have propped up the States of Israel and Egypt. Certainly, the co coming of this recognition by the United States to the Philippines means a change of the relationship between the two countries for the better. If the Philippines is now truly seen as a full partner by the Americans, then the Philippine government can negotiate higher returns for its people for the increased U.S. presence in the country. The Philippines, as we all see it, should not be a vassal State; we should be treated as full and equal partners, and not peons. If the U.S. government inbvests billions ofof Dollars in the Israeli and Egyptian economies, it should do the same in the Philippines. Aside from the growing regional Islamic Fundamentalist threat you mentioned, there is also the growing Chinese hegemony in the region, which points at the markets, concentration of natural resources, and the command or dominance of the crucial sea anes lanes from the Northern and Eastern Pacific to the Indian Ocean. We know our homeland is strategically situated as either a staging area, or base of military operations; not only as a market for american goods. If the President should decide to run for another term, then part of her agenda should be to ensure that the U.S. government provides a fair and equal share of economic benefits to assist the development of the country. the country should not receive only pennies on the Dollar, for what other non-NATO allies receive. What's next? Hopefully, lowering of U. S. Tariff barriers on Philippine products, and increased import quotas for Philiippine manufactured goods. IF GMA can bring home the economic and employment bacon for the Filipino people, then she should get their full support for another term. Jose G. Caedo, [email protected], May 28, 2003 Mayor's Office On Disability 401 Van Ness Ave. Ste. 300 San Francisco, CA 94102 (415) 554 6060 (415) 554 6159 fax MY REPLY. The only reason Egypt gets $2 billion in yearly aid from the US is because it allows the US the use of its air space and air bases in support of Israel in case Israel (which gets $3 billion in official aid, and another $5 billion in private aid) is attacked by a third party. Since the Philippines is very far from Israel, we would not be of much help to the US or Israel in case Israel is attacked by, say, Iraq. The chances of the Philippines getting as much US aid as Egypt is therefore zero.) OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |