One year into the new administration, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. remains true to continuing his family’s legacy of kowtowing to foreign powers at the expense of our country’s sovereignty and our people’s welfare. In just a year, he has paid more state visits outside of the country, bringing more lopsided agreements and foreign investments favoring only him and his clique, as well as his foreign masters, while barely heeding calls for higher wages, decent jobs and free education.
The new Marcos administration opened its term with the declaration of four new Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (Edca) bases for military troops of the United States to use free of charge paid for by the Filipino people’s taxes. The new bases are set to be built in Cagayan, Isabela and Palawan — all facing China. These new bases are clearly meant to further establish US presence in the Philippines and in the larger Asia-Pacific region against Chinese expansion, especially as the latter has essentially taken over the West Philippine Sea despite it being declared as part of our country’s exclusive territory.
Not just Edca, but in one of his state visits to the US, Marcos Jr. brought home with him additions to the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT), which sets the framework of military cooperation between the Philippines and the US. In the context of the heightening tensions between the US and China, through the MDT, the Filipino people will potentially be dragged into a war in which it has no part from the start.
In spite of the decades of US military support, our armed forces is still in no great condition to defend our country, not even against Chinese incursion. This proves furthermore that our dependence to the US government is for us to remain under its heel.
However, despite this, Marcos Jr. remains loyal to China, even going as far as declaring that PH-China relations will still be intact amid intensifying US presence in the country and in the Asia-Pacific region. For us, this only means that he will allow China to take over the West Philippine Sea, while bringing in more Chinese investments to fund the country’s Build, Build, Build program.
This only goes to show that the Marcos Jr. administration is no different from the previous Rodrigo Duterte government and his father’s US-backed dictatorial rule. His policy of being a “friend to all” means allowing the country’s national life to still be dominated by foreign interests. Such is a betrayal of our nationalist aspirations as exemplified by Andres Bonifacio and Jose Rizal’s bravery to stand up against foreign superpowers.
Under the current administration, state security forces, like the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police, have attempted on several occasions — and have done so deceitfully — to enter campus premises with the aim of stifling the growing dissent of students against the return of Mandatory Reserve Officers Training Corps (MROTC).
Since the start of the year, the Joint Task Group Cebu led by the 3rd Infantry Division of the Philippine Army has conducted numerous terror-tagging forums in various Cebu schools.
Just last May, in a brazen attempt to promote ROTC, the Commission on Higher Education, the AFP and Sen. Francis Tolentino, a staunch MROTC advocate, held an ROTC Games Orientation at the Cebu Technological University – Danao Campus attended by 300 ROTC cadets. The ROTC Games Orientation was previously set at the University of the Philippines Cebu but was successfully blocked by the students and faculty.
Until now, more police presence has been sighted all over Cebu schools, such as in the University of San Carlos, where police forces were seen in front of university gates, and recently, at the Abellana National High School.
This is why the government is keen in reviving MROTC, outside of instilling blind obedience and silencing dissent among the youth, it wants us to be pawns for US-instigated wars, like it did during the US-Vietnam and US-Korean wars, where young Filipinos were sent to die in battles we were not part of to begin with under one-sided agreements like the MDT. We refuse to be cannon fodder!
Instead of continually heeding to American and Chinese interests, the Philippine government under Marcos Jr. should strive to implement a genuine independent foreign policy that is grounded upon our country’s national interest. It can do so by constructing national industries to create jobs for young Filipinos and to end the cycle of labor export, by providing a free and nationalist education, by severing one-sided agreements like the MDT and Edca, and by asserting our territorial rights to the West Philippine Sea.