I WAS with some old friends before Easter at the 80th birthday celebration of a dear friend and deeply admired public official, and after the usual pleasantries, the conversation turned completely political. An important Cabinet official responded with good humor to his polite question, "How are you?" I answered, "Not bad, just a little better than the country, perhaps." Thereafter, wherever I turned to, everyone else seemed to ask, "What's wrong with our country?" No one dared to volunteer, "What's right with it?"
The constitutional crisis involving the Duterte father and daughter and House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez seemed over-discussed; graft and corruption involving almost everybody else seemed to have overflooded the banks of polite discourse; stories of domestic violence involving personalities whom critics name after animals seemed to have spilled over into the main area of dynastic politics; the ubiquitous social media led by a US-based vlogger named Maharlika seemed to have taken over the role of the non-existent opposition; and one female senator seemed determined to turn the Senate inquiry in aid of legislation into an inquisitorial enterprise that could put Victor Hugo's legendary Inspector Javert into disrepute.
But, to at least three of my most serious friends present, these were all superficial issues. They could, in their view, sink the administration of President Marcos Jr. if he does not act with sufficient courage, resolve and dispatch, but these were not the life-and-death issues that should concern Filipinos. The real existential and civilizational issue, in their view, is the survival of the human race no less. I thought I had written about this topic earlier, but either my friends had not read it, or I had completely failed to put my point across. A few others had also written about it but from a different perspective.
There is a growing call for war, which we must oppose at all costs. Filipinos must lead in opposing it because its promoters would like to see it fought within Philippine territory, primarily at the cost of Filipino lives. These are foreign governments that do not care much about the Philippines or the Filipinos but would like to see them lead the global campaign against China's peaceful rise. A casual reading of the news will tell us how many such governments are calling out China for its alleged aggressive acts against the Philippines in the disputed waterway where they have no legitimate interests.
Even after the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs had protested the particular incident, these foreigners continue to hype the Chinese coast guard's use of water cannons on the Philippine Coast Guard's supply vessel in Ayungin Shoal as an act of Chinese "aggression" that (in their view) should trigger US armed intervention in favor of the Philippines under the 1951 US-Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT).
Indeed, the effort to promote an armed confrontation between the Philippines and China, as the start of a much bigger confrontation between China and the United States or between China and the rest of the world, seems to have found a convenient staging area in the Philippines. And it has grown exponentially by the passing of every minute. After US President Biden assured President Marcos Jr. of "ironclad" protection from Chinese "aggression," Secretary of State Antony Blinken came to Manila to reassure Marcos of "rock-solid" US support; now an extended beeline of official visitors has come down from Capitol Hill to reinforce the anti-China propaganda drive. The Marcos administration has spread the biggest red carpet to welcome the war propagandists.
We have been through something like this before, but I am not sure we have learned our lesson well. In 1962, when the nuclear competition was between the Soviet Union and the US, the world stood breathless at the brink of Armageddon during the Cuban missile crisis. This began after the US attempt to overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro in the Bay of Pigs invasion failed; in an attempt to prevent a new US invasion, Castro entered into an agreement with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev for the installation of Soviet missiles in Cuba.
The US, however, discovered the missile site being constructed and acted to stop it. President Kennedy imposed a naval blockade around Cuba to prevent the entry of Soviet ships carrying the missiles into Havana, thereby forcing Khrushchev to order the Soviet ships to turn back. In return, he obliged the US to dismantle its missiles aimed at the Soviet Union from Turkey. Experts have since praised Khrushchev for saving the world from nuclear annihilation, but in reality, it was the theory of "mutually assured destruction" (MAD) that ultimately saved the day. Under this theory, no nation would survive a thermonuclear war between the superpowers, so getting involved in one would be utter suicide. That became the ruling wisdom of the day.
It may no longer be so today. Although men like UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and some of the world's leading nuclear scientists passionately believe that nuclear war should never be considered because it can never be won, some elitist military groups may have come to believe that the nation with the most number of hyper-advanced nuclear weapons can deliver a decisive first strike that could eliminate every target in sight. That theory would be of unspeakable danger to humanity if ever proved right, but it would be so many times much more genocidal if proved wrong.
Just how many times has the most powerful nation on earth, the imperial United States, launched a war on another country out of sheer hubris, only to achieve the most disastrous and unacceptable results? Will a war with China, which some of us seem to seek, look like a more manageable picnic? This is the first question that men like President Marcos Jr. should ask themselves.
fstatad@gmail.com
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