‘Really’ for peace
February 13th, 2003
Apparently unable to defend its obvious, blatant, pathetic, dangerous and possibly treasonous support for the imminent U.S. war on Iraq, the Arroyo administration now claims that it’s “really” for peace.
The “really” is important, in that no one in his right mind who has been listening to what they’ve been saying—and noting what they’ve been doing—can ever conclude that Mrs. Arroyo and her leading defense, security and foreign affairs officials are for a peaceful solution to the Iraqi crisis, which is what being “for peace” should mean.
Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye thus had to add “really” to the otherwise simple statement “we’re for peace” in response to an unprecedented joint statement issued by the Iglesia ni Cristo and the supposedly Catholic El Shaddai.
“We are really for peace,” said Bunye, who offered no proof beyond saying that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo “also wants peace” in the Middle East, just like the INC and El Shaddai. “Beyond that,” he hastily added, “we would not wish to comment. We would not wish to commit ourselves.”
Well said for the spokesperson of a president who only two weeks ago urged the United Nations to use force against Iraq, and only last week announced on cue that she was “convinced” that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction and had links to the terrorist network al-Qaeda.
(What “convinced” Mrs. Arroyo was the U.N. speech of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, whose presentation has since been widely criticized for making a host of unsubstantiated claims—i.e., lying—and for citing as “a fine document” a British dossier on Iraq plagiarized from several sources including a 12-year-old doctoral dissertation.)
Well said indeed for a functionary of a government whose foreign affairs secretary announced as fact—and in support of the U.S. claims of Iraqi-Qaeda links—“intelligence reports” that an Iraqi diplomat based in Manila was in contact with the Abu Sayyaf Group.
And well said as well for an official of a government whose national security adviser, the unbecomingly loquacious Roilo Golez, announced the supposed shutdown of the Philippine embassy of Baghdad in a transparent attempt to suck up to the United States government.
Mrs. Arroyo’s statements have justly earned her the anger and distrust of even more Filipinos, including those who once thought that she would be a brighter and more circumspect president than Joseph Estrada. She has also earned the rebuke, though mild, of the members of her own People Power Coalition in the Senate.
Her statements, however, are even more crucially likely to have an impact on the results of the next surveys on her approval rating, thus the rush to placate the INC and El Shaddai, both organizations in command of several million votes. The swiftness with which the Arroyo government responded to the joint statement is indeed suspiciously suggestive: that Mrs. Arroyo, despite her announced noncandidacy in 2004, has either changed her mind, or is preparing to change her mind.
The same Bunye also said—in response to the INC-El Shaddai statement expressing concern over the safety of the 1.5 million Filipino workers in the Middle East, and the possibility that there will be more terrorist attacks in the Philippines because of Arroyo and company’s expressions of support for the U.S. war on Iraq—that Mrs. Arroyo’s priority was the safety of those workers.
Bunye recalled Mrs. Arroyo’s trip to Kuwait two weeks ago, which he described as meant to “personally see to the welfare” of the 60,000 Filipinos working in that country, Iraq’s immediate neighbor.
If Mrs. Arroyo is concerned with the safety of the country’s Middle East workers, she’s going about it in exactly the opposite way—by supporting war against Iraq, a country one senator described as having done nothing against the country.
It has since become clear that Mrs. Arroyo’s visit was not so much intended to “personally see” to their welfare as to convince them to stay on, and for two reasons: the first is that the government does not have enough funds to repatriate Filipino workers; the second is that their return to the Philippines, even if it were to happen, would devastate the economy by swelling the ranks of the unemployed and by reducing to a trickle the dollar remittances that have been keeping the economy afloat.
The presumption is that there will be war in the Middle East, and that the Philippine government, despite the compelling, life and death demands of Philippine national interest, is supporting it.
The Arroyo government has tried to make much of its supposed determination not to send troops, which is another subterfuge because the United States has not asked for any. The war the U.S. intends to wage in Iraq will require a level of training, equipment and capability Philippine troops do not have. They are not equipped for battles, which might involve the use of chemical and biological weapons. They possess the most rudimentary communications equipment, and they are poorly trained.
The United States does not need such troops, which are likely to be liabilities more than assets. That the United States has not asked for Philippine troops, and is not likely to ever do so, the Arroyo government is trying to use to make it appear that it’s for peace—really.
What the Arroyo government is really for is war, for which, for starters, Mrs. Arroyo has been rewarded with an invitation to a state visit this April, during which George W. Bush is expected to dangle before her the usual rewards the Philippines has been promised for decades for its subservience to US interests.
There’s a name for the kind of policy making the Arroyo government is into—the kind which provides favors in exchange for material rewards. The exasperated may be forgiven for saying that it’s prostitution, but beyond that it is also brazenly unprincipled, and worse, totally unconcerned with the welfare and future of millions of Filipinos both abroad and at home.
(abs-cbnNEWS.com, February 12, 2003)