Filipinos defeated the world’s greatest navy (Spain) and army (US)

With Donald J. Trump as president, the United States is back to its old game of being an imperial power.

The dictionary defines imperialism as “the policy or act of extending a country’s power into other territories or gaining control over another country’s politics or economics.”

America is an imperialist power. It will court, cajole, coerce, intimidate and even invade other nations to get what it wants. The Panama Canal from Panama, the Gulf of Mexico from Mexico, Greenland from Denmark, Canada from the Canadians. These are among the few of Trump’s current obsessions in pursuit of his, and America’s, imperialist instincts.

With Trump in America and Xi Jinping in China, expect intensifying trade wars and territorial battles in the coming years.

China wants to get Taiwan (its province) and nearly the entire South China Sea (with 3.5 million sq kms of area), including all its islands, isles, reefs and rocks. Recently, the Chinese navy entered Philippine territory, a strategic possession.

Amid the din and horrific consequences of imperialist rivalries, what is a nation like the Philippines supposed to do? Self-reliance and nationalism.

Twice in the past, the Philippines proved its resilience towards imperialism – in 1521 (Battle of Mactan) and in 1901 (Battle of Balangiga).

In Mactan on April 27, 1521, the natives, numbering 1,000 and led by their fat and aging chief Lapulapu, trounced an invading fully armed force of 220 led by Ferdinand Magellan, using only spears, bows and arrows. Magellan’s body was never found (it was cut to pieces). Magellan’s Cross was never found (it was burned).

In the 16th century, Spain was the world’s naval power, one of the world’s oldest navies. The Spaniards, the conquistadores, defeated mighty empires like Aztec and Inca. So Lapulapu’s victory in Mactan 503 years ago is the equivalent today of Filipinos defeating the US Seventh Fleet.

The first major loss of the US Army overseas was in the town of Balangiga on Samar Island on Sept. 28, 1901.

The battle was planned by Captain Eugenio Daza, area commander of Captain General Vicente Lukbán’s forces in southeastern Samar. The attack was led by Valeriano Abanador, Balangiga police chief.

Of the 74 men of the US Army’s Company C, 36 were killed in action, including all its commissioned officers: Captain Thomas W. Connell, First Lieutenant Edward A. Bumpus and Major Richard S. Griswold. Twenty-two Americans were wounded in action and four were missing in action. Eight died later of wounds received in combat; only four escaped unscathed. The Filipinos captured 100 rifles and 25,000 rounds of ammunition and suffered 28 dead and 22 wounded. Dressed as women, the Filipino army used nothing more than bolos.

The encounter is described as the “worst defeat of United States Army since George Armstrong Custer’s last stand in the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876” and its worst defeat before Vietnam in 1975.

Embarrassed worldwide, US president Theodore Roosevelt ordered Major General Adna R. Chaffee, military governor of the Philippines, to pacify Samar. Chaffee appointed BGen. Jacob H. Smith to do the task.

Smith declared, “I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn; the more you kill and burn, the better it will please me ... The interior of Samar must be made a howling wilderness ... Kill anyone over 10 years of age.”

Samar was a major center for Manila hemp production, which was financing Philippine forces on the island. At the same time, US interests were eager to secure control of the hemp trade, which was vital for the US Navy and American agro-industries such as cotton.

Mactan and Balangiga proved that Filipinos can defeat a superior enemy, despite the latter’s advantages, in number of soldiers, modern weaponry, global network.

Max Boot of the Washington Post writes about Trump’s idol, William McKinley, the 25th US president:

“Trump’s affinity for McKinley would appear to run deeper than mere tariffs. McKinley is remembered, after all, primarily for his promotion of US imperialism: He fought a ‘splendid little war’ against Spain and subsequently turned the Philippines into a US colony, took possession of Guam and Puerto Rico, annexed Hawaii and made Cuba into a protectorate. Trump seems eager to inaugurate a new era of territorial expansion and high tariffs, à la McKinley. A glance back at the 1890s suggests why these are both really bad ideas to resurrect:

“Even McKinley came to see the limits of tariffs: as president, he embraced the benefits of ‘reciprocity’ (lowering US tariffs in return for tariff reductions in other countries), and, in the last speech he gave, in 1901, he warned that economic ‘isolation is no longer possible or desirable.’ In later years, US policymakers would abandon his high-tariff policies and promote free trade.

“McKinley’s embrace of American imperialism proved fleeting, for very good reason… By foolishly annexing the Philippines in 1899, McKinley embroiled America in another conflict that cost the lives of more than 4,200 US soldiers and 20,000 Filipino combatants. More than 200,000 Filipino civilians also died from violence, famine and disease, and US soldiers committed war crimes that shamed the nation.

“The United States eventually won the conflict but secured no real strategic or economic advantage; the US bases in the Philippines were easily overrun by the Japanese in 1942.

“Little wonder that, in future years, US leaders eschewed colonialism and embraced Woodrow Wilson’s policy of national self-determination. By the same token, US leaders focused on lowering, not raising, trade barriers. Now Trump seems determined to turn back the clock in ways that can only encourage other countries to erect their own tariffs and to undertake their own territorial expansions – as China would like to do in Taiwan and as Russia is already doing in Ukraine.”

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