Between a scheming China and an arrogant America
We don’t exactly love the USA anymore this time, for many reasons, both obvious and covert, but China is definitely and conclusively worse than the US. If the two are lovers to the Philippines, at least we have had some happy past with Americans, despite all their arrogant pomposity. But these Chinese are notorious for their many evil concoctions and devilish designs.
We are in full support of our president in almost all his strategic moves and draconian initiatives. But we take exception to his choice of China, whose schemes and machinations are causing us more harm than good, over the USA which we don’t really love anymore, because of its interventionist impositions, its patronizing and condescending attitude on us, and its excessive dosage of arrogance. The USA of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and John F. Kennedy, is no longer the USA of Donald Trump. The USA of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln has been desecrated by George Bush and this Trump.
Be that as it may, the Filipinos and the Americas have had many happy memories together. The US started to rule us after that mockery of a battle in Manila Bay between Admiral Montojo of Spain and Admiral Dewey of the US Navy. They staged a disguised pre-arranged simulated battle, where after a few cannon shots, Spain was to surrender to the US in consideration of a measly twenty million dollars paid by the Americans to the Spaniards in the Treaty of Paris. What is good with the US is that they sent the Thomasites, hundreds of teachers to teach our illiterates the three R's and taught us that “A” means the American apple, not ampalaya.
The Americans gave us our national bird, which was the maya, the most moronic of all the birds, our national house, which is bahay kubo, defining our destiny to live in nipa huts forever, and our national flower which is sampaguita. These national symbols are all small to program our minds to think small and to remain small in our perspectives and paradigms. The Americans loved Carlos P. Romulo, a small man with big brains, whom they allowed to sign the UN Charter in San Francisco (even before we were “granted” our independence). The small guy who almost drowned in Palo, Leyte, by following General MacArthur and President Osmeña as they landed there to formalize the “liberation” of the Philippines.
The Americans really wanted us to think small but President Marcos, who was only a foot taller than Romulo, changed the national bird from maya to the Philippine eagle. Marcos also shortened the 99-year Laurel-Langley Agreement to only 50 years. That is why the US hated Marcos, used Dovie Beams to destroy his marital peace, and ousted him by airlifting him to Hawaii, instead of Paoay. With all these grievances against the US, I still prefer the American apple to the Chinese siopao (with bats). These Chinese are suspected to be allegedly bringing coronavirus, POGO gambling, prostitution, and even drugs. The Chinese are robbing us of our territories in the West Philippine Sea. The Americans helped us liberate ourselves from the Japanese.
And so, as between two lovers, one whom we have had long years of cooperation, even if one-sided and exploitative, and the other who has not given us a single reason to trust, I would rather remain in the frying pan than jump into a treacherous fire.
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