EDITORIAL - Safeguard our independence
Today the Philippines celebrates 124 years of independence. Year after year, columnists, writers, teachers, and philosophers of all stripes pose the same question: Are we really independent?
When you consider who leads the Philippines, we can say yes. We are not under any foreign power, and we are free chart our own course when it comes to our laws and our relations with foreign neighbors.
Our choices may be limited in some regards, but it’s still the Filipinos who are making the decisions and running the country, for better or for worse. So yes, by the very definition of the word, we are independent.
But if we are not careful we might yet lose this independence. These days there are other ways for one country to dominate another, or to assume such a position where it is able to dictate terms to such an extent that they are able to control that country.
In the days of old such domination was achieved only by warfare and occupation; one country needed to physically invade and stay another in order to rule it. But these days, with banking, globalization, and the internet, the use of old-style weapons and violence are no longer necessary at all --although it should be mentioned that this is still happening in some parts of the world.
Today, all that one nation needs to do to bend another to its will is to make it financially indebted to it to the point that it can no longer be able to pay off what it owes. The creditor country can then be free to make whatever demands it wants of the debtor country, including installing leaders it can control and sway as well as dictating some policies.
If we stay on a certain course or go in a certain direction we may soon be under the financial and economic thrall of one such nation, which is actually doing a good job of making economic thralls of other nations.
Yes, the independence is there. But if we are not careful we might soon lose that independence. And because there will be no weapons and violence involved, this can happen even without our knowing it.
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