Soldier's Pen
By BGen. Alexander Cabales (Ret.)
Beefed-up Philippine Navy
vs. US presence
The Philippine Navy needs to be abolished! That was the gist of an article that I wrote
for the NewsRecord many issues ago. This
was because our navy cannot perform its basic mission of protecting our
external waters or the 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) from foreign
aggression.
It
is a known fact that the Philippine Navy at present is just mostly duplicating
the traditional job of another agency - the Philippine Coast Guard. Except for limited support to
counter-insurgency operations (which is also not its job), it simply implements
maritime laws and conducts patrols on our internal waters. This job is the mandate of the Philippine
Coast Guard which ably performs because it is better equipped, better trained
and better motivated. It is therefore
prudent for purposes of economy and practicality, that the navy should be
abolished.
Recommending
the dissolution of an important component of our military organization may seem
such a wise thing to do considering the economic constraints of our country at
present but it cannot be as simple as that.
No self-respecting country would admit that it has an incompetent
military and show it off by allowing the disbandment of any of its traditional
armed components no matter how inept and lame they may be. All
sovereign nations need to flex their muscles (or pretend to be doing so) and
show an air of strength sometimes in order to gain respect in the community of
nations. Even land-locked countries such
as Bolivia and small countries that have no maritime problems with its
neighbors such as Singapore have their own creditable navies. My recommendation for the abolition of the
Philippine Navy therefore was in the spirit of sarcasm to drive a point-that
our navy needs to be capacitated to perform its mandated mission and become
responsive to the security needs of our country. It was a suggestion that our navy does not
count at all as if it is non-existent.
The
need for a strong navy (and an air force, too) is made more evident with our
recent maritime problems with China, the latest of which was the Scarborough
(Panatag) Shoal stand-off. Our navy is
weak because for a long time, our national leaders have adopted an attitude of
military dependency on the US.
After the war, we were
contented with dole outs of military surplus equipment from them. Hence, our government never allocated a
decent budget for its military so that it can modernize and cope even with its
poorer Asian neighbors. Our leaders and
policy makers never foresaw any problems then.
They believed that the old military equipment from Uncle Sam was
sufficient at that time. US presence in
Philippine soil gave us the feeling of security. Our US tenant assured us of their protection
in case of aggression by another country.
China never dared to bully us until we threw the US out of the
Philippines in 1991-92. Then the
scenario changed.
Unlike
the Philippines, Japan only has an Internal Defense Force (IDF). Its constitution that was written after its
defeat in the Second World War, forbids it to have an "armed
force". Japan, as we all know is
China's traditional enemy. During the
last war, Japan perpetrated awesome atrocities on Chinese civilians. The Japanese raped and violated countless
Chinese women, murdered children, elderly people and women, and pillaged or
looted villages. In the famous
"Rape of Nanking" an estimated
370,
000 Chinese civilians were killed in a relatively short span of time.
In
1895, Japan annexed the Senkaku Islands (Diaoyu to the Chinese) during the
first Sino-Japanese War. Ownership of
this island group consisting of five uninhabited islets and three barren rocks
is still a very strong possible flash point between China and Japan up to the
present. Yet China still has to make any
aggressive action against the latter even if its claims on the Senkaku Islands
were clearer and appear more legitimate than their claim to Mischief Reef et al
of the Philippines. Why is it then that
it did not attempt to threaten Japan the way it did the Philippines?
The
answer to this is US presence in Japanese soil.
At present, there are approximately 90 U.S. military facilities
including major military bases throughout mainland Japan and Okinawa. There are also about 52,000 U.S. troops that
are stationed in these bases; 26,000 in mainland Japan and 25,000 in Okinawa.
While the Philippines demanded that the US pay rent for occupying Clark Air
Base and Subic Naval Base, the Japanese government was paying increasing
portions of US costs reaching to about $6 billion in 2001 alone as "host
nation support".
As
proud Asians, the Japanese and the Filipinos are alike in the sense that both
are not comfortable with US presence in their soil. We are similarly unhappy with a tenant who is
poking his nose into our national affairs and exerting a strong influence into
our policy making. This was the impression I got when I attended the 14th Asia
Pacific Security Seminar in Tokyo in November 2007. The Japanese policy makers are moving into
the direction of amending their constitution so that it can establish a
Department of Defense. It cannot remain
dependent on another country for national defense forever. However, until such time that does not happen
they know that they have to continue playing as a gracious host to the
Americans and even spend billions of dollars a year for their comfortable stay
in their country. Their national pride
may be at stake with this arrangement but they are prepared to swallow the
bitter pill for the sake of their national security.
In
this respect, they are smarter than the Filipinos. We unceremoniously threw the Americans out
without any provisions for our future defense.
We are even too naïve to still expect that Uncle Sam would rush to our
aid in times of crisis like Scarborough Shoal stand-off. How easy could we forget that we changed this
scenario of assured US protection when we threw them out of the Philippines in
1991 -92!NRWP
No comments:
Post a Comment