By Michael Henry Yusingco, LL.M
People everywhere have realized that the current ideology ruling the White House, Make America Great Again or MAGA to its adherents, has dislodged the United States as the superpower that balances the world order. American military strength, in particular, is now measured and supplied in terms of dollars. Mutual benefit, shared prosperity, and global peace are all considerations of the past. A piece of the proverbial pie will now demand a steep price. Those who cannot pay the bill will have to settle for crumbs.
Of course, the Marcos administration will not paint the current situation as bleak. The reality is our alliance with the US will remain no matter what. Our ties with the Americans have deep roots. But Malacañang also concedes that reliance on the US for our national defense can no longer be the norm. As per the ambassador to the US, “It (Alliance) can be ironclad today, and it can be something else tomorrow.” So, in truth, the commitment from the Americans, that we conventionally depend on, is no longer ironclad.
National defense will always be of utmost concern. Only a fool will think that the threats to our sovereignty and social cohesion are not real. Obviously, we have an archipelago to protect. We must secure our maritime patrimony for ourselves and for future generations. While there is no disagreement that boosting our defense capability is absolutely necessary, there is no coherence in how to achieved this. Our political leaders, as usual, see this as just an opportunity to prop up their “patriotism”.
Lawmakers love to assert that they will defend our sovereignty against foreign intrusion to the death. This spiel gets them airtime and FB likes, but they will, without any hesitation, also reduce the budget allocation for the AFP Modernization Program so that their pork barrel requirements can be funded. We simply cannot allow them to use the initiative of establishing a self-reliant defense posture as a mere buzzword. Given the transactionalist policy of the US, our lawmakers must now prove that they are indeed patriots.
Every Senator and Member of the House of Representatives must vow that they will refrain from reducing the allocation for the AFP Modernization Program in the national budget. The connivance to decrease this item in the General Appropriations Act of 2025 cannot be repeated. Pork barrel appropriations must never be prioritized over national defense. Lawmakers’ dynastic urges must be contained if we want to establish a self-reliant defense posture.
In fact, civil society should be confronting all candidates for the Senate and the House about making this vow. Candidates who cannot make this commitment should be automatically rejected. Needless to say, media should make sure that those savvy candidates do not weasel their way out of making this pledge. Moreover, journalists must relentlessly challenge frontrunners about explicitly and unequivocally articulating such a guarantee. And extreme force and effort should be employed against dynastic politicians.
But citizens too are called upon to support the AFP Modernization Program. The reality is, taxpayers will carry the brunt of funding this massive initiative. The institutionalization of a self-reliant defense posture policy will involve the annual utilization of a huge chunk of the national budget for defense. Unfortunately, the specter of corruption in the AFP naturally engenders fear that the funds dedicated for national security will be compromised. So, civil society will have to be more vigilant than ever in this regard.
According to an Ateneo Policy Center working paper entitled, “Toward Increased and Stable Investments in National Security in the Philippines”: “The departure of the American forces revealed the Philippines’ poor external defense capability. This was underscored when the Chinese took over the Philippine-occupied Mischief Reef in 1995, which compelled President Fidel Ramos to push for the Republic Act 7898 or the AFP Modernization Act.”
When we kicked the Americans out, we learned almost immediately how vulnerable we are to foreign aggression. A bitter lesson we are still paying for today, but should learn from nonetheless. The commitment of the US to come to our defense is no longer ironclad. It does not mean that we break our alliance with them. This is utterly unthinkable. But it tells us that a self-reliant defense posture must be the top most priority. And first and foremost, this objective must be drilled into the minds of our lawmakers.
