Glitch in the matrix

By: Cong Corrales

WHILE many of the countries, the United States included, liberated themselves from their colonizers through a revolution, our independence came by virtue of a law enacted by another sovereign nation.
If that’s not f***ed up, then I don’t know what is.
Our struggle for genuine independence has been hijacked time and again. The Katipuneros had Intramuros on the verge of surrender when the “liberating” Americans came and bombarded their way into our history as a nation.
In 1933, the United States Congress passed the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Act. It was to be the first law which set a specific date for our supposed independence. It was not even because the Americans thought we ought to be independent. It was because the Great Depression was pummeling their economy and American farmers felt insecure competing with Filipino sugar and coconut oils (remember we had the encomienda system which is basically vast tract of lands turned into plantations).
This Act, however, needed concurrence by the Philippine Senate and former President Manuel Quezon had campaigned against the Act because it had provisions that allowed the indefinite retention of US military bases in the country.
To please Quezon, the American Senate whipped up a substantially similar law and incorporated double talk and voila: the Tydings-McDuffie Act of 1934. As we have seen, American military bases still existed even with the “reworded” Hare-Hawes-Cutting Act.
The American Senate then worded this basically the same law so good that the Philippine Senate ratified it that very same year and resulted in the 1935 Philippine Constitution, the establishment of the Commonwealth and finally the date of our supposed independence–July 4, 1946.
Right from the start, our so-called republic has been doomed to be subservient to this other nation that “liberated” and gave us our “independence.” In short, the independence the Americans supposedly gave us was on their terms and for their benefit.
In his article on the country’s economic decline since Marcos, Sonny Africa wrote for Ibon Facts and Figures: “Unlike so many countries in Asia, Latin America, and Africa whose post-World War Two post-colonial governments were bold enough to implement nationalist and even socialist policies, post-1946 Philippines remained a political and economic neo-colony of the United States imperialism.”
The American businessmen at that time made sure those economic deals (i.e. treaties) will give them the same economic rights (i.e. parity) as the Filipinos.
It is ironic to point out that the very law which supposedly made us an independent country is the very same law which has continually tethered us to the US and its interests. That, to me, is where the glitch is.
I agree with President R2D2’s present “patriotic” posturing. I agree that it is high time for the Philippines to have a truly independent foreign policy.
However, I leave you with this thought, R2D2 juijitsued his way into this “patriotic” position because the international community is taking stock of his carnage under the pretext of war on drugs and the world doesn’t take kindly to murderous despots–so does, history by the way.
So, until next week, chew on that for a while.