I heartily resist being put in closets or boxes or buckets or any container built, carried, borrowed, stolen or otherwise used by other people. I suppose it is a function of claustrophobia, mine occasioned by the US Army forcing me to squeeze through some dark and stinky barrels deep under ground under some misguided thought that this was training me rather than turning me into a blithering psycho, but that is a story for a different telling. Short form out-take: I hate being told how to see things. I want to wander around and check things out from all angles.
With regard to the VFA, I rather see people as falling into several buckets. So you and I don't have to view it from within any bucket ourselves, I suggest we take a seat and view the matter from a better, more removed perspective. As the VFA pertains to two countries on opposite sides of the planet, I'd suggest we relax up on the moon and peer down to see what we can see.
First of all, we would observe that the US and Philippines are still in bed after all these years. The US raped the Philippines in 1898 and 1899, tied it to the bed post for half a century, then set it loose with chains about the ankles and a tattoo of Uncle Sam on its butt. Now, like a well beaten wife holding desperately to some warped sense that “he loves me”, the Philippines keeps going back for more abuse.
At some point, an outside observer would say, yes, the husband is a jerk, but he is not the only player here. The needy abused wife who keeps going back for more is responsible for what happens to her.
Hold on to that line of thought for a moment.
Our moonshot also lets us see that the VFA is really a very small document. It does not say anything about the SUBSTANCE of what the US and Philippines do together. There is no recitation of numbers of troops, or how many Filipinos get accepted into West Point, or who pays how much to whom, or whether or not the US can base drone aircraft in the Philippines. The VFA just gives the US assurance that, okay, you are sending your people to the Philippines, where some will risk their lives in dangerous territory; they don't need visas and the Philippines will give soldiers the right to US detention (so that they don't get strung up by a mob of Filipinos if a wayward soldier should happen to rape a Filipina). Now, after having acted largely like a rape mob over Nicole, the Philippines wants to make sure it can get its hands on the culprit, whether guilty or innocent, in the future.
So our rape victim, deep down psychologically, way after the fact, wants to cut the wanker off the rapist.
The US, on the other hand, having seen the Philippine justice system at work, is likely to say “no way will your judicial wimps, bending to the will of the rioting mobs, lay their hands on our soldiers”.
From our moon seats, we can see that what actually occurred between Nicole and her date was that two smallish and irresponsible people got drunk together and did irresponsible things, and it is not worth a second of our thinking time.
How did it get so blown out of proportion?
Well, we can see the buckets down there on earth. In one are those star-struck Filipinos who relate to Nicole as a sister of Kris Aquino, who,after all, is a part of their extended TV family, so they are outraged that a pious sister of theirs was abused by a dirty-minded criminal American, an aspiring slave-owner if ever there were one. In another bucket is a bunch of American drill sergeants who have themselves been out in the bars of Subic and Angeles City and dinged a Filipina or two, willingly or not, and figure their comrade in camouflage has been railroaded by a whore and other lying, untrustworthy Filipinos. In a third bucket is a batch of media owners who figure they can get their circulation and profits up by milking this juicy contrived story for about three years. In a fourth bucket are people standing around in a daze saying, holy guano, Batman, this thing certainly is not the most important thing going on in the Philippines, given that Typhoon Ondoy is sure to ram its way down typhoon alley soon and Typhoon Corruption is raping EVERYBODY every day.
Okay, okay, okay. I see that I have gotten worked up and risen from my moon rock. I shall sit back down now. Whew. Relax, Joe. Have a San Mig . . .
Another perspective our outer-word vision gives us is insight into contract law. Now few contracts have exactly the same terms for both sides because contracts usually are an instrument that documents the exchange of different values that are judged equal. I'll sell you this house if you give me P 3 million. I'll build this expressway and run it through the Villar plantation if you pay me P200 billion. I'll be your call center if you pay costs plus 25%, and we will speak only English.
What does the VFA exchange? It provides the administrative foundation that allows the US to provide its soldiers to the Philippines to fight a mutual scourge, terrorists, and also have a legal framework in place in case, oh, China invades the Spratleys and the US has to come balance things out. Lacking that, the US has no legal basis for helping defend the Philippines and could only come immediately as an illegal “occupying force”. At least that's how those who disagreed with a US presence would phrase it. What does the US get? Well, it doesn't have to go through all the red tape of visas or turn its troops over to a mob if they behave badly. And it can easily defend its strategic western outpost in Asia, the Philippines.
Looking past the administrative document, let us simplify our negotiation on the terms of the VFA. Let's assume both sides have come to terms on all points except two. The Philippines wants wayward US soldiers held in Philippine jails pending trial. The US wants to stop giving three Philippine military cadets valuable and costly slots at West Point Military Academy.
As the lead negotiator for the Philippines, what do you do? Do you give up the right to train three of your best military people at the best military school in the world so that a suspected rapist can be housed in a Philippine jail instead of at the Embassy?
You tell me.
My own belief is that we live in a world of distortion, and the media circus is affecting the reasonability of negotiations. The matter has gotten outside the scope of the real exchange of values and into the reality show world of slant and slander. It will be difficult to put a contract together that changes the real underlying values just so people in the Philippines can feel vindicated about a war fought over a century ago. It is hard to negotiate a contract on ABS-CBN.
My guess is you can kiss the VFA goodbye. Not because the Philippines wants it to go away, but because the US will not sacrifice its value-principles for the sake of Philippine media play or legislative grandstanding. The wisest move would be for the Philippines to take the matter off the public table and into the arena of secrecy for the security of the country. Then negotiate for value received.
A stupid American soldier, Nicole and media distortions should not decide how two countries relate, considering both countries want essentially the same thing.
Okay, back to our earthly ways for now . . .
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