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Thailand’s southern provinces, where Muslims form
the majority of the population, have turned out to be as troubled
with insurgency as the Philippines’ Muslim-majority provinces.
Last Friday Prime Minister
Surayud, a former general, who was installed as by the military
junta that took control and overthrew the government of former PM
Thaksin last year, told the press that his government had refused a
US offer to provide military assistance in quelling the Muslim
insurgents. He refused the offered assistance, telling the US
representatives that the problems in the Thai south, where Muslim
terrorists have been beheading Buddhist Thais, is an internal matter
for the Thai government to resolve on its own.
The Philippine government and
military are receiving US military assistance and training from the
USA—not just for the Philippine south but for the whole AFP. The
grandfather on the American side of the AFP is after all the US War
Department.
Nothing less than heaven sent is
American assistance in the current turmoil caused by the outbreak of
hostilities in Sulu province between the AFP and the band of Moro
National Liberation Front guerrillas under Ustadz Habier Malik.
Malik is no mere insurgent
military commander. He is also an Islamic scholar and spiritual
leader. He is the same Malik who kept an AFP general and a Cabinet
undersecretary hostage three weeks or so ago.
About 50,000 persons have been
driven out of their homes in Sulu by MNLF and AFP bullets. American
aid has kept the war refugees’ bodies and souls together.
Last Friday, the US Government
gave US$75,000 to the Save the Children Federation (SCF) to provide
immediate relief assistance to families in Sulu affected by this new
surge of AFP-MNLF fighting.
Very loyally (to its government
ally), the US Embassy had referred to the hostilities as “attacks
on the Armed Forces of the Philippines by unlawful elements.”
Aid for the displaced persons
from the United States include temporary shelter materials, water
containers, cooking utensils and hygiene kits. These are distributed
to the refugees through the Mindanao Emergency Response Network (MERN)
made up of local NGOs and community-based groups organized by SCF.
The US Embassy statement praises
“the people of Sulu Province, provincial and local government
authorities, the AFP, NGO’s and other donors working in that
region” for being “strong and reliable partners as we have
worked together on projects to create livelihood opportunities,
increase access to health care, improve education and build key
infrastructure.”
The work of containing violence
and promoting peace in the Philippine south is not an “internal
matter.”
The US Embassy statement about
the aid to the people of Sulu is a virtual love letter to the Arroyo
administration. “We share a common goal, which is to foster peace
and security in Sulu as well as elsewhere in Mindanao and throughout
the Philippines, in order to unleash the creative and productive
energies of the people and create brighter prospects now, and for
future generations. We are dismayed, but not discouraged, by the
recent outbreak of fighting started by rogue elements opposed to
progress. The people of Sulu Province know that we stand by them
now, as we have in the past, in our mutual efforts to bring peace
and prosperity to their beautiful islands.”
There is something deeper in
Philippine-American relations than in Thai-American relations. The
past colonial relationship, despite its cruel moments, left
something enduring in the Filipino psyche that is like that
described by Professor Higgins in his reflective song “I’ve
grown accustomed to her face.”
There are also enough
Filipino-Americans to make Philippine-American relations much more
than just mutually advantageous diplomatic engagement. The large
population of Filipino-Americans—Filipinos who have acquired US
citizenship and their children as well as children of the increasing
number of Americans who have married Filipinos—will most likely
work to give substance to that idea that there is a special
relationship between the two countries. The healthiness in that
relationship will give the lie to the anti-American view that “the
so-called special relationship” is but a means for the US
government to continue using the Philippines in the exact same way
it has since President and General Emilio Aguinaldo wrote his
message to the people about “the Great North American Republic.”
The memory of such heroes as
Julia Campbell, whose affection for the Filipinos and this country
cost her her life, will also help nurture that special relationship.
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