Guest post by Louie Balderrama
Americans captured the hearts of the Filipinos the same way we give in to those infomercial ads as if we volunteered to be scammed: with an overwhelming facade hiding that witty hidden agenda. Sure, you can go ahead and believe that they’ve come to us for our benefit like some kind of “Jesus Christ”-esque martyrdom, but that $20 Million they paid to have the Spaniards hand us over isn’t quite worth giving up for someone else’s favor, is it?
Uncle Sam: Like Jesus, only with a gun in his back
How can you not pick on us Filipinos? We were so perfect, we reeked the scent of a dedicated prey. Think about it: we were just recovering from the scars the Spanish has inflicted on us, we were pretty much new to our established independence – it would almost seem that we were “asking for it”. In the state the Philippines was in, we’d believe anything. There wouldn’t be any reason our country would reject any sort of “assistance”. And that’s where America steps in.
It started out amusing, like a circus crashing into town – you’re bound to have attention. Those Americans blessed us with a dazzling lifestyle, a splendid array of products, and technology that had us crave what it’s like outside the recovering Philippines. In a snap, they’ve settled themselves here, blinding us with their appealing influence as though we were the ones who were the tourists in their homes. But most of all, they’ve outsourced their industries here: opening a new market of consumers and shedding light to opportunities.
It was like a paid vacation and some guy back home had to do all the work…
They even outsmarted the British investors in the country by controlling the trade itself. Certain policies were established to prioritize the Americans alone in conducting businesses in the Philippine jurisdiction. Having the country’s government in their very hands, they clearly had the upper hand and the unfair advantage. But who’s to blame the Filipinos for affirmatively permitting such occurrence? Well, for one, the Philippines never before had witnessed an economy that progressive – with money circulating too fast and overwhelmingly for one to pause and realize that, “Maybe this will entail a bad outcome.”
Another good reason would of course be the booming dollar reserves steadily inclining within the country. It’s good reason enough to surpass the fact that while there is active buying and selling taking place, it doesn’t really attribute to the Philippines per se, it all gets chugged by the United States after all. What all these are doing is actually keeping Juan De La Cruz from putting down his Americanized ways and actually do something original – like building his OWN industrial empire and not strengthen theirs. But everyone’s too busy and distracted over their McDonald’s and Nike’s and whatnot to even put a thought that America had successfully killed all hopes of a self-sufficient, industrialized Philippines. No one saw it coming that those tall, “white brothers” they’ve so called were here for our resources and for prospecting a global market. We just couldn’t help ourselves to stop binging on American merch and think for a sec that we can outdo them – they simply gave us everything so we didn’t have to make it ourselves.
America was a bad mother and the Philippines fed on anything she gave her
That’s how America rebuilt the Philippines – they’ve shaped us into little, brown Americans who fattened up over American food to outgrow the need to provide for ourselves. And it had just gotten worse throughout the next following years. Around 1946, during the first year of Manuel Roxas as president, the administration signed the bill for the Bell Trade Act – one of the worst economic mistakes the Philippines gladly approved among others. It gave America the complete freedom to send in goods in the country without any trouble whatsoever for a whopping eight years – that’s enough time for them to land the final blow on our industries, killing them completely. Disastrously, the Philippines, in turn, had a quota on our exports. We didn’t even have much exportation to begin with, and here they are branding us with a limit. Were we deep into Americans too much, or what?
To top it all off, Roxas sanctioned the Parity Rights – a provision under the aforementioned law that gave American businessmen as much rights as Filipinos in conducting business in the country. This encompassed all industries directed and operated by Americans: those that include even energy and telecommunications. What other way could we have allowed ourselves and our very own resources to get exploited by our supposed “visitors”?
The Americans had us nailed to their backs, even establishing naval and marine bases in our own land. The Mutual Defense Treaty also eventually got instituted, an agreement that obliged the Philippines to partner with the United States when a war involving America breaks out (and vice versa, when the Philippines gets involved in a war). Again, this gave America an advantage – another ally in its arsenal. As for us, it’s pretty much an obligation we signed to serve. It’s not like the Philippines would ever start it’s own war…
Cock wars don’t count
We might have our modernized (read: Western) lifestyle and ethics. We may have our technology to keep up with the world as well. We may also have our education to be worldly competitive. But does that outweigh all hopes of having an independent economy that have its own industries and jobs to keep us safe, sound and satisfied in our home country? It doesn’t come even close…
Putok 