US$1.8B AFP Modernization Vs. China’s US$115B Defense Budget for 2013 Alone

The President’s pronouncement that we are allotting US$1.8B or P75B for the modernization of the AFP, for sure, neither concerns China nor impels it to rethink its foreign policies, especially on matters relating to territorial claims, with the Philippines. In fact, in March this year China has already announced that it was setting aside $115B for its defense spending for 2013 alone.

That highlights a disparity that gives the Chinese sophisticated additions to its already humungous military capability, and the Philippines, another attempt at nursing ageing would-have-been-decommissioned vessels out of infirmaries from either US or Japan to sail its way to the Philippine shores.

For certain, many segments of Filipino society, would have goofed on this, and the papers’ editorial cartoonists would have had a field day on the subject. But let us pause for a second, and contemplate at what value the news has for us, the Filipino.

I believe we should start digesting these developments with the heart and mind of our fallen heroes. They fought rifles and varied artilleries with bolos and machetes, outnumbered and all. All in the name of freedom.  All in the pride of the Filipino nation, the Filipino race.

On the one hand, China should never underestimate the resolve of the Filipino people. On the other hand, we should stop behaving like we have the US ready to send their beloved countrymen in harm’s way for us at the slightest of provocations, or even when push comes to shove.

It’s all about interest!

Make no mistake, the US has already made clear its neutral stance on the issue of territorial dispute with China. Sure, US wants to keep China in check – second largest economy with checkered human rights past and present, and of communist ideology.

However, with its (US) trade with latter at hundreds of billions of dollars, with the former at the deficit, coupled with the strange fact that China now stands as the largest lender to the US –gobbling American treasury notes of over a trillion dollars and counting– we are, sad to say (reality bites) just a convenient “democracy” rhetoric trumpet for the US, but their guns aren’t blazing to keep us in one piece.

We have to inch our way forward to credible military capability. We have to learn to fend for ourselves. No more Uncle Sam mentality.

Let’s teach ourselves and our children real, not feigned, patriotism –like what we have in school right now. Let us learn, and teach our children, real combat discipline. Reinstate Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) with emphasis on the need to prepare to defend our sovereignty, not against the NPAs, the MILFs, the ASGs, but credibly imminent, the Chinese.

Grow the military in number, arm them, and pay them decent living. Legislate death penalty for military corruption, as it is tantamount to treason.

I have two lovely daughters, and I know that I have to tell them to brace themselves for one day we might have to fight the Chinese, the Malaysians, or anyone who dare trample upon our dignity as a nation, and by ourselves.

Filipino-Chinese are Filipinos who use the term to identify their ethnic root. They are as Filipino as each one of us, until they say and act otherwise, just as any Filipino can be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

We are Filipino in every sense of the word. We must stand together when Philippine sovereignty is being threatened.