Ironclad faith

The return of “Miss Saigon” to Manila has been met with high anticipation, the original Kim having been Lea Salonga, whose discovery, following a multi-country search by Cameron MacKintosh, is now the stuff of legend.

But perhaps what’s most apparent about Miss Saigon’s 2024 outing is its message to a war-freak world. Aren’t we done with wars? Haven’t we seen what war can do to the human spirit?

The globally acclaimed musical’s storyline and powerful music by Schonberg and Boublil send a universal message to all: war is cruel and breaks families apart, inflicting wounds on humankind that never quite heal.

It’s simple enough to understand but mankind, it seems, will not learn. Remember that real-life scene where people in Kabul were seen running after a moving airplane in a rush to get out of a place that had earlier been bombed by the Taliban?

“A mad rush to the airport, stampede, panic and some deaths and injuries came as the result of this sudden takeover after the last of the US forces left Afghanistan,” I wrote in this space then.

That was in 2021, which recalled a scene in Miss Saigon, as the American soldiers were leaving Vietnam (necessitating a spectacular helicopter scene in this Australian production now in Manila).

I posed a question: Was it a victory for the Taliban or a retreat for the US similar to what happened in Vietnam over three decades ago?

“Days before, US Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had said in a CNN report, ‘President (Joe) Biden’s decisions have us hurtling toward an even worse sequel to the humiliating fall of Saigon in 1975,’” I added in that same piece.

So here we are: After the scars of long-ago wars and the ones we know of in our lifetime, we find ourselves seeing more breakouts — Ukraine, Russia, Israel, Gaza — creeping closer, ever nearer our shores.

President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. went on a working visit to the United States for a trilateral meeting with US President Joe Biden and Japan Prime Minister Kishida Fumio.

Many believed it was mainly about the increasing aggression of China in the disputed maritime territories, but possible economic support for Philippine development was also seen as an important goal of the official visit.

Whatever comes out of it all, we may only rely on that mutual treaty the US and the Philippines have had for more than 70 years. “Ironclad” it is, we are assured.

“The United States’ defense commitments to Japan and to the Philippines are ironclad. They’re ironclad,” Biden said in reports. “As I said before, any attack on Philippine aircraft, vessels or armed forces in the South China Sea would invoke our mutual defense treaty.”

Let’s keep the faith.

“Whatever comes out of it all, we may only rely on that mutual treaty the US and the Philippines have had for more than 70 years.

“I posed a question: Was it a victory for the Taliban or a retreat for the US similar to what happened in Vietnam over three decades ago?