How to decode Digong’s diversion?

CAN Rodrigo Duterte genuinely call for separation of Mindanao without being a political tool of America?

To begin with, such a call was originally America’s. Recall the tour of duty of Kristie Kenney, United States ambassador to the Philippines from 2006 up to 2012. She spent much of her time visiting Mindanao, seeing to its development, particularly the construction of airports whose quality, as observed by experts, could rival those of Clark Airbase. The question was raised: Why build airports meant for use not by ordinary passenger planes but by a high-end military air force?

Certainly, it was a puzzle for the ordinary observer that if Metro Manila, the acknowledged lead metropolis of the Philippines, suffices with average-quality airports, why would an underdeveloped region build airports approximating the strength of a worldclass military airfield? It seems evident that amenities of such airfields were in the making, and if so, why?

For want of hard and fast evidence, one ended up merely conjecturing. Back in 1991, for all of the unabashed lobbying by the very president of the Republic of the Philippines, Corazon Aquino, the Senate, by a vote of 12 to 11, killed the resolution which would have extended by another 10 years the lifetime of the Military Bases Agreement between the US and the Philippines covering the US military bases in the country such as Clark Airbase, Subic Naval Base, Sangley Point, Camp John Hay, Poro Point, etc.

The eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, which buried Clark and Subic in lahar, hastened the ultimate demise of the two largest US military installations in the country together with the rest of the American bases already rendered dead by the dozen senators who had gone down in history as the Magnificent 12 — Senators Agapito “Butch” Aquino, Jovito Salonga, Orly Mercado, Ernesto Maceda, Sotero Laurel 3rd, Joseph Estrada, Wigberto Tañada, Teofisto Guingona, Aquilino Pimentel Jr., Victor Ziga and the recent octogenarian celebrator Juan Ponce Enrile. The resounding rejection by the Magnificent 12 of the American military bases certainly left behind a legacy of fierce, fighting nationalism for subsequent senators never to tarnish for all eternity.

So, no matter that, as an imperative of its world hegemonic designs, the US must rebuild its military bases in the Philippines, the Senate will ever be there to frustrate the effort. A way needed to be devised by which to overcome the obstacle put up by the Senate. What turned out to be the way? Military matters — nay imperialistic schemes — being that highly delicate, extremely cunning and exquisitely sensitive, one would be hard put connecting the dots of the preceding enumerated events. How relate for instance the predilection of Kenney to visit Mindanao every so often so that in due time she was made an adopted daughter of Zamboanga?

For all the otherwise fragile feminine creature that she was, she braved the perilous treks through rain forests in order to seek out Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) top commander Murad Ibrahim in his mountain lair and talk him into entering peace negotiations with the government. And suddenly, we stumble upon the one single element to which all the dots converged: the establishment of separate, independent Mindanao.

Murad had agreed to the Kenney importuning for MILF peace talks with the government, and with the presidential adviser on the peace process, Teresita Quintos-Deles, who headed the government panel that concluded the Memorandum Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MoA-AD), providing for an independent Muslim Mindanao, having its own executive, judiciary and legislature, with the Philippine Republic entitled to just 25-percent share of the region’s natural resources.

The MoA-AD was ready for signing when Cotabato and Zamboanga, which were made part of the Mindanao to be separated from the Philippines, petitioned the Supreme Court against its implementation. Without waiting for the Supreme Court to rule on the petition, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered the government panel in the peace talks not to sign.

And that was how the otherwise effective Kenney method ended in failure.

Meantime, China began asserting its historic rights over nearly the entire South China Sea as covered by its ninedash line. The outgoing intelligence chief of the US Pacific Fleet reported that China had built forward military bases on reclaimed reefs in the region. In a subsequent meeting of the US war department, the issue was taken up and a decision was reached to adopt comprehensive measures to plug holes in the US defense system in the Asia-Pacific region.

A rehabilitation of the lost American bases in the Philippines was proposed, the nitty-gritty of which being subject for further study. Shortly after came a decision by the Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino 3rd government to engage the MILF in one more round of peace negotiations. Appointed head of the government panel was a University of the Philippines professor, Mario Victor Leonen. A check with an informant based in the US revealed a CIA (Central Intelligence Agency)-connect of the guy.

What is a significant impact of this development was that it resulted in the creation of the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE) mandated to form the Bangsamoro Region of Muslim Mindanao, nearly identical with MoA-AD, at any rate, an independent Mindanao but for one kink. It had to pass the scrutiny of the Senate Committee on Local Government. Headed by then-senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., the committee did a thorough watering down of the BJE so that instead of an independent Mindanao, what came into being was not the agreed BJE but the Senate-crafted Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao — true, vested with autonomy but not independence, still subject to the constitution and laws of the Republic of the Philippines.

As far, therefore, as reestablishing even in Mindanao the US bases lost in 1991, it still had to pass the highly inimical Philippine Senate.

On both occasions of its attempt to separate Mindanao from the Philippine Republic for serving its interest, the US had miserably failed.

Now that Duterte, together with his subalterns, is making so much noise with his call to dismember the Philippines of Mindanao, the discerning cannot help but conjecture whether it is one more effort of America to revive what it had failed to accomplish in the first two attempts. This must appear unlikely. Based on latent pro-China actuations and policies during his six years at the

presidency, Duterte could not seem to be favoring China’s avowed antagonist both in world politics and economy.

But then again, Duterte is a proven prevaricator and indulger in two-faced showmanship. His anti-American charades during his term must give way to the hard reality of his current impending arrest by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes committed in his infamous war against illegal drugs. The ICC is an entity subservient to American wishes. In the objective condition of geopolitics, the separation of Mindanao

— again, originally an American dream — can be an effective bargaining chip both for Duterte’s salvation and his return to political power.

Whence could proceed unperturbed by the full rehabilitation of America’s military bases in the Philippines.