We gonna get us some subs?

That’s what the Asia Times reports. As part of our reported $36 billion defense budget, a “once-in-a-century defense buildup”, our Navy may end up acquiring top-of-the line submarines from some ex-imperialist European power like France or Spain.

Why? Well, apparently, we are on a quest to achieve “military middle power”. Not a top power or a power bottom, but a middle power (setting our aims high, eh?). Now, how do we achieve that? By buying not one, but “two or three” military-grade subs, says Commodore Roy Vincent Trinidad.

Two or three? Are we certain we will become a military middle power with three subs? With 7,000 islands to protect, three will suffice?

But what do I know. I’m not a military strategist for a third-world country. However, Google tells me that that China has at least 60 (Taipei Times) to about 66 (Voice of America) submarines, with six of them already armed with nuclear weapons (Wall Street Journal). Given these formidable numbers, having three of our own will accomplish what, exactly?

Purportedly, it’s meant to protect our fair isles from the Chinese aggressors as they keep on violating our ownership of the West Philippine Sea. All those Chinese vessels harassing our poor fishermen and bringing more cement to build those illegal air strips might just rethink their bullying tactics if we had a submarine (or three) snooping around the vicinity.

But three might not add any balance to the equation, even if we add the reported 20 that the US has deployed in the Pacific (I read that somewhere and now I can’t find the source).

If I were China, I would just assign three of theirs to one of ours, and our outnumbered submarines will then play tag happily under the seas until our fuel runs out (a likely outcome, since it’s easy for our politicians to decide between whether to fund fuel purchases or line their own pockets).

Perhaps, it might make more sense if those submarines are pointed to Mindanao. Those nasty subs might be able to cow southern secessionists into submission, if they were to ever think that. National Security Council spokesman Jonathan Malaya tells Asia Times that India will send us Brahms supersonic cruise missiles with speeds three times the speed of sound.

I can just imagine supersonic booms over the cities of recalcitrant ex-politicians who don’t want to go away. As Gilbert Teodoro, our Defense secretary, ominously warned, he will strictly enforce his mandate “to secure the sovereignty of the State and integrity of the national territory.” At the same time, the National Security adviser piped up and said that they will “quell and stop any and all attempts to dismember the Republic”.

Which means the administration’s decision to spend trillions of pesos into military might could just be fortuitous. Never mind if, in the final analysis, those subs and missiles won’t be sufficient to alarm China. Those arms might just prove to be the right stick for enemies of the powers-that-be.

In an interview, the ex-leader Rodrigo Duterte proclaims he is not intending to violate the Constitution he had sworn to protect and defend, as the Mindanao secession he has floated will be outside the realms of such Constitution. He refers, of course, to international law, which allows other states to recognize statehood achieved by independence movements.

It’s very convenient for ex-Duterte to invoke international law now when it suits him, when he ignored the international law conventions that fettered him during his reign (I’m speaking of the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and the extrajudicial killings that, bizarrely, numbered in the thousands when he was in power).

Will the international world order come to his rescue, then, and validate a Mindanao breakaway? I predict we will hear that soon-to-be famous quip: “Eat my subs.”