Americans’ help

Ihave read posted on Facebook by some of my friends the claim that the United States is behind the siege on Marawi City by self-styled Filipino Islamic State (IS) militants. I sought from the posts proof of that claim but what I got were mostly insinuations. I am against US imperialist designs in the country, too, but I am also a journalist who favors the truth. Without proof there’s no truth.

What has been confirmed, however, is the help that the US has been providing the Philippine troops that is battling the holdouts of the militants identified with the Maute and at least three other groups in Marawi. President Rodrigo Duterte was forced to admit it although he claimed not having initial knowledge of it.

The Duterte administration’s official foreign policy is supposedly independent, but in the first few months of the Duterte presidency it was actually anti-US and pro-China. The president vilified the US when he got the chance and has refused to step on US soil. Meanwhile, he had official visits to China and its ally Russia, even if the former has laid claim to a part of Philippine territory.

But I also doubted whether the president’s effort to wean the country from the US would succeed considering tradition. Proof of that was the lukewarm response of Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana and generals of the Armed Forces of the Philippinesw (AFP) to the president’s statement that he wants all of the American troops still in the country (mostly in Mindanao) to leave.

After the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, the US has intensified its war against terrorism. It thus didn’t hesitate to provide help to Philippine troops battling the Abu Sayyaf Group, which went on a rampage in Basilan and Sulu a few years after 9-11. I have already written, for example, about how US help was crucial in the killing of one of the Abu Sayyaf’s popular leaders, Abu Sabaya.

So I wasn’t surprised when reports began to filter about the help provided by the US to Philippine troops battling the Maute and other militant groups in Marawi. The truth is, the AFP has inadequacies in the battle against the self-styled IS militants that the US can fill. Intelligence gathering using sophisticated equipment is one. Providing logistical support is another.

Indeed, an Associated Press journalist and photographer was reported to have seen three days ago a US Navy P3 Orion plane flying above Marawi but higher than Philippine helicopters that targeted enemy positions. On that, military spokesperson Restituto Padilla said: “We don’t have adequate surveillance equipment, so we asked the US military for assistance. It’s noncombat assistance.”

This development had critics of the Duterte administration reminded the president of the anti-American rhetoric he spewed months ago. He answered by pointing out that he wasn’t the one who sought US help but the Defense department and the Armed Forces. “I never approached any American to say...’Help us,’” he said. “We don’t really need their help. Maybe a little.”

So whatever happened to our supposed independent foreign policy? It crumbles when government is faced with a pragmatic option.