Former Friend Of Bill-turned-Friend Of George Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is beginning to reap the dubious rewards of heading the most willing country among the coalition of the willing. After that state dinner (about which I’ve gone on and on in these pages), President Macapagal-Arroyo, who has long expressed no interest in running for re-election, is supposedly thinking about changing her mind:

According to the highly placed source, Bush urged Ms Macapagal at the close of her recent official state visit to the United States to reconsider her announcement on Dec. 30 last year that she would not seek a full six-year term in the 2004 election.

“You know what [were] Bush’s parting words to her? ‘Madame President, women and politicians are entitled to change their minds,’” the source said.

(Sen. Raul Roco wryly observed that the last time he checked, Bush was not an overseas Filipino voter.)

Presumably our Cowboy in the White House needs someone like her on his side to fight the Eastern Front of his war on terrorism, and the only way to assure that stability would be to keep her in that position.

Already the propaganda machine is well into gear for this next phase, as veteran hack director Cirio Santiago‘s latest film, Operation Balikatan (starring Rey Malonzo, Eddie Garcia, and a bunch of unknown white guys) is a war movie supposedly in the tradition of Black Hawk Down. It’s already being criticized by activist groups as part of a shameless psy-ops campaign orchestrated in favor of the US troops (despite the American diplomats’ public show of wariness about the film). (To his credit, he produced and directed some of my favorite B-movies of the early ’70s, an entry about which I’m planning to write.)

Meanwhile — the animal metaphors are piling up, so I apologize for any sexist connotations — our lapdog has also turned into a parrot:

Referring to the first day of strikes launched by the United States and its allies against Iraq, the President said: “March 20 signified a major blow to the power of the United Nations.”
…
“Unless its security mandate is updated, the United Nations will continue to limp forward, tasked to do much peacekeeping but too feeble or hand-tied to be effective at peacemaking, Ms Macapagal said.

Them’s fighting words, and will no doubt jeopardize the Philippines’s supposedly shoo-in bid for entry into the U.N. Security Council next year. But more important, it reiterates, in even stronger terms, the Bush Administration’s insulting disregard for international law, and is a bad sign of things to come for the Macapagal-Arroyo administration as well.

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This isn’t exactly about Bush’s state dinner with Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, but about Bush’s welcome speech:

The Philippines was the first democracy in Asia and has a proud tradition of democratic values, love of family and faith in God. President Arroyo, you are carrying this tradition forward, and I`m proud to call you friend… Mabuhay!

Dean Jorge Bocobo, whose blog I really enjoy reading but with whom I mostly disagree, rightly points out the change in Bush’s rhetoric:

I was dumbstruck reading the transcript. These bold words, are history being revised… No U.S. president since William McKinley — not Roosevelt or Kennedy or Reagan or Clinton — has ever proclaimed the simple truth in those 8 words: “The Philippines was the first democracy in Asia…” Pres. Bush’s words contradict the history of Philippine-American relations as taught in America (except in hundreds of Asian studies departments) and written up in history books (unless they’ve read the words of Teodoro Agoncillo, Renato Constantino, or U.P.’s Dean Armando Malay).

He writes further:

[The Treaty of Paris] made inevitable America’s first and only colonial war of conquest against an insurrection that was also our war to defend the infant Philippine republic…

The Filipinos would lose that war, but America would give the Philippines everything Spain never did: schools, government, science, Hollywood. Still a century of nationalist resentment seethes in many intellectuals, pundits and local elites. Now, for the first time an American President seems to agree with them. I see the end of a great untruth because George W. Bush is a straight talking Texas cowboy.

I suppose I’m one of those “seething pundits” then — who, as Bocobo eloquently writes, “never emerged from the black hole of resentment.” (Do I qualify as a “seething intellectual?”)

Yes, I’m seething: the joys of schools and Hollywood aside (for which we should be eternally grateful to the United States of America, forever and ever, Amen), Bush’s statement reads to me as precisely signaling the very elision of that same war (not an “insurrection,” by the way) the Filipino-American war that sought to destroy that same “first democracy in Asia.” The simplistic recognition of a change in date — finally, an American President realizes our independence day is not on July 4! — is little reason to applaud. This is only hypocrisy of the basest sort, especially since Bush is financing — no, wait: directly plunging into — yet another war against those crazy Moros.

There’s more (the permalink might be broken, but it’s from May 29, with a mirror here) adulation concerning the “partnership” between the U.S. and its major non-NATO ally, but you can read that for yourself. (And you can read my earlier entries if you click on the “this damned war” category in the boxes on the right.)

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My friend Mike, who sent me the guest list to the Gloria and George dinner, weighs in on the subject. As he writes:

For all its glitter and buzz, Monday’s White House state dinner in honor of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo could not conceal the tired, misconceived nature of America’s approach to Southeast Asia. Now, just as for most of the past half-century, Washington views the region’s problems merely as local variations on its own global preoccupations. Its distorted understanding has led to a long series of bad choices — bad both for Southeast Asia and for the United States.

(My previous take on the proceedings was that it very much lacking in glitter, and simply seemed like an elaborate sop thrown to the Philippines for supporting Bush’s “war on terror.”)

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Eileen — you have no idea how many times I’ve tried to connect to your site (as with other Blogspot sites) — excerpts an article from the Washington Post about that dinner again:

Bush praised Arroyo as “a fierce fighter of terrorism in your own country. You’ve earned the respect of the American people for your resolve. And after September the 11th, you were one of the first leaders to contact me and express your strong support for the war against terror. And you have not wavered.”

“Friends stand by each other,” she responded. “In times of crisis, friends do not ask why. They ask how.”

There’s a nice rhythm to this give and take — obviously they weren’t actually having a conversation, but it reminds me of those skits that I used to put on to promote Sunday School and Bible study fellowship to the teenagers in my church. (Believe it or not — I shall have to write about my fall of grace one of these days… the post will be called “The Road to Apostasy.”)

No, wait — it reminds me of how Emily Elizabeth would sum up the lesson for the day on Clifford, the Big Red Dog (no offense to the show, which my daughter really likes). (“Today, Clifford learned about cooperation…”)

One of the presents in Macapagal-Arroyo’s “goodie bag” — man, Philippine News is getting sharper and sharper — was this:

The two Presidents agreed on legislation extending new benefits to Filipino WWII veterans based in the U.S. Among these are: full-rate service connected disability compensation; eligibility for burial at national cemeteries and burial benefits for New Scouts; full-rate dependence and indemnity compensation (DIC) to the survivors of New Scouts, Commonwealth Army veterans and guerrillas, and comprehensive health care eligibility to Commonwealth Army veterans and New Scouts.

Which explains why Principi, Ganio and Lachica were invited to the dinner (but they didn’t get the pension, though). (Jennie Ilustre emphasizes at the beginning of the article, however, that the Philippines had wanted to get more — $380 million vs $100 million. “It became clear the state visit was more about photo ops, and less about opportunities,” she writes.)

But what a photo op for her anyway. Nelson Navarro compares Macapagal-Arroyo’s relatively stellar reception to the lukewarm brown-bag lunches Ramos received way back when, but it’s still “begging-bowl diplomacy,” as he puts it, when all is said and done.

Emil Guillermo, right underneath Navarro’s mug on page 5, has gone amok as usual and pushes her to remember Filipinos overseas as well:

The World Bank just released figures that said that in 2002 for the first time, more money flowed from poor migrants in rich countries like the U.S. than the combined total of government aid, private bank lending and IMF/World Bank aid and assistance.

Do you understand what that means?

That means Manong Boy and Auntie Baby who work the hotel/restaurant beat and send back money through LBC to their family back home, are doing more to prop up the Philippine economy than anyone gives them credit.

And he ruminates, no pun intended, on the possible “chew toys” GMA might receive:

All the hoopla and attention of the week should be a nice payback to President GMA for loyalty beyond the call of lapdog.

So of course, now she’s looking for her bone.

Guillermo holds back on criticizing what’s humming in Gloria’s goodie drawer — he does get a nice potshot at Bush’s “doggy-style politics” — but man, can’t anyone see what she’s traded to get equity for the Filipino veterans?

But back to that dinner. My first reaction was that it was extremely different from the guest lists during Clinton’s administration. My second reaction was that it was decidedly low-watt. I mean, who selects the people to be invited? I can see that there were really rather few business connections — eBay, UPS, a few others, and Gigot to write all about it — but otherwise, not that much there. Is this par for the course at state dinners, or…?

The other interesting point were, as I’d pointed out before, the Filipino Americans. (I can’t imagine Gloria gettin’ down to Neal McCoy, much less even heard of him — can you?) What an odd coterie of people: a former Miss America? An Olympian boxer? An ex-mayor? And none of the usual Philippine News quotables — no Veloria, Cayetano, Mabilangan-Haley, Nicolas-Lewis, Clemente, Bulos, or even good ol’ Alex Esclamado? And jeez, doesn’t Michelle Malkin deserve a doggie treat thrown her way at least? Are Filipino Americans simply under Bush’s radar? (Well, there are all those chefs and stewards in the White House…)

There are a couple of ways to interpret this: one, that the guest list was slapped together by some clueless drone, or, more likely, that this was never really about Filipinos (or Filipino Americans) in the first place. This simply looks like an elaborate scratch behind the ear for the U.S.’s ally in the Far East, a big thumbing of the nose to Chirac and Schroeder and all those other folks who won’t be eating out of the same food bowl with Bush anytime soon, a relatively inexpensive gesture to remind the world that the war on terrorism in Asia apparently isn’t over.

And so I’ll end with an excerpt from Sen. Robert Byrd’s recent, much-quoted speech, which reminds us why being on Bush’s buddy list is ignominious anyhow:

…the Bush team’s extensive hype of WMD in Iraq as justification for a preemptive invasion has become more than embarrassing. It has raised serious questions about prevarication and the reckless use of power. Were our troops needlessly put at risk? Were countless Iraqi civilians killed and maimed when war was not really necessary? Was the American public deliberately misled? Was the world?

And so Byrd ends — god, this speech should be disseminated far and wide:

I contend that, through it all, the people know. The American people unfortunately are used to political shading, spin, and the usual chicanery they hear from public officials. They patiently tolerate it up to a point. But there is a line. It may seem to be drawn in invisible ink for a time, but eventually it will appear in dark colors, tinged with anger. When it comes to shedding American blood – - when it comes to wreaking havoc on civilians, on innocent men, women, and children, callous dissembling is not acceptable. Nothing is worth that kind of lie – - not oil, not revenge, not reelection, not somebody’s grand pipedream of a democratic domino theory.

And mark my words, the calculated intimidation which we see so often of late by the “powers that be” will only keep the loyal opposition quiet for just so long. Because eventually, like it always does, the truth will emerge. And when it does, this house of cards, built of deceit, will fall.

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For those of you who don’t read the Philippine newspapers, here’s the great Conrado de Quiros on Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s “splendid little war:”

Bush never found the weapons of mass destruction that he used as his excuse to bomb Iraq, if indeed he expected to find any. GMA will not find any links between al-Qaeda and the MILF, which she is using as an excuse to bomb Muslim Mindanao, if indeed she expects to find any.

It is a cynical war, manufactured cynically, prosecuted cynically, and done for cynical ends. The senators who are crying foul over the timing of the bombings, which was just in time for GMA’s presumably triumphant march to Washington, have every reason to do so. Salome got the head of John the Baptist as a gift for dancing for King Herod; GMA wants the heads of Abu Sabaya and Hashim Salamat, or the next best substitutes, for dancing for King George.

As an unfortunately glowing editorial enumerated the pasalubong Macapagal-Arroyo received along with the pat on her back (and that state dinner):

The United States will extend 30 million dollars in new grants and aid for equipment and training of the AFP. Another 30 million dollars will go into new bilateral development assistance focused on Mindanao and support for the peace process with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. A combat engineering unit will be established with a 25-million-dollar grant to train and equip the unit for civic action. Up to 10 million dollars in US defense goods and services will be made available through a presidential draw-down authority for equipment, spare parts and maintenance.

Twenty UH-1H helicopters will be sent to support the AFP in fighting terrorist groups, plus 10 other helicopters for spare parts… New joint military exercises are to be held, although the rules of engagement are still unclear — a contentious aspect of the exercises.

More than the aid package, Bush elevated the status of the security relationship by making the Philippines a special non-North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally in the same category as Australia and Egypt. While this status does not make the Philippines a Nato member, it provides the mechanism that can fast-track Philippine access to US weapons in the war on terror. As Bush puts it, “That puts the Philippines right up there with Australia, Egypt, Israel … which means it will be easier for us to answer questions on military equipment and to provide parts to make sure that the defense capabilities of the Philippine military are modern, and the choppers fly and are maintained. When the President orders up a strike, it happens quickly.”

But go read the rest of de Quiros’s op-ed piece.

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