Imperial Japan attacked the
Philippines, a staunch ally of the United States, just 10 hours after
destroying the American naval fleet at Pearl Harbor with a surprise attack on
December 8, 1940 – a date famously described by then US President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt as one that “will live in infamy.”
Over a half century later, after
being driven out of the Philippines in 1945 at the cost of over 100,000
Filipino civilians killed during the bombing of Intramuros, the Japanese have
landed back in Palawan but not with their vaunted World War II Zeroes but
aboard a P3-C patrol aircraft of the Japan Maritime Defense Force.
This time, Filipinos have
welcomed with open arms the Japanese with whom they were scheduled to
hold a naval exercise not far from the disputed Spratly Islands in the West
Philippine Sea. The Philippine Navy or what would pass for a navy was also to
hold yet another joint exercise with the Americans.
“The exercise is seen as an
opportunity to display the strength of Japan's cooperation with the
Philippines, with an eye to China's controversial land reclamation on the
disputed Spratly Islands,” said a news report. On the surface, the naval
exercises were “humanitarian in nature, focused on improving joint efforts in
conducting maritime search and rescue during a disaster.”
But with China acting like a
schoolyard bully by building an artificial island and shooing away Filipino
fishermen and Philippine Coast Guard vessels on Philippine waters, the
Philippine government is clearly trying to rally as much allies to restore the
balance of power in the disputed Spratlys, optimistic that the US would once
again play its traditional role of being the “policeman of the world.”
The Philippines’ joint exercises
with Japan and the US once again prove that in politics, whether global or
local, there are no permanent friends or foes but only the respective permanent
interests of countries that they must pursue, singularly in the case of China
running roughshod over small nations like the Philippines and Vietnam, or
jointly as in the case of the Philippines leaning on Japanese and American support.
In a potential David against
Goliath conflict that’s more mismatched than the Britain-Argentinian conflict,
the Philippines, as a Lilliputian, is left with no choice but to lean on old
and new friends like the US and Japan. However, the last thing Filipinos want
is for the disputed waters to become a flashpoint for a multi-nation armed
conflict, or World War III. -End-
Image by: Planespotter.net
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