Ducky Paredes

Malaya (12.30.06)

“(I)n Thailand where there is no VFA, the Americans and the locals all know that when a member of the visiting forces violates local law, he has to answer to a local policeman and the local magistrate.”

Another VFA in the Offing

by Ducky Paredes

Stung over the United States’ reaction to the jailing of one of its soldiers for a crime committed against a Filipina, the Arroyo government now seems to be reaching out to other countries for a new military partner. In fact, it seems to be looking to Australia as its possible new playmate for joint military exercises with Filipino troops, in place of the Americans.
To set the stage for this, our government is talking about signing a Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with Australia.
This has to be the stupidest mistake that any country can make in the light of what happened to the American Marine Lance Corporal who is now detained at the Makati City Jail.
What is wrong with the case of the American and what caused the U.S. to pull out of any military exercises and even whatever humanitarian help its soldiers may be extending to our people in the disaster areas was actually the fact that there was a VFA. If our situation were like that in Thailand where there is no VFA, the Americans and the locals would all know immediately that when a member of the visiting forces violates local law, he has to answer to a local policeman and the local magistrate. He goes to a Thai holding jail and has to post bail, if the Thai judge will allow him to do so. He is treated just like a Thai citizen, Because there is no VFA, there is nothing to complain about.
The VFA put the wrong spin on our relations with American visiting forces.
Under the VFA, in the event that the locals’ path crosses that of the visiting forces, the local person will have less protection under our own laws than the foreigners. That was what the VFA did. Thus, the Americans now feel that they are being savaged because Makati Judge Benjamin Pozon did not treat the American criminal with the respect due him as a member of the American visiting forces. Pozon did not follow the VFA and, instead, ruled according to local law. That is a no-no under the VFA.
But, why should the American soldiers who are visiting this country as an armed force be treated with kid gloves just because they are visiting forces? In Thailand, where there are a lot of American soldiers and joint military exercises, there is no such thing as a VFA.
There are a lot of places on this earth where American soldiers operate where the country has no VFA with America. Why, when it comes to the Philippines which was a colony of America, should the Americans insist on having a VFA to be able to come to the Philippines?
The blame for this is not on America; it is on us Filipinos. Look at us now. Our government obviously believes that the only way that they can entice any visiting forces to come into our country is if we have a VFA with them that assures them that, as visiting forces, they will be treated better by our justice system and they will have more rights and privileges than their native victims. With such weak-kneed people running this country, of course, no country – not Australia, the European countries, Japan, China, our ASEAN neighbors or anyone else in the world — will come into the Philippines without being accorded the rights and privileges reserved for royalty in the past — eons ago.
Why should they behave while in the Philippines when we allow them to lord it over us and they see that we are, apparently, uncomfortable subjecting these visiting forces to the laws that us locals have to follow.
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If you are writing your New Year Resolutions, include one, which says that, in the May elections, you will vote for people who stand for something other than themselves and will sacrifice themselves for a principle or a cause. Otherwise, why should we vote for those who want the office not to serve the country or the people but seek only to glorify and enrich themselves?
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It is probably just as well that Virgilio Garcillano, disgraced Commissioner of Elections has decided to run for congress in the Ist District of Bukidnon. The current congressman. Nereus Acosta, among the most principled of our Representatives, is on his last term and will have to step down. Ranged against Acosta, the infamous Garci of the purloined conversations with a woman that shocked us all after the 2004 elections, would surely have lost.
Clearly, since Nereus has been winning in this district, there must be a surfeit of voters of character and principle in the First District. Otherwise, someone like Acosta could not possibly win, again and again.
Thus, even without Acosta facing him, Garci already has a big problem. How does he convince these principled voters to vote for the poster boy of chicanery and deceit?
The Governor of the province, Jose Zubiri, has announced that he will not support Garci and Zubiri publicly opines that even the lady on the other end of the Garci conversations who many believe to be the President will not touch the former commissioner with a ten-foot pole.
Can one win an election without the support of either the political leaders and the people? If we are to believe everything that has been said of Garci, this is exactly the sort of trick that Garcillano has been playing on the electorate, on the candidates and on the whole process that comprise what are our elections.
Okay, let’s all see if he can pull that trick one more time. This time, with himself as the beneficiary. I would bet a bundle that this is one time that Garci cannot pull off what he has supposedly done so well for others. In fact, I see a definite loss for Garci in May 2007.
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A reader in Hawaii gives us his two bits about our item on the 66 cent a month cellphone tax that we mentioned in Thursday’s column: “You wrote: ‘The nice thing about Hawaii is that taxpayers can complain about stuff like this. In fact, if it turns out that the technology will eventually cost less than the amount collected, whatever surplus there will be will be returned to the taxpayers.’
“I say: ‘Ha! Don’t count on it. Remember the mandatory hurricane insurance that homeowners paid to the state? They dissolved the program and used the money for other projects. Taxation without representation is alive and well in the Aloha state!’”
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Touche! Many times the grass looks a lot greener on the other side of one’s fence. Often, it only looks that way because one is looking at his neighbor’s yard from afar.
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“Leaders aren’t really leading. They’re rarely in front of public opinion, and rather than trying to solve problems they’re using them for domestic political advantage.” — Brad Glosserman, executive director for the Pacific Forum, CSIS, in Honolulu quoted by Newsweek on its Annus Horribilis story on Asian governance in 2006.
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Readers who missed a column can access www.duckyparedes.com,/blogs. This is updated daily. Your reactions are welcome at duckyparedes@yahoo.com

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hvp (12.27.06)

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