Philippines another Vietnam? / Guingona should resign

The Philippines another Vietnam? This sounds far-fetched at first glance. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is no Ngo Dinh Diem, the anti-Buddhist Roman Catholic who was so hated and reviled by Buddhist monks one of whom committed suicide on a public square by pouring gasoline on his body and setting it in fire. The world watched in horror. Diem proceeded to kill hundreds, if not thousands, of them. And yet in time, in the late 50s, the United States, unfurling the flag against international communism (as it now unfurls the flag against international terrorism), strode alongside Diem and poured in the first group of military advisers.

Now the similarity begins. Not satisfied with the advisers, President John Kennedy sent an initial batch of hundreds of combat troops. Much was "rearguard action," as is now being announced by both the US and Philippine governments regarding the presence of about 300 to 500 American combat troops in Basilan, Jolo. The US Special Forces in Basilan will shortly be engaged in joint military exercises with Philippine troops, the emphasis on "joint military exercises." Well, if during these exercises, US troops are fired upon by the Abu Sayyaf, certainly they have the right to fight back, we are told again and again.

This is like saying, Lennox Lewis may just blunder into the same ring with Mike Tyson. Well, if Tyson looses punches at Lewis, the latter would be a damn fool if he does not hit back. Some scenario. Both the US and Philippine governments are gilding the lily. They know and they have agreed the US Special Forces will go into full, raging combat in Basilan against Abu Sayyaf with the intention of decimating Abu Sayyaf. But they would disguise the operations as joint military exercises without any definite enemy in mind. Whatever.

Another similarity with Vietnam is that the coming battles in Basilan are of a piece with the jungle warfare in Vietnam. Afghanistan does not apply here. This Central Asian country was flatland often of pure rock trellised with caves, major hideout of Taliban and al-Qaeda. All the war against terrorism needed here was the mighty air armada of America to pound Afghanistan to Neanderthal rubble. It was cluster and precision bombing so formidable, so technologically sophis-ticated, so awesome and destructive it was the first major war in history won from the air. Of course on ground level, the US needed the Northern Alliance forces of the Afghans to mop up and occupy.

And so in Basilan it will be jungle warfare. That US air armada will just play a supporting role. As in Vietnam.

And there lies the danger. In jungle warfare, where the enemy can hide, and engage in ambuscades, there is a strong possibility the US Special Forces will sustain a number of casualties. They will be up against the Abus, who know the jungles of Basilan like they know the palm of their hand. The Abus will be killed certainly by a superior force, but they will also kill and inflict their legendary brutality on captured US troops. Behead and decapitate them maybe. How will the US troops in Basilan react? How will the US government react? How will mainstream America react once bodies of dead and mutilated American soldiers are brought back to the US mainland?

As in Vietnam, and likely in the Philippines, the US government continued to pour more troops into that Southeast Asian nation as American casualties mounted.

In time, US forces numbered over half a million. In that war, over 50,000 American soldiers died. It was a war America could not win. Not only were the Vietcong the best guerilla fighters in the world. They got tremendous military and economic assistance from both China and the Soviet Union. Much earlier, France learned her lesson in the battle of Dien Bien Phu, where the scraggly, ill-clad Vietcong sneaked from the surrounding jungles led by the legendary general Nguyen von Giap. On May 7, 1954, the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu was overrun.

What I am trying to say is that the Abu Sayyaf will be no patsies. Jungle warfare has always been costly to the invader, as it has been over the generations to Spanish, American and Filipino troops who have sought to crush the Moro. Of course, there is a difference. The Abus are bandits and terrorists even if it is proven they are a spin-off of al-Qaeda whose Osama bin Laden is the idol of the extremist Muslim fringe. But again, let us extrapolate. Supposing in the course of battle, some guerrillas of the MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front) and the MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front) get in the way?

Mistakes, misfires, accidents often happen in war. Should the US troops accidentally kill some MILF or MNLF guerrillas and/or vice versa, what happens? The simple slay of Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo June 28, 1914 by a Serb anarchist sparked off the First World War. Will either or both in a rage spread the war to the whole of Muslim Mindanao? So what happens to all the pretense the whole thing was just "joint military exercises."

And then again, America’s war is against terrorism. Did not official Washington just recently classify the New People’s Army as terrorists? So after Basilan, will the US Special Forces be reinforced to bring the anti-terrorist war to the NPA? And will President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo allow this? Would she encourage American military presence in the Philippines as an additional, if not a main, shield to maintain her in Malacañang? GMA is verily and truly an "American girl" raised in the American ethos, educated at Georgetown with Bill Clinton as her classmate.

All of these matters should be resolved between the US and Philippine governments before the first shot is fired in Basilan by American troops. The Senate has all the right to ask President Arroyo to appear before it and unwrap the "joint military exercises" package to see what is inside. After all, Philippine sovereignty and territorial integrity are involved. Our patrimony no less.

Monday’s editorial of The New York Times warned of such a faux pas (a false step), saying "Americans could be involved in offensive operations if asked by Manila although such actions could appear to violate the Philippine constitution. This sounds like the kind of loosely designed operations that has led America into costly military blunders in the past decades." Portentous words these.

The Philippines another Vietnam? Gloria, careful, careful.

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He used to have the balls of a brass bulldog and if he still has them, I would advise Vice President Teofisto Guingona to resign his DFA post. These past days, Tito Guingona has been agonizing like Hamlet on whether – as reported by media – to break openly with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo or simply settle to a whimper and stay with her.

Everybody knows what the issue is.

GMA has opened the nation’s doors wide to the entry of America’s elite combat troops, ostensibly for joint military exercises, but in reality to join Filipino soldiers in seeking to wipe out the Abu Sayyaf in Basilan. Without consulting him. Most Filipinos welcome the idea. The Abus pirates, predators and murderers, should have long disappeared from the face of the earth. But Tito Guingona, if I know him well, is not "most Filipinos." The man is all political rock, a former street parliamentarian who kept his cojones, and, most of all, a nationalist of "the purest ray serene."

Tito Guingona voted for the ouster of US bases in 1991, voted against the Visiting Forces Agreement in 1998. He was the first legislator to contemplate impeachment against Joseph Estrada, the first voice in private to even think of impeachment when we often met with him and intimate friends in a Dasmariñas Village residence much earlier. During the impeachment proceedings in the Senate, he glared with open hostility at Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile. So much so that JPE resented it, defiantly asked Tito why he was glaring. And Tito answered; "Well, I am looking at you!" with the tenacity of an aroused bulldog. JPE backed off.

Tito Guingona was never for sale as far as I know. This is a great feat in Philippine politics where almost everybody in Congress is on the auction block. Well, my dear Tito, this late in life, you can no longer change horses in midstream. And you know it. GMA is playing politics, politics on the edge of the razor blade, which risks so many knife thrusts on the soft underbelly on the nation’s sovereignty. That you cannot do. GMA and the Americans may take the nation to the water’s edge and from there jump into a crocodile-infested lake, like, for instance, war on the NPA guerrillas or the MILF. That, too, you cannot accept.

You have made your mark on Philippine history, Tito. Let that mark stay. But make your stand clear. Do not just slip away quietly, your rationale being that you helped put this government in Malacañang, and therefore you cannot bear to see it unravel if you walk out. Hell’s bells. As Margaret Thatcher often told me, "Leaders and people change, but principles and convictions – never." So unsheath your blade – and defend the truth.

You were never a political chameleon. Stay the course. And in this day and age where political opportunism is the gargoyle god, set an example for the youth.