Next war could explode in South China Sea; Ople non-Valedictory

We’ve all had the jitters about terror, more particularly America’s war on international terror which has washed over to the Philippines. After reading Michael T. Klare’s Resource Wars, The New Landscape of Global Conflict, my hackles have risen even more. There is now, and for some time, a grim struggle among the world’s major powers for access to oil and gas resources. And if I understand the book right, the vast oil and gas resources concealed by the South China Sea could very likely provoke armed war among the US, China, Japan and others in the second or third decade of the 21st century. Verily, a third World War.

What struck me, as I read, was that the US to achieve its objectives . . . has steadily strengthened its position in the South China Sea" by forging a new Visiting Forces Agreement with the Philippines. The VFA accord, it was emphasized, would "allow US warships to participate in joint military exercise with the Philippine Navy and to dock at Philippine bases (read the Mutual Logistics and Security Agreement). Why the Philippines? Because it is an allied and very friendly country. Its geographical location astride the South China Sea is just perfect for America’s oil, commercial and terror strategy in this part of the world.

Since energy supplies "must travel by ship through the South China Sea", for the consumption of many East Asian countries, including Japan and South Korea, the South China Sea "has become the fulcrum of energy competition in the Asia-Pacific region." Since the only major power that can effectively stand in the way of the US is China, the dispute most likely "to produce outright conflict" is "the struggle for control of the resources of the South China Sea."

In this context, the VFA now makes more sense to me. As do the Balikatan 0-2 joint exercise and the restoration of America’s armed presence in the Philippines. We have all been given the mumbo-jumbo by both the US and Philippine governments that American combat troops are here only because of Washington’s war against "international terror". That’s only partly true. The anti-terror war fit perfectly into grander design of reinforcing Pax Americana and making sure South China Sea’s vast oil resources would not fall into the hands of Beijing. If, for instance China projects its naval power over the whole of the Spratley Islands, America will go to war.

And so we Filipinos now see the VFA in a larger perspective. The VFA was approved by both countries in 1998, long before September 9, the year 2000. This was when the World Trade Center and the Pentagon disintegrated in the face of such foreign terror in one single stroke as the world had never seen.

The book points out that the South China Sea is the third anchor of the Strategic Triangle of the world’s major oil resources. The first two are the Gulf Area and the Caspian Sea. South China Sea is "bordered in the north by Taiwan and China, on the east by the Philippine Islands, on the south by Indonesia and Malaysia, and on the west by Vietnam." The Philippines’ eastern location gives it more strategic importance because it lies closest to the Spratleys, said to contain the largest undersea oil and natural gas resources in the region. Right?

Now we are getting the picture. Within the Strategic Triangle, a resource conflict arises. Unless resolved within this decade or the next, the region could be dragged into all-out war, the Philippines included. Geographically, we’re in the middle of it all. This means the US determination to maintain dominion over the South China Sea, and the US war against international terror whose focus is Asia because the formidable head of Islamic extremism inhabits the continent.

Why this grim and increasingly perilous conflict over oil? Michael Klare explains that "none is more likely to provoke conflict in the twenty first century than oil . . . No highly industrialized society can survive at present without substantial supplies of oil. And so any significant threat to the continued availability of this resource will prove a cause of crisis, in extreme cases, provoke the use of military force." That this conflict "will erupt in the years ahead is almost a foregone conclusion.

I don’t know if our present leadership went into the VFA blindly. But if war should erupt between the US and China, the Philippines or better still the encampments of US combat forces here will be legitimate targets of Chinese missiles. And so will be our own military bases and encampments since we will be considered enemy country. Either way, in the oil imbroglio or the terror turmoil, the Philippines can hardly escape if war breaks out.

The demand for oil will be insatiable. "During the past 50 years alone," the book narrates, "the world population grew by over three billion people, jumping from 2.6 billion people in 1950 to just over six billion in 1999." The US "must retain access to overseas supplies or its entire economy will collapse." Main source of US oil is the Persian Gulf with 675 billion barrels in proven reserves. The Caspian region "harbors as much as 270 billion barrels of oil and some 665 trillion cubic feet of natural gas." No figures are mentioned for the South China Sea. Just how many billion barrels in reserves lie beneath its waters, nobody until now really knows.

There is a lot to be said for the war against terror.

But this is largely America’s war. It could take many years, decades or generations even. Or even fade out. For the enemy is elusive, has no national borders, can easily slip from country to country. It has a thousand masks. Even America admits, terror can again strike the mainland anytime. But oil and gas reserves are finite, may last only 40 years. The concentration has switched to the South China Sea, and there the real danger lies. It goes right to the core of the emerging collision course between the US and China for hegemony in the region. Only arms can ensure the continued flow of oil across the South China and East China seas. So far, the US enjoys the advantage.

But when there is such cluster of islands called the Spratleys and the Philippines geographically noses in, all hell can break loose. And the Abu Sayyaf menace now considered closed by our government — may eventually look like a picnic.

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It was meant to be a valedictory clothed in Promethean prose. It was not. When Blas Ople bade farewell in the Senate to take over as secretary of foreign affairs, he not only fumbled. He fell on his face. When he could have risen to Gothic heights with a brilliant and incisive analysis of international affairs and the Philippines’ role in it. Blas Ople chose to be petty, even mean, irritable and certainly irascible. He lowered the boom on columnist Amando Doronila as an "envenomed personality", called him inggit, and suffused with an "elephantine ego". He accused Doronila of bending political leaders to his "vicious pen". In one fell swipe of satire, Ople moved Doronila into the "canard" that the columnist "is an agent of Australian interests in the Philippines," "engaged in the lobbying for the importation of Australian beef in the Department of Agriculture."

When the new secretary of foreign affairs had finished with Doronila, his ire fell on COPA, a "shadowy group", and its secretary-general Pastor (Boy) Saycon who he called "a buzzing public insect" who had to be swatted full on its proboscis. All because Saycon called Ople an "American boy".

Blas, if I may still address you by your first name, you screwed up. Your new job required that you utilize the language of lofty diplomacy. Where in grand costume, you address the outstanding issues of the day, go over them as you would an Edmund Hillary scaling Mount Everest, the frost on your body but the heady winds on your face exploring the unknown. Here, you could have delivered a stupendous valedictory. The world is fast changing with a pace that is dizzying what with large scale corporate corruption now devouring America, emerging great powers and Islamic extremism challenging Yankee supremacy, a Middle East in turmoil, the rest of the world in greater turmoil. Here you could have used your brush like a Michelangelo, sweeping in broad strokes, then laying on the hues and the colors, the character of great art.

You defended yourself by saying you had never committed any crime, never been linked to any act of graft and corruption, and you come to the cabinet of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo "with clean hands. My life is an open book. I have nothing to hide."

I may have to disagree with you. And this is the area the Messrs. Doronila and Saycon may have missed. Are you telling me nothing of the evil that was the dictator Ferdinand Marcos has washed off on you? That you joined his political swineherd for more than 20 years without getting morally stained in the process? That you just closed your eyes to acts of unspeakable horror and terror, for instance the murder in cold blood of Ninoy Aquino? You were at one time perceived as the ideologue of the KBL (Kilusang Bagong Lipunan), a political monstrosity that wiped out all traces of democracy. You have no regrets?

Outside of Marcos, you cohabited politically with such verdugos as General Fabian Ver, Colonel Rolly Abadilla and you say you saw nothing wrong? You saw pillage at its worst as the Marcoses looted the nation at will, and you remained at the dictator’s side loyal as ever? Why didn’t you ever vomit him out of your system? Where were you during the two EDSA’s? You come with clean hands? The same hands that stroked the accursed pompadour and moustache of Joseph Estrada and protected him with might and main during the Senate impeachment hearings? C’mon.