Confidence-building foreigners

When survey after survey confirm that Filipinos welcome the presence of foreign troops in this country, one wonders whether people reflect on issues of possible constitutional violation or the long-term effects of banking on foreign assistance to develop institutional capabilities within their armed forces. Current findings from Pulse Asia’s Ulat ng Bayan surveys suggest that these concerns are truly of marginal interest to most people, with just about one in five worrying about the constitutional propriety of having Americans join Filipino soldiers in tracking and neutralizing Abu Sayaff terrorists.

Much larger proportions of the public – as much as seven out of ten among those polled using a nationally representative sample of Filipinos eighteen years old and above – are for extending the Balikatan arrangement and pragmatically support the continuing engagement of American soldiers in facing a most sensitive national security challenge.

In places where the Abu Sayyaf apparently operated with impunity in the past, media report the local population’s strong desire to have the Americans stay longer and be part of a continuing campaign to secure their persons and property. In Basilan, parts of Zamboanga and Sulu, people are cited by media as linking the presence of American troops with their ability to feel much safer and to sleep more soundly than ever. Many of the local residents probably sleep better knowing that their own military have to reckon with American military presence in managing the local anti-terrorist campaigns.

In the last six months, the combat effectiveness of the Philippine armed forces indeed appears to have improved tremendously. The AFP’s senior officials as well as its rank and file seem to have been infused with much more seriousness and even more energy in flushing out and hunting down their Abu Sayaff quarries. Although armchair kibitzers from media and elsewhere have a hundred criticisms to hurl at the conduct of military operations against the Abu Sayaff, there is no disputing that there has been attrition in the latter’s ranks and that some of the hostages have been succoured even as others have unfortunately died in the military’s rescue attempts.

What made for this increased military effectiveness? It could have been some technological gadgets — for instance, all-weather, satellite-linked, electronic tracking equipment, or simpler but equally necessary day and night surveillance tools for soldiers on field patrols — which the Americans made available to the AFP. Or other logistical equipment like some helicopters and planes which enabled the Philippine military to gain greater mobility when moving on terrorist targets. Some hitherto obscure or secret American anti-terrorist strategies and tactics might have made a significant contribution to the AFP’s ability to turn the tables against its historically elusive enemy, the Abu Sayaff which had so often mocked it in the past.

Perhaps just having to work with better-victualed, better-equipped and in all probability better paid professional counterparts improved both the morale and the combat effectiveness of our local military. (Philippine media surely must also have contributed in making the American soldiers look even more glamorous. Both TV and the newspapers had excellent photo coverage of handsome, shirtless American hunks seriously and purposively examining their military equipment. For variety, local media supplied images of the same soldiers looking commendably stoic in the presence of ogling and bantering local maidens, or — best of all hearts and minds images — charmingly playful in the presence of obviously smitten Filipino children.)

The Abu Sayyaf appears at least temporarily routed. The AFP seems to have redeemed itself before its own people. The American soldiers definitely make for very positive images of mission-focusedness, military discipline, propriety in civilian community relations and — most engaging of all – unmistakable congeniality.

Without a developed sense of the past and much overwhelmed by the present and its urgent need to address their public safety, Filipinos cannot help relating strongly to these multiple images of the Abu Sayaff, the AFP and the American military.

People must not wonder much if the surveys show such positive feelings for the presence of foreign troops in this country. However, they may also feel saddened by an unmistakable development — their trusting foreigners more than themselves and their own institutions. No nation develops well in the absence of self-confidence. Confidence-building foreigners may be good for a fix but they never substitute for citizens who understand that a nation’s proper redemption lies in self-reliance.