EDITORIAL – An air force with no force, only air

So now it is official. Before the day ends today, the Philippines, whose officials spend almost all their time politicking in a vainglorious attempt to gain power, will have no more air defense cover.

That is because the five or so 40-year-old F-5 "Freedom Fighter" jets that make up the whole fighter wing or squadron or whatever of the Philippine Air Force, our Philippine Air Force, will be decommissioned, a euphemism for retired, or mothballed, or junked.

Not surprising though, since during the last remaining years of their lives, those jets spent most of their time being treated like junk anyway, meaning they were more often being tinkered with by mechanics than being coaxed into agonizing flight.

It is not even as scary as when the thought of being vulnerable from the sky first dawned on us. After all, even if we had those jets in mint condition and fully armed, they were still no match for the ultra modern aircraft that our neighbors have in far greater numbers.

Even Singapore, which the leftists and some opportunistic politicians love to provoke and bully, a city state that is not even a fourth of Cebu in size, has emerged as a military power in these parts, with an air force that can literally blow us out of the map.

All that the Philippine Air Force has left are a few Italian-made (guess you already know what that means) trainer jets to streak over the length and breadth of this Perlas ng Silanganan in a grand display of pretense.

And of course there are the Hueys, the workhorses of the Vietnam War in the 1960s, for relief operations. There too are a few slightly newer helicopters that are really not meant for combat in the same way we understand what helicopter combat is all about.

Air Force officials, humiliated by this cruel fact, can only shrug their shoulders and mutter something about there being no budget for procurement, much less for modernization. They can still attend foreign seminars, though, representing an air force with no force, only air.

In the meantime, there is always a budget, lots of it, and in billions in fact, for the pork barrel of politicians, for their use to ingratiate themselves to the voters whom they must perpetually court in order to remain in power.

It is not that we ought to be a belligerent country. But for all our bellyaching about nationalism, we are doing absolutely nothing not only to project ourselves with some dignity, but to actually allow us the ability to at least try and defend ourselves with honor.