The Phil. Daily Inquirer published this short article/letter in 2003.
U.S. GROOMS SEC. REYES AS NEXT PRESIDENT?
The hidden political agenda of Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes' "Mindanao card" is founded on his not-so-secret desire to succeed Pres. Arroyo as the next president of the country in 2004, a la ex-Pres. Fidel Ramos, with the huge but silent political, military and financial backing of US Pres. Bush, US Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, and the rich and powerful US military-industrial complex.
As has been widely reported in US media, Reyes and Rumsfeld had secretly agreed to actively involve US soldiers in actual combat operations in Sulu, except that by reason of its recent premature expose in the world media, both of them are now in a messy quandary as to how to find the so-called politically and legally correct language (read: illicit euphemism) to camouflage the unconstitutional combat involvement of US soldiers on Philippine soil -- as if the sugar-coating of printed legalese in a Terms of Reference (TOR) document would magically cure the grave constitutional and moral infirmity of such a brazen violation of the sacred will of the Filipino people as expressed in the 1987 Constitution.
Let's face the sad truth: the real power and manipulative force behind the lameduck and disorganized (not to say, corrupt) Arroyo government is the hawkish military establishment led by Reyes, upon whose mercy she clings for political survival.
This blatant phenomenon explains Pres. Arroyo's colonial and slave-like fidelity to the obnoxious Bush doctrine of "preemptive self-defense" (read: unilateral preemptive strike) against Iraq by the US and UK-led "coalition of the willing", even if such a Texas-cowboy doctrine would ultimately lead to the total demise of the United Nations System and the absolute abrogation of all the existing pro-peace norms of Public International Law.
The US needs a hawkish military general to lead the Philippine government in 2004 in light of the well-known US military plan to make the strategically-located Philippines Islands as a potential Southeast Asian command center in light of its silent but real fear of the awakened China, the huge oil and other mineral wealth and the crucial sealanes of the Spratlys Islands in the South China Sea, the open nuclear threat from the recalcitrant North Korea, the growing Islamic fundamentalism of disoriented Indonesia, the critical geo-political importance of the Pacific Ocean to the US commercial interests, and the almost lunatic American paranoia against Asian-bred fundamentalist Islamic terrorism.
What the Philippines needs as its next president is not a war-oriented general (especially one with a bad record of realpolitik turncoatism) but a genuine scholar-statesman with a deep and authentic sense of the rule of law, equity and social justice and a clear vision of the role of international law in determining the direction of the united pilgrim trek of mankind to its ultimate destination of peace, harmony, equality and progress.
Atty. Manuel J. Laserna Jr.
Professor of Law
FEU Institute of Law
Manila
