The Philippines is blessed, as it has over 7,000 tropical islands with abundant resources. It is also cursed, as its abundance drew Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese explorer seeking the "Spice Islands" on an order of Philip II of Spain in the 16th century, then the archipelago had been colonized for more than 300 years, and the name of the country was even named after the Spanish king.
The Philippines, due to its adjacency to China, which is its largest neighbor and has enormous human resources, bears a strategic significance in geopolitics. Such geopolitical significance made the country like a puppet manipulated by Western powers and doomed to endure more sufferings.
Take the Pacific War, a major theater of WWII, as an example. Hours after the Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941, the Japanese army started to bombard Clark Air Base in the Philippines. After a year-long battle, the Philippines was submerged and became a new member of the notorious "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere."
According to Chinese WWII historian Liang Zhiming, the Philippines, among all Southeast Asian countries, suffered from the greatest damages with over 1 million Filipinos killed during the war, and almost all cities reduced to rubble.
But after WWII, massacres didn't stop as the US re-occupied the Philippines. After landing, Douglas MacArthur ordered US armies to disarm local military forces which had fought valiantly against Japanese aggression, and butchered their leaders. Concerning this history, some Philippine scholars argue that the US and Japan owe the Philippines an apology.
The Philippines was once praised as a "showcase of American democracy in Asia," because after the Spanish-American War in 1898, the US started to "Americanize" the Philippines by keeping hold of the supreme power and replanting the entire US political system to the Philippines. The trend of "Americanization" also made a deep influence on other social spheres like economy, culture and education.
According to Washington's arrangement, the Philippines was granted independence on July 4, 1946. However, the US tried every means it could to transfer power to the right-wing nationalists who colluded with the Japanese army during WWII but threw themselves to the US embrace right after the war.
The US and the Philippines also signed a Military Bases Agreement in 1947. Although Washington declared that it didn't have colonies in Asia any more, these military bases under the authority of US Air Force and Navy became "a country within a country," according to Liang. The presence of US military troops in the Philippines caused quite a lot of criminal acts, which stirred local people's resentment.
After the Philippine people's resilient protests, the US withdraw all military bases from the country in 1992. However, when Washington began its rebalance strategy, the long-running pork barrel politics in the Philippines re-activated those who have pledged allegiance to the US.
Benigno Aquino III is the incumbent representative of US interests, pulling a pitiful face in front of the international community and making a mess in the South China Sea.
Since Aquino took office in 2010, he has shown a lack of principles and strategies in dealing with the South China Sea disputes and relationship with China. But sometimes even the US finds this puppet annoying. After the initial passion to join, the Aquino administration quit searching for membership in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed regional regulatory and investment treaty promoted by the US at full stretch.
The Philippines should keep in mind its bitter history as a puppet of Western powers. Stopping being a puppet reflects the people's will, which can be seen from the large-scale protests against the return of US military garrisons and demonstrations against the notorious pork barrel politics.
The author is a research fellow at the Guangxi Academy of Social Sciences.
opinion@globaltimes.com.cn