Why Support the Visiting Forces Agreement?
I believe that we must support the VFA because I think the Philippines is considered a “failing state.”
Why we should thank them? I don't believe they have the duty to help us... We must be humble enough to admit that "WE" need their help.
During these precarious times, we have to set aside our socialist-communist leanings. It is my observation that the usual source of most people’s opposition to the VFA and any Philippine-US agreements or treaties is their sympathy for the Left. Because of the education system, tradition and culture in this country, the people are slowly turning to the Left and embracing collectivist ideals. Most Filipinos are socialists but they just don’t know it.
We must be humble enough to admit that the Philippine government heavily relies on US aid, official development assistance or ODA, or any kind foreign reliefs. Whenever the Philippines experiences natural calamity or social or economic crisis, we ask for the help of the United States and other middle-power countries like Japan, Australia, Canada and the European Union. We must have the humility to admit that we are dependent upon foreign aids and reliefs.
Religion is a superstition. Can man ever have a world where faith does not kill?
I don’t believe that developed countries like the US, Japan and the European Union have the duty to help poor countries. Every nation has the obligation and duty to improve its national condition and sovereignty. Nations are like individual human beings that must be concerned of their own welfare and interests. The foreign aids and reliefs that the United States government channels to the Philippines come from its own taxpayers. But it is disappointing that we do not even know how to say “thank you” to our friendly allies. Most, if not all, absurd militant and Leftist groups usually denounce the United States for historical reasons, but they failed to understand that the “land of the brave and the free” did not just become a superpower nation through invasion or imperialism. The United States is a product of philosophy, and it achieved its global status through the best and the most moral experiment ever devised in mankind’s history— the economic system of Capitalism. The United States was built by the most moral vision of its founding fathers and by its independent industrialists in the last century who helped improve the standard of living in America and the rest of the world. All nations on earth, including the Philippines, were a product of history.
I strongly disagree with the idea that secession is justified if it is fueled by religious dogma or the concept of ethnicity…
I am in favor of the VFA because I believe that we need the help of the United States in protecting our people and borders from terrorist aggression. I believe that terrorism exists and the source of which is spiritual in nature. The spiritual weapon of global terror networks is the Radical Islam. The Iranian government had openly announced its aim to exterminate capitalism and the Western World to pave the way for its Islamic mission. The radical Islamists regard capitalism and the Western world as their enemy that must be exterminated. We are all engaged in a battle of ideas, and the only way to stop the “enemy” is to have the right idea and use it to fight the “evil” idea. Man’s and civilization’s enemy is that “evil” idea that we must be collectively chained to a radical religious dogma of Islam.
I believe that we must support the VFA because I think the Philippines is considered a “failing state.” Being a failing state, it cannot even protect its people and foreign nationals in far-flung areas of the country. Failed or failing states are attractive to terrorist or separatist groups that subscribe to either radical Islam or Communism. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front has been receiving support from Islamic countries that favor Mindanao’s secession from the Philippines. I strongly disagree with the idea that secession is justified if it is fueled by religious dogma or the concept of ethnicity. There’s only one justification for a belligerent or hostile territory to secede from its motherland and this is the concept of individual rights. The MILF wants to secede because its warlords seek to establish an Islamic regime in Mindanao. This proposition is not justifiable because they only seek the religious enslavement of people in that part of the country.
There’s no doubt that this separatist groups are getting support from shadowy international networks that aim to establish a strategic military and radical religious base within the country. The result of their radical religious or theocratic dogma is what is happening now in Iran, where women have no individual rights and people have to follow under the pain of death the decree of their religious dictator.
We wouldn’t have to rely on America’s military support if we were an economically and militarily developed nation. But since we are not and since we’re facing battles on various fronts, we must have the humility that we need America’s assistance. I don’t think favoring the VFA is tantamount to giving up our sovereignty. The Unites States wants nothing from us; it is us who benefit from this military agreement. America can always trade and establish military agreements with our neighboring countries. It is independent and it is still the most powerful nation in the world. The people who blindly and staunchly believe that it is the US that benefits from our country simply wanted to flatter themselves. I must admit that America made crucial mistakes in history, but I still believe that it is mankind’s last best hope. Even if America is now taken over by the Liberal-socialists led by its President Barack Obama, it is the American people that will save America. The spirit of the American Constitution, which is the first socio-political document on earth that respects individual rights, still runs in the veins of every true-blooded American.
Whether we like it or not, the Philippines is one of the failing or failed states in the Asia-Pacific region. International terrorist groups target fragile and failing states for the following reasons:
a) Failing or failed states may serve as a stable territory for terrorist groups where they can set up strategic training grounds, communication facilities, and military establishments.
b) Failing or failed states can provide supplementary reinforcement or additional recruits that the terrorist organization need for its global terrorist activities. Since failing or fragile states suffer from grave economic crisis, their people can be easily recruited to join and embrace the philosophy or dogmatism of an invading terrorist regime.
c) Failing or failed regimes maintain the superficial features of sovereignty.
d) The ostensible status of failing or failed states, which are able to uphold their self-government, cannot be easily interfered by international organizations like the United Nations or an alliance of sovereign nations in case of regime change initiated by terrorist organizations.
Related Article by PDI columnist Ramon J. Farolan: Revisiting the VFA
Trackbacks
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THE VINCENTON POST 
It is very hard to believe that the US does not have any special interests in the Philippines. In the history of their foreign policy they have never invaded(peacefully or otherwise) a country without exploiting(e.g. oil) it.
As for secession, you are wrong to judge people who are starving to death and say what they are doing is for religious ends. Mindanao is a very complex matter. Your prejudices against religion and your cultish devotion to Objectivism have blinded you to truth. The war against terrorism is just neoconservative propaganda designed to pacify the American people. The Muslims in the middle east just retaliated to aggressive foreign policy. The real terrorism is the terrorism of the state.
The primary issue of Mindanao conflict is religion. A hostile or belligerent province or territory cannot claim secession from the main government on the ground of religion. There were mistakes of the Philippine government but we cannot correct a political wrong by embracing or adopting an evil idea. Those who deny or refuse to believe that the goal of the separatist group of MNLF is to create an independent Islamic state in Mindanao are simply detached from reality. The only valid justification for secession must be based on individual rights. A province cannot claim independence on the ground that it adopts a different kind of religion, culture or ethnic norms.
Your idea that “Mindanao is a very complex matter” is an attempt to evade reality, because the Moro people in Mindanao are not really fighting for their freedom but for the enslavement of the people there. Secession would only lead to an endless dispute and even war between the Philippine government and a would-be Islamic regime of Mindanao. But even granting arguendo that religion is not the main issue of the armed conflict in the South, the Moro separatist people cannot justifiably claim secession on the very absurd ground which you mentioned, that “Mindanao is a very complex matter.”
I have no prejudice against religion, I am opposed to the idea that religious dogmatism can justifiably be used to enslave a group of people or exterminate those who are not in favor of a particular religion. Any kind of religious sect or denomination has the right to operate or flourish under our Republican system, but they have no right to claim political power to enforce their religious prejudices on people who do not choose to adopt any religious dogma. Religious extremists who resort to suicide bombing, kidnapping and terrorist activities have no room in a civilized society. The most dangerous brand of terrorism is the terrorism inspired by an extremist religion, because the people who act on blind faith can always claim that their immoral and ungodly advocacy is right and sanctioned by unknown, unknowable specter in a utopia they call heaven.
As to Libertarianism, this is a group which plagiarized the ideas of Ayn Rand that resorts to smear campaign and ad hominem attacks. I would be glad to see your position on the Mindanao issue under your real name. True Libertarians do not hesitate to reveal their names or identity whenever they engage in a debate.
It does not matter if people secede because of religion. What matters is they do it under their own volition. Just like I do not believe in smoking pot does not mean I have the right to initiate force on those that do. Now there is no proof that if Mindanao secedes it will form a brutal and theocratic government. It is just your imagination.
Ayn Rand is the person who resorts to ad hominem. She called Ludwig von Mises a bastard, F. A. Hayek her most pernicious enemy, and she decried Murray Rothbard for being an anarchist without even looking at the justification of anarchism. She did not tolerate ideas that were different( and better) than hers and because of this sectarianism turned Objectivism into a cult. To quote Rothbard “The major lesson of the history of the [objectivist] movement to libertarians is that It[collectivism] Can Happen Here, that libertarians, despite explicit devotion to reason and individuality, are not exempt from the mystical and totalitarian cultism that pervades other ideological as well as religious movements. Hopefully, libertarians, once bitten by the virus, may now prove immune.[9]”
If you really are dedicated to the truth then I suggest reading the works of Murray Rothbard for they are the intellectual flag bearer of the modern freedom movement.
“It does not matter if people secede because of religion. What matters is they do it under their own volition.”
That means it does not matter if they choose death and slavery; what matters is that they do it on faith. The words religion and volition are contradiction in terms. You’re not simply blind, you’re also detached from reality. My contention about Mindanao under a theocratic regime is based on history and reality. The Dark Ages was ruled by the Catholic mystics, and now Iran is being ruled and destroyed by a murderous, evil theocratic regime.
In regard to Rothbard, he does not have a consistent theory of liberty, and he spent most of his intellectual life insisting that libertarianism did not require a theory of culture, that it was a political philosophy that could accommodate any and all cultures and moralities. The later Rothbard realized that advocates of the free society needed “liberty PLUS”—that is, a fully articulated theory of culture, since some cultures promoted, while others undermined, the free society. Unfortunately, he argued that the culture most supportive of a free society was one steeped in conservative and traditional mores.
So, I can see that Rothbard, and many of the libertarians who followed him, simply dropped the larger context which freedom required in order to flourish. And when he finally embraced cultural preconditions, his resolution did not take into account how capitalism itself undermines certain traditions. Therefore, I am not interested in Rothbard whose concept of Libertarian anarcho-capitalism only existed in his mind and in the mind of his blind supporters.
In regard to anarcho-capitalism, this is not even a system; it is LIE! Anarcho-capitalism is incompatible with Capitalism as it is incompatible with man’s freedom. Anarchism is a prelude to everything that man should fear, such socialism, communism, fascism and every derivative of collectivism. A rational man cannot survive in an anarchic society where there is no definite, objective rule for man. You cannot put man’s fate at the mercy or generosity of a gang of savages who either harbor evil or altruistic intent and who have mustered enough power to rule and enslave men who don’t have the capacity to protect themselves. In a free society, we need the aid and protection of a government with a limited power. This is what Ayn Rand envisions, which is against anarcho-capitalism proposed by Murray Rothbard and his fellow anarchists. What we need is a separation of state and economy. In an anarchic society, there is no protection of contracts, individual rights, and mutual agreements between parties. This social system will only lead to barbarism and social chaos wherein power is available to those who have the means to use force against other men.
We cannot allow hitchhikers to appropriate and even desecrate the philosophy and ideals of Ayn Rand. This method is “infiltration” at best.
Aware, as i am, that one of the foundations of Anarchism (no, I won’t use the term anarcho-capitalism because that’s contradiction in terms) is Roy Child Jr.’s essay entitled “An Open Letter to Ayn Rand.” I’m very much sure you have read that essay. In the 1970s, Mr Childs was a prominent proponent of anarchism. He challenged Ayn Rand’s view of government in a famous essay entitled, Objectivism and the State: an Open Letter to Ayn Rand. Almost unknown is the fact that he subsequently changed his mind. Why? This is Child’s statement: “Because, to paraphrase my open letter to Ayn Rand, I was wrong. I now regard anarchism as incoherent and even dangerous to the libertarian movement. … Libertarians attempting to implement anarchism would find themselves invariably moving in practice toward something very different; something, furthermore, that they never intended. I believe that the end result of their beliefs and actions would horrify many of them if they could see it in advance.”
Like Child, it is my belief that anarchism appeals to be a realistic and rational ideal, but its end-result is horrifying. Now if you disagree with me, fine. I disagree with this evil (non)ideal for the fact that anarchism or anarcho-capitalism is negative. And one cannot prove a negative.
Ayn Rand said of the Libertarians: “I disapprove of, disagree with, and have no connection with, the latest aberration of some conservatives, the so-called “hippies of the right,” who attempt to snare the younger or more careless ones of my readers by claiming simultanteously to be followers of my philosophy and advocates of anarchism. Anyone offering such a combination confesses his inability to understand either. Anarchism is the most irrational, anti-intellectual notion ever spun by the concrete-bound, context-dropping, whim-worshiping fringe of the collectivist movement, where it properly belongs.”
On anarchism, she said: “Anarchy, as a political concept, is a naive floating abstraction: . . . a society without an organized government would be at the mercy of the first criminal who came along and who would precipitate it into the chaos of gang warfare. But the possibility of human immorality is not the only objection to anarchy: even a society whose every member were fully rational and faultlessly moral, could not function in a state of anarchy; it is the need of objective laws and of an arbiter for honest disagreements among men that necessitates the establishment of a government.”
Value is subjective. If the Muslim people find value in a theocracy then so be it. Also, you are the unrealistic one. The war in Mindanao has been going on for decades and probably thousands have died. If our government does not allow them to secede who knows for how long this war will continue and how many people will have to die all because you are afraid of the remote possibility that a brutal and fascistic government will emerge.
As for your statement about objective rule for men, there is no such thing as objective rule for men. Remember that countries themselves are in a state of anarchy and yet there is no perpetual war as you imagine. As for power gravitating to barbarians who have the most guns available, Geez isn’t this the situation we have now with all the guns belonging to the government so they rule?
Ayn Rand does not consider the nature of the state and makes the same mistake as the far leftists in thinking of the government as a monolithic entity independent of everything else. But the state is just a minority group of people with the monopoly to tax and legislate and eliminate all other competitors. Insofar as the state vests in itself the power of ultimate decision making it will always decide in favor of itself when the time comes that there is a conflict between the state and its subjects. This is how it grows.
Why is it that the premises you use in democracy and anarchy are different?
In democracy the majority of the people are wise so we let them elect leaders yet in anarchy you think that the majority of the people are evil? The self-interest of man will tend to use(vote) the state apparatus to redistribute wealth from the haves to the have-nots. That is why in democracy the people actually become public property themselves because everyone can vote on the life, liberty, and property of everyone else. This is morally indefensible!
Anarchocapitalism, natural order, voluntaryism, radical capitalism, private law society is the only social philosophy that is internally consistent in that it applies moral principles to everyone and not only the ‘non-government’.
Kenneth
You have clearly resorted to evasion by not addressing the points I have adduced. Do not resort to context-dropping. You know very little about the nature of Anarcho-Capitalism, as well as Ayn Rand’s Objectivism. You now confirm that you’re simply a coward hippie as you refused to give your full identity. I don’t have any time and space to deal with anonymous commenters. I don’t know if your intention is to waste my time by simply making it appear you embrace a LIE which is the opposite of my conviction and philosophy. I have seen enough of that kind in the past.
The geopolitical trend throughout history has been political integration. This has been the agenda of the United Nations. If we are to stop world government we must encourage secessions all over the world as it is the only practical means to achieve freedom.
The next time you reply, state your real name or identity. Those who anonymously comment on my blogs are simply advertising their hippie-like behavior. I don’t think you’re a hippie.
I suggest you watch this video by Stefan Molyneux .
I also suggest googling Hans Hermann Hoppe. He has become the intellectual leader of the anarcho-capitalist movement since his mentor Rothbard passed away.
You can find his archive at and this article about anarchocapitalism vs minarchism featured in mises.org and also in the book in honor of Dr. Hoppe “Freedom, Property, Society”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIs5r3ujBmw
mises.org/daily/3791
Before you suggest baloney things, read my blog protocol first: https://fvdb.wordpress.com/about-2/ .
Welcome to Vince’s world, friend.
Join the club.
I don’t want to give my sanction to anonymous comments and to commenters whose epistemology is fatally wrong and with evil agenda.
Why do you delete comments? How will my comments harm you? And what of my epistemology is wrong?
Did I not make my self clear? I cannot give my sanction to ANONYMOUS COMMENTERS… I cannot give my sanction to your attempt to drop the concepts in my blog and to spew unfounded claims. Between a socialist and a self-proclaimed anarcho-capitalist, it is more rational and more honorable to deal with the first because he is guided by a definite ideology. One cannot validate a negative or a lie. Anarcho-capitalism is worse than socialism/communism. It is undefined and undefinable. It has no moral and philosophical foundation at all. It is the best example of Attilaist whim worship. A is A. Check your premises.
Meepo is one of the misguided cult-members of Rothbard. Can you not understand English? You cannot beg the blogger to argue or deal with you if you insist to hide behind a false name! Don’t act like an idiot!
If a society provided no organized protection against force, it would compel every citizen to go about armed, to turn his home into a fortress, to shoot any strangers approaching his door—or to join a protective gang of citizens who would fight other gangs, formed for the same purpose, and thus bring about the degeneration of that society into the chaos of gang-rule, i.e., rule by brute force, into perpetual tribal warfare of prehistorical savages.
The use of physical force—even its retaliatory use—cannot be left at the discretion of individual citizens. Peaceful coexistence is impossible if a man has to live under the constant threat of force to be unleashed against him by any of his neighbors at any moment. Whether his neighbors’ intentions are good or bad, whether their judgment is rational or irrational, whether they are motivated by a sense of justice or by ignorance or by prejudice or by malice—the use of force against one man cannot be left to the arbitrary decision of another.
A recent variant of anarchistic theory, which is befuddling some of the younger advocates of freedom, is a weird absurdity called “competing governments.” Accepting the basic premise of the modern statists—who see no difference between the functions of government and the functions of industry, between force and production, and who advocate government ownership of business—the proponents of “competing governments” take the other side of the same coin and declare that since competition is so beneficial to business, it should also be applied to government. Instead of a single, monopolistic government, they declare, there should be a number of different governments in the same geographical area, competing for the allegiance of individual citizens, with every citizen free to “shop” and to patronize whatever government he chooses.
The “libertarians” . . . plagiarize Ayn Rand’s principle that no man may initiate the use of physical force, and treat it as a mystically revealed, out-of-context absolute . . . .
In the philosophical battle for a free society, the one crucial connection to be upheld is that between capitalism and reason. The religious conservatives are seeking to tie capitalism to mysticism; the “libertarians” are tying capitalism to the whim-worshipping subjectivism and chaos of anarchy. To cooperate with either group is to betray capitalism, reason, and one’s own future.
It is obvious that America wishes to lend a hand for world peace. If the average Filipino can’t stomach it, he is free to join those extremist groups that call America the “Great Satan.” In any case, religion and politics make a very bitter mix *cough*Iran*cough*.
America’s imperial deigns in Mindanao should be very clear to you. As a “libertarian” and “objectivist” intellectual you should know that America’s companies want the resources cheap.