Conspiracy theory

In the Philippines, what do the Right and the Left have in common? They both think the United States, effectively, still runs the country. I once shared a panel with the eminent Luis Teodoro, the professor of journalism and tireless columnist whose leftist creds are the stuff of legend. We were taking part in a forum in the University of the Philippines, and for his closing remarks the man many journalists simply call Dean (a post he once held) chose to remind the audience (college journalism students, most of them) about what for him must have been a central fact of life: "Nothing happens in the Philippines without the Americans." I smiled when he said that, and took careful mental note of exactly what he said. (To be sure, he may have said "in our country" instead of "in the Philippines," but the start and the end of his sentence I vividly remember.) It was decidedly non-academic of him to phrase his conclusion in absolute terms. Nothing? Absolutely nothing? In my turn, I said something about living in the world as it is, not as we think it is, but I did not really engage his point (or, for that matter, his audience). I do not doubt that the United States still exercises inordinate influence in the Philippines, but does it in fact still run the country? Perhaps Dean would have done better to nuance his position, say by limiting his observation to pivotal events in recent Philippine history (then perhaps it would be possible to make a case), but where's the fun in that? Another Dean, the equally indefatigable blogger behind Philippine Commentary, Dean Jorge Bocobo, tacks to the right as reliably as Dean Teodoro leans to the left. Dean (Bocobo, that is, a grandson of the great Jorge Bocobo, first dean of the UP College of Law) wrote some of the most interesting, most unexpected analyses of the political situation during the Hello Garci scandal. I truly found his posts bracing. But on one point, I thought Dean showed his true, American, colors. When the notion that President Arroyo had been bugged by United States security forces was first raised, Dean positively jumped at the issue. As usual, he wrote well, lucidly, about the possibility, but I got the distinct sense that he was energized by the possibility precisely because it involved the Americans. It fit in with his view of things. The country's biggest political scandal in the 21st century, and conveniently the US government was (or so he argued) possibly in the center of it. This similarity had occurred to me before, and it occurred to me again when I read through the comments to our first posts in Current. I am disconcerted when I read, from Concerned FilAm's two comments, for example, that the Philippines has not outgrown its colonial status.

Again, the Philippines is still pretty much a US colony whether we like it or not. Even other Asean countries are trying to gang up on PI, judging it as #1 in corruption.

And again:

For me, the Philippines is still under Uncle Sam’s influence anyways. Even here in the United States, there is no single organization that unites the whole FilAm nation.

As a journalist, as someone who tries to work with information about politics as it is really practiced, I must say I like the second quote better. But both comments seem to me to originate in one source: Dean Teodoro's unreal assumption that "nothing happens" without US intervention. Stuartsantiago also left two comments. This one was particularly disorienting:

i think you are completely off-track. dont believe government propaganda. the leg, though diseased, has not been been sawn off–you’re just blind to it. gma (and most politicians) sees it very clearly, which is why she allowed daniel smith’s midnight escape from the makati city jail. among other things.

I agree about Daniel Smith's midnight transfer; it was done, without a court order, to please the Americans. (Admiral William Fallon, who ran the Pacific Command at the time and is now in charge of the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, had abruptly cancelled the Balikatan exercises, putting severe pressure on the Arroyo administration.) But for every such craven politically motivated decision favoring the Americans, we can point to dozens of other craven politically motivated decisions that do not favor them. Where does this leave us? I'm afraid that the school of thought that believes that, indeed, "nothing happens in the Philippines without the Americans" is the Philippine political equivalent of a conspiracy theory. It chooses the facts, in fact it recognizes as factual only those it has chosen, to fit a grand, an ambitious, theory. I am also disturbed by the idea, assumed in stuartsantiago's comment, that a journalist would base his thinking on government propaganda. Now I certainly do not wish to say, I certainly do not believe, that I have a monopoly on the right information, or that journalists do. (In fact, I have an abhorrence of the journalist who traffics in "inside" information; you see some of them validating each other's "scoops" in coffeeshops every morning.) But come on! Government propaganda? Surely even a rookie journalist would have, aside from actual experience living in the Philippines, better sources than that. Dean Bocobo was also kind enough to leave a comment. But it is the kind of comment that raises questions about our individual "blind spots."

Funny how Democrats get front page treatment in the Philippines when they hold hearings on the Philippines. As if there haven’t been dozens of US Congress and Senate hearings that have tackled foreign aid to the Philippines all these years. But of course those were run by Republicans and didn’t hear the testimonies of leftist “bishops."

Dean misrepresents the news value of the Boxer hearing in the Philippines by attributing its "front-page treatment" to the leading role played by Democrats. In fact, it is the topic of the hearing -- extrajudicial killings in the Philippines -- that guaranteed its high profile in Philippine media. Of course if the Democrats had not won last November, we wouldn't be talking about the hearing today. Of course if there was no US aid involved, there would be no hearing either. But all this is the back story, not the actual movie. Dean does all of us a disfavor by deliberately mistaking one for the other. Lastly, a comment from the dent, who shares Amando Doronila's view that US military aid to the Philippines might soon dry up.

if the premise or as circumstantial evidence/s reveal that the State security forces are behind the killings as found by the Melo Commision then the aid has to stop otherwise it would appear that America is a party implicit and complicit to the killings by giving the arms/logistics to the security forces perpetrating it!

Of course Congress has the power of the purse, but this does not necessarily mean that a cut in aid is in the works. The Bush White House does not exactly roll over and play dead, when the Democrats in Congress say so. The Democrats regained control of both houses of Congress in November because of widespread American disenchantment with the war in Iraq. Since then, Democratic leaders have repeatedly called on George W. Bush to start a troop pullout. Five months after the elections, has he complied with the clear, stark message behind what he himself called a "thumping" at the polls? Well, how do you spell s-u-r-g-e?