The Philippines President Duterte’s recent announcement that the 1998 U.S.-Philippines Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) would be cancelled has renewed hope that not only would this former U.S. colony finally attain freedom from imperial manipulation, but also that a new emerging age of infrastructure development can usher in an end of poverty and war in the Pacific.
Now what? President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines is outraged. He wants an end to the U.S. military presence in his country. He wants to curb all cooperation with the U.S. armed forces. He hits hard, talks big. And his people seem to be behind him, no matter what – his popularity rating is high and rising, now around 87%, which is something unimaginable anywhere else in Southeast Asia, or in the world.
Philippines, for decades a limping invalid, poor and suffering from countless ailments, is now suddenly finding itself at the vanguard, reshuffling the entire Asia Pacific, sending Western imperialists packing.
In Manila, where the US used to roam unopposed, now Russian warships are calling on goodwill and symbolic visits.
Manila and Davao — When Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ascended to power in 1999, almost no one in the West, in Asia and even in most of the Latin American countries knew much about his new militant revolutionary anti-imperialism. From the mass media outlets like CNN and the BBC, to local televisions and newspapers (influenced or directly sponsored by Western sources), the ‘information’ that was flowing was clearly biased, extremely critical, and even derogatory.
In 1959, Phoenix, Arizona was growing like a weed. As its population doubled every few years, I was working my way through the public school system, doing my best to obey most of the rules, or at least not get caught doing otherwise. The teacher’s dreaded paddle was something to be avoided at all cost. Dust and asbestos fibers from school construction filled the air as the little city burgeoned into the epicenter of the baby-booming desert Southwest. As my school’s enrollment grew beyond its limits, boundary lines were redrawn in order to fill the classrooms of a newer school, a mile to
