From Today‘s mail section:
“Regarding your recent ‘Kill the treaty’ editorial:
Your anti-American attitude is apparent.
You have forgotten how much America has done for the Filipinos of the world.”
ANTHONY DANGELO
preacher1111@msn.com
Today publisher’s reply was:
“Like what?”
Asteeg talaga ang TODAY!
Meanwhile, another letter, sent by Jaime L. Guerrero, Chief of Staff of the Office of the Vice President, corrected the claim of Today columnist (whose name is not worth mentioning here) that Vice President Guingona “openly criticized” the Balikatan exercises during the July 4 celebrations at the US embassy. In the letter, he included the full text of the Vice President’s remarks:
“Today marks Friendship Day between the United States and the Philippines. It is a special day that embodies more than a hundred years of partnership between our two nations.
“Manuel L. Quezon, our vibrant President of the past, once said, ‘I bow to no man because I am free, but I bow to God because I am a Man!’ In the same vein, I say we are partners. We are friends. But we are not vassals. Because we value truth, and the truth has set us free.
“Our friendship has endured over a hundred years. Like the best of steel it has been hardened by teh fierciest of fires. We fought each other at the turn of the century, our soldiers fought and died together in Bataan and Corregidor and Bataan and other fields of battle during World War II, and in 1946, you gave us back our promised independence.
“Through those hundreds of years and more, we have our conformities and confrontations usual among allies. Nut the values overcome deficiences.
“The lessons learned of Washington and Jefferson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John Kennedy, the return of freedom to a nation as promised, and the social projects undertaken in Basilan in the wake of controversy during the Balikatan exercises in 2001, which won the hearts and minds of many in that troubled island province. All these giver meaning to our partnership.
“Today we celebrate this binding tie of amity and I ask you to join me in saying Mabuhay to Philippine-United States Friendship Day! Mabuhay!”
Guingona has also been accused of being anti-US but he maintains he is not anti-US, only pro-Filipino. His statement shows Guingona wants genuine friendship between US and the Philippines, as opposed to the existing unfair relationship that the two nations now have under the Bush and Macapagal regimes.
Ederic Eder
Ederic is a Filipino communications worker in the telecom, media, and technology industry. He writes about K-dramas and Korean celebrities for Hallyudorama.
He used to be a social media manager for news at GMA Network, where he also headed YouScoop, GMA News and Public Affairs’ citizen journalism arm.
He was with Yahoo! Philippines for more than three years before returning to GMA Network, where he was also previously part of the News Research section.
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yaah right…were such a stupid person kapag naniwala tayong may nagawa ang plastik na U.S. sa atin!!!!
ah, oo nga pala, meron nga, may cellphone na ako…hehehehehe
made in U.S. laki talaga ng nagawa nila “umunlad” ang mga pilipino sa sinasabing technology ng mga Kano, if i know lang, surplus lang ‘to. tuwa lang si Pinoy eh, tanggap lang kasi ng tanggap just to say na in, ang bayad sa susunod na lang. humanda ang apo mo, neng!
ngayon ang iraq may internet cafe na rin at may cellphone na, because of U.S. wait lang iraq kung paano kayo sisingilin ni Uncle Sam,
uhmmmmm…..like…… they did nothing good to us.
wideyeshut,
Whether you like it or not, the US has done some things for us.
hmmm, like what? 😉
If we bring it further, Today has all the right to say that because it’s true, and they should say it precisely because they’re in the news business and they have the responsibility to tell the truth at all times.
What has America done for us?
Give us democracy? Well, the writings of the Propagandists and the Katipuneros they inspired, together with the guiding rules of the Katipunan, show that even before the Americans set foot on our land there existed a large-enough crop of Filipinos who knew what democracy means. That the Katipunan was able to muster a membership large enough to take on the Spaniards successfully means that the Filipinos of those times had enough intelligence to digest such progressive ideas by Rizal, del Pilar, Lopez Jaena, Bonifacio, Jacinto, and Mabini.
It would be intolerably presumptuous on the part of any American if he were to claim that a hundred years ago his country’s government saved us from Spain.
The history books themselves say that by the time the Spaniards were defeated, the Americans had control only of Manila and Cavite–proof enough to anyone with a sound intelligence that Filipinos were able to wipe out Spanish control over a large part of the Philippines without any help from the Americans.
In fact, according to Richard Brinsley Sheridan, a British lawyer who was in the Philippines when the Americans intervened in the resistance against Spain, the Americans would not have been able to capture Manila from the Spaniards as easily as they were able to without help from the Filipinos. Such analysis, coming from one who was decidedly objective on account of his very background, is more than convincing.
Did the Americans bring us economic progress? They brought economic activity to this country, but this economic activity benefited only they, never the Filipino people. In fact this economic activity, which continues to this day, has not served anything except to drain the country of its resources continuously.
Let us not talk about the military bases in Clark and Subic anymore; the only things we got from them are unsolved cases of physical and sexual violence by American soldiers against Filipinos. The very people in these bases, who were supposedly there to defend us, went away with their penises behind their balls when the Japanese attacked us, and returned only when the Japanese Imperial Army had been neutralized by the guerillas.
Oh, so we learned the English language, the leading international language of today? You don’t have to be an American colony to learn English, as shown very well by former beauty queen and actress Michelle Aldana who learned the basics of French on her own and mastered it by majoring in French Literature under UP’s European Languages program–even though the Philippines was never a colony of France.
Today was very justified in saying that.
I can’t belive TODAY said that–as if, they’re not in the news business. They are suppose to know! Whether you like it or not, the US has done some things for us. “yan ang isang sakit ng mga Pinoy!
It’s disgusting!
tsk. oo nga naman.
That was a good reply by the Today publisher, but “Which Filipinos?” would have been a better answer. For there are Filipinos and Filipinos; there are the Filipino people who have never benefited a bit from US domination, and there are the servile Filipino leaders who get to keep their riches and political careers by licking the soles of Uncle Sam’s boots.