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The long-term goal of the U.S. is to prevent the unification of Taiwan with the Chinese mainland. The real agenda of the U.S. is to keep the Philippine leg of its theatre of war against China.
Thereβs a lot of lesson we should learn from the Reuters expose on how the U.S. military spread disinformation in the Philippines during the pandemic. One of the most significant ones is to prevent Philippines and China from transforming their relationship from enmity to amity.
The U.S. military propaganda was simple: to make sure the Filipino masses will ALWAYS see China as a threat, which would then tie the hands of leaders who want to be voted into power. Why does the U.S. want to do this? Taiwan.
The long-term goal of the U.S. is to prevent the unification of Taiwan with the Chinese mainland.
The real agenda of the U.S. is to keep the Philippine leg of its theatre of war against China. The Philippines is the nearest state to Taiwan, and from which, the U.S. can also launch attacks to Chinese cities.
To justify its massive military presence in the Philippines, the United States has to make sure that Philippine and China relations will remain in permanent crisis. It is never in U.S. agenda for these two countries to pursue a compromise solution. It is only by keeping China as a permanent threat to the Philippines that the U.S. can fulfil its long-term goal of having long-term presence in its territory.
If one would go back to the last 10 years, one can see how the U.S. has made sure that China will always be perceived as a threat by the Philippines:
1. Allowing China to have several fait accompli in the South China Sea: Scarborough Shoal, artificial islands.
The U.S. has no intention in stopping China from doing all these things - didnβt do it in Scarborough Shoal crisis; didnβt do it in terms of artificial islands.
By letting China accomplish these series of fait accompli, the Philippines will be in a state of permanent crisis with China, hence, in a relationship of perpetual enmity. It is the narrative of βChina stole these from usβ hence we need the U.S. to help us get them back, which will NEVER happen.
The U.S. will keep on justifying its presence as a way to deter Chinese actions, which is belied by empirical reality. The U.S. military propaganda even escalated their narrative into convincing Filipinos that China will invade the entire Philippines.
2. The U.S. military propaganda has prevented any joint development efforts between the Philippines and China. The earliest time I know was the joint-seismic mutual understanding between the Philippines, Vietnam, and China during the Arroyo administration. During my interview with former President Arroyo in my show Statecraft in 2021, I asked her about what was the U.S. position on that.
President Arroyo has told me that U.S. bureaucrats had been objecting to the joint venture. She took it up with President Bush who was surprised that U.S. bureaucrats were objecting to a research project.
The most aggressive propaganda against any joint ventures of the Philippines and China happened during Duterteβs time. Almost everyday, Western media and mainstream Philippine media were undermining diplomatic efforts of the Duterte administration.
Filipino pundits beholden to Pentagon have made sure that Filipinos will not find these acceptable, labelling them as capitulation, selling out, debt trap, etcetera. These Filipino pundits have taken advantage of the largely uninformed Filipino masses on how joint ventures work.
If the Philippines and China successfully forged joint partnerships, ventures, and development, their relationship will be transformed from rivalry to partnership, as they have both stake in making the cooperative arrangement work. The alternative to that is perpetual enmity, of zero-sum game between the Philippines and China, which the United States wants to happen continuously because it is the only situation where the US can present itself as the messiah Filipinos need in their lives.
Just ask yourselves: How many times the United States initiated any diplomatic talks between the Philippines and China? None.
3. The U.S. will never back up the territorial sovereignty claim of the Philippines because that would mean being against not just with Chinese mainland, but also with Taiwan WHICH HAS EXACTLY THE SAME CLAIM AS BEJING, Viet Nam, and Malaysia. It is absolutely idiotic to think that the U.S. will go against any of these countries for the sake of the Philippines.
Thus, the U.S. will keep on encouraging Filipinos to pursue absolutely unrealistic goals. By keeping them in that state of hope that they could achieve those goals with U.S. help, the Philippines will be stuck in a permanent crisis with China, which the U.S. will use to justify its βtemporarily permanentβ military presence in the Philippines, which is nothing but for the sake of Taiwan, which is also a territorial rival of the Philippines!
4. The U.S. military propaganda will always undermine any diplomatic efforts of the Philippines with China. How many times our Foreign Affairs Secretary had any high-level meeting with his counterparts in Beijing in the last two years??? By preventing any meaningful exchange with China, the U.S. creates the perfect condition for paranoia: Fear of something you donβt understand; and you cannot understand something unless you have meaningful engagement with it.
What would this do to the Philippines?
1. Stuck in a perpetual cycle of dependency with the United States
2. Forever a mendicant, a beggar-State, of U.S. largesse.
3. Maldevelopment brought by being in a state of permanent crisis with the worldβs largest economy, the worldβs most complete industrial system, and the worldβs scientific superpower. All these benefits the Philippines will not be able to gain in a transformative way because the U.S. will not want it to happen. If the Philippines benefits from Chinaβs continuous rejuvenation, the U.S. will lose the magic of its propaganda against China.
Joint development with China is the ONLY ACHIEVABLE GOAL. This transforms the relationship of China and the Philippines from a relationship in perpetual crisis into a collaborative relationship. This will not be accepted by the United States. However, it is up to the real sovereign of the Philippines - the Filipino people - to determine the fate of their relationship with China: Permanent Crisis or Permanent Cooperation. The choice is simple if you really care for the stability, peace, and developmental trajectory of the future generations of Filipinos.
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Tama ka po Ms. Sass, forever tyo mendicant state at laging aasa sa US kasi yun ang ginagawa ng US sa atin. Ayaw nilang tayong pinoy ay maging maayos na state o bansa gsto nila lagi tayong magulo para madali nilang ma uto kapag kailangan nila ng base militar ang ultimately human sacrifice para sa kanilang interest.
Sadly, most of our countrymen havenβt learned their history about the hidden motives of Americans since time immemorial (from the time they βhijackedβ the victory of Filipinos over Spain. Imagine βbuyingβ a country they donβt own, from a seller who also is not the owner!
Buried in their rhetorics about benevolence (kuno) is a nation of users. Sadder, though, is that the Philippines allowed themselves to be used. Nakakaiyak.