American foolishness

August 20, 2018 Opinion Sideglance

The recent warning by US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs Randall Schriver against the country buying armaments from Russia is simply foolishness.

I don’t know whether Mr. Schriver is that ignorant about the right of the Philippines in the exercise of its sovereignty and its foreign relationship policies with other States and nations or he is simply irresponsible in coming up with inane statements.

Mr. Schriver’s caution towards the Philippine defense establishment against buying

Russian weapons systems and platforms smacks of bullying tactics aimed at a so called partner State.

For its part the Philippines has every right to buy weapons from other superpowers when its’ so called “Big Brother” the US fails time and again to provide top quality armaments needed by the members of our Armed Forces of the Philippines for the defense of our country.

The US has been our ally for almost forty years and yet look at the present military capability of our country when compared to them. True they have been selling and donating weapons and military equipment but as the President had revealed just recently that several supposedly brand new helicopters purchased from them have already broken down or crashed to the ground.

This is unacceptable.

If our supposed ally cannot provide us with quality armaments and military equipment then our government should by all rights look elsewhere especially since the AFP is now undergoing its modernization program.

The US should never think to dictate must less threaten our plan to buy arms and equipment from some other State such as Russia when they have failed miserably to support the modernization of the AFP in the past. If they believe that the Philippines should not be buying weapons from Russia then instead of warning us on the matter what they should have done is simply come up with a better offer of quality armaments at a price much lower than what the Russians are asking.

This is what they should have done if they really consider the Philippines as their ally here in the Southeast Asian Region.

But the statement of Schriver simply shows how they usually treat their allies and how they perceive the relationship with the country is being played out. If Mr. Schriver will not take back what he has said then they have already confirmed what President Rodrigo Duterte has suspected long ago, that they are not really our allies.