Marcos Ain't Call U.S Military vs. China

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

Sanamagan! U S Pres. Joe Biden unequivocally told President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to invoke the Mutual Defense Pact with Washington and the superior U S forces would come - at a dropped of a hat - to the succor of the Philippines military being harassed by the Chinese in the South China Sea.

“The United States defense commitments to Japan and to the Philippines are ironclad. They’re ironclad,” Biden said as he began three-way talks at the White House with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Marcos. “As I said before, any attack on Philippine aircraft, vessels or armed forces in the South China Sea would invoke our mutual defense treaty.”

Marcos and the Japanese Prime Minister are with Biden to formulate their strategies to deal with the belligerent Beijing government that threatened the multi trillion dollar trade sea lane there.

For me, Marcos will not call the U.S military help despite our ships from our coast guard have been rammed by Chinese government vessels in the Spratlys.

HERE MY REASON:

China’s trump card against the Philippines however is its imports from our country. By stopping to patronize them means tens if not hundreds of thousands of jobs and US$10.65 billion or P573, 201, 750, 000 (Year 2023) would be lost in the Philippines.

According to the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade, these goods were electronic equipment, ores slag and ash, copper, edible fruits, nuts, peel of citrus fruit, melons and fish, crustaceans, molluscs, and aquatics invertebrates.

Our import from China was US$30.93 billion or PhpP1.7 trillion for the same year.

Our five top exporting countries in 2022 were U.S, Japan, China, Hong Kong and Singapore with revenues of US$ 12.4 billion, US$11 billion, US$10.9 billion, U.S$10.4 billion, and U.S$4.9 billion, respectively.

Moreover, we have 242,107 Chinese tourists that arrived in the country from January 1 to November 27, 2023.

And I am not talking here about the tens of thousands Filipino workers in Mainland China and her protectorates Hong Kong and Macau who sent those tens of millions of dollars per year that help make our economy float.

Hawak tayo sa bayag ng mga Tsekwa, anak ng bakang dalaga!

We have limited options to challenge China because we are a poor country.

If our total export in 2022 is a mere US$78, 929, 717, 000, our neighbors' Indonesia, Vietnam and Singapore have a mammoth exports of US$291, 979, 103, 000 US$469, 548, 577, 000 and US$515, 077, 895, 000 in the same year (Seasea Stats).

As the maxim says: Beggars like us (like those military hands me down from our patron the U.S) cannot be choosers.