WITH LESS than six months to go before the curtains finally fall down on the Visiting Forces Agreement, the Senate can use a common sense tact in reviewing the damn-it-or-damn-you pact. The window is still wide enough, policy wonks say, for a cooler appreciation of a hot issue.
It can be a tricky, risky thing, though. Once, we were flying in a Cessna plane over the Pacifi c when thick clouds were blown towards us by twin storms in Bicol. In ten seconds, our pilot smoked five sticks while looking out for a “window” in the storm clouds. Suddenly, he doved the aircraft almost vertically and landed us on a grassy coconut farm, not in an airstrip.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. In such times, what works could be pure, old-fashioned common sense, which the Senate seems to have forgotten it has plenty of, apart from Dick Gordon.
Your honors, how about a special committee to review it? Its members can be composed of the following senators: Lito Lapid, Manny Pacquiao, Bong Revilla and Tito Sotto, with Tito Sen as the chairman. NOW is the time to break down the VFA for the hoi polloi.
Let me explain my proposal. Each senator is considered on the basis of his field of expertise. All of them are familiar with what we call a script, which is, in a way, a treaty is. They know how to read one and act as the script says.
Let us start with Lapid, who is a stunt master, probably the best we ever had. In one scene in a movie, he shot two guys by splitting the bullet on a dagger while standing on horse with one foot. In real life, you use science. The shortest distance between two points is the straight line. Make-believe or nakakabilib is only for a show. Lapid should be able to see what kind of stunts there are in the agreement. Like, who’s falling off a galloping horse, jumping from a tall building or taking all those kicks and punches while the star actor is smooching the pretty girl. Not fair. Who’s doing the heavy lifting and who gets the credit should be obvious in the script.
Ronald Baloloi, a defense security analyst, observed that the VFA is supposed to deter China from its illegal incursion and expansion in the West Philippine Sea. It hasn’t. Look at what China has built in the area. She calls the bluff..
The Chinese have a saying that while the dogs may bark in the night the caravan will proceed. Is the VFA a barking dog but no bite? Lapid can find that out.
For his part, Pacquiao should be able to determine if the VFA is a mere shadowboxing. He knows whereof I speak for him. After all, I presumed that the victims of his lethal fists were all masters of shadowboxing. He must also determine if there is a knock-out punch in the treaty, let alone a winner game plan. That’s a workout in the park for our Pambansang Kamao.
And then there is Bong. We reserve the charming aspect of the agreement for OK si Kap. He’s very good at it, really. He charmed his way out of a plunder charge before the Sandigan. The Court acqquited him, not exonerated. It’s a mind-boggling decision of setting him free and asking a refund to the government of the perceived snitch. Why, he even won a reelection! Charm can really work wonders. Wink, wink.
Remember, those whom the gods wish to appoint or disappoint, first charm them. For the larger part of our not-so-splendid ties with the United States, the charming offensive has rendered us naive for the longest time. What’s in it ba talaga for us in the VFA? Even the bar top notchers in the club of elders, which is what the Senate is in Latin, appear to be at a loss. Because, as the venerable Rufo Colayco, a former boss in Clark, once told me, when the ships hit sand, everybody dives for the fine print. A review of the VFA by this special Senate committee could be a timely awakening.
In the meantime, keep in mind as well that China has been doing its own charm offensive. It is better to win, Sun Tzu says, without fighting. We can count the ways from loans to loins. A Chinese boat ramming into a Filipino fishing boat is another matter, of course. And so was mistaking by an American soldier of a Filipino as a wild boar.
Last but not least, we assign to Tito Sen the task of spotting the punch line or joke in the treaty. Borrowing his word, “baka naano lang.” It’s possible that the joke has been on us for the last century. In his book Empire, American novelist Gore Vidal sketched a narrative about how two top US officials saw the importance of the Philippines in their expansionist mode.
“We’ll talk about it at breakfast,” one said to the other. The setting was more than a hundred years ago.
This time around, similar conversation could be the stuff of “Saturday Night LIve”, a top sitcom in the US. Alec Baldwin has played Donald Trump. Willie Nepomuceno can do a Duterte, no sweat. BTW, where is the great impersonator?
As a veteran comedian, Sotto understands the impact of timing on your audience. Locating where parody and caricature are will make a difference, if not distinction. The issue at hand is no laughing matter, or it is. He can seek the counsel of the other Escalera brothers.
The committee’s output can be submitted pronto to President Duterte, who as the new director of our foreign policy, can either say “from the top” or “ pack up.” He is familiar with the word shoot, as in shoot the breeze in law school or shoot someone else, whatever the reason.
See, their respective roles are neatly cut out for them.
