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PRAISES & COMMENTARIES on Professor Roland
Simbulan's new book, Forging a Nationalist Foreign Policy:
" I strongly commend this book to all our countrymen....For
the Filipino is the key to resolve the challenges vividly portrayed by
Professor Simbulan....The Filipino is the answer to his own destiny."
- from the FOREWORD by Teofisto T.
Guingona,Jr.
former Vice President and
former Secretary of Foreign
Affairs,
Republic of the Philippines
"This book quite rightly articulates the Philippines'
aspiration for sustainable human development. Students of politics and
history as well as policy-makers will truly gain from this book that
challenges the country to assert national sovereignty and
self-determination."
-Rep. Edsel Lagman, Vice Chairman,
Committee on
Appropriations , House of Representatives,
Congress of the Philippines
"This is how our young students can learn the crucial lessons
of our past, how teachers, advocates and activists can appreciate the
contemporaniety of events that continue to shape our country
today, and how legislators can craft the laws and policies that can
propel our nation to its rightful place in world politics, asserting a
national identity and pursuing genuine pro-Filipino interests. Prof.
Simbulan's mission to imbue or to strengthen a sense of nationalism in
the reader, while fully understanding the complex tapestry of our
country's past and present, is the unifying thread of this compelling
collection of lectures and speeches. But the most important value we
can get from this book is a sense of history -- of knowing what we, as a
people, have done in the past, what we can do today, and what we can be
in the future."
-Rep. Luzviminda C. Ilagan,
Gabriela Women Party,
House of Representatives,
Congress of the Philippines
" At a critical time when the Philippines is debating its
place in the world, in history and its relationship to the United States
of America and the Visiting Forces Agreement is under review, this
enlightening and excellent book is just in time. Professor Roland
Simbulan has a unique personal experience, insight and knowledge of what
he writes in Forging a Nationalist Foreign Policy. It will be a lasting
resource book for generations to come. I recommend it to all."
- Fr. Shay Cullen, Mssc,
President, PREDA Foundation
People's Recovery, Empowerment
& Development
Assistance, Olongapo City
" Roland Simbulan's book is a rare initiative that rekindles
the indomitable spirit of national integrity ingrained in the 1987
Constitution. In today's confusing world, the book probes through the
tortuous road of paving a nationalist foreign policy obstructed by
continued U.S. military presence, made legitimate by the dictates of
U.S. visiting forces and bilateral immunity agreements."
- Etta P. Rosales, former
Akbayan Partylist
Representative,
& former Chair, Committee on
Civil, Political and Human
Rights, House of
Representatives, Congress of the
Philippines
" As in his past works, Roland G. Simbulan reminds us of the
unfinished struggle ahead -- the need for a more vigorous mass-based
nationalist awakening that will once and for allput an end to foreign
hegemony and elite rule. Only a nation that is free can forge a truly
independent foreign policy at peace with the whole world."
- Bobby M. Tuazon, Director for
Policy Studies,
Center for People Empowerment
in Governance
"While reactionary elements would amend the 1986 charter to
eliminate its nationalist and economic provisions and open the country
to untrammeled foreign exploitation to its resources, this book should
serve as a primer and reference book for those who love their country
and would like to effect genuine social change. Let us heed Simbulan's
call for people's call for people's participation in abrogating the VFA
and in forging a nationalist foreign policy."
- Dr. Elmer A. Ordonez,
former Vice President for
Academic Affairs, &
former Dean, College of Arts
& Sciences,
Lyceum of the Philippines
University
Editors Note: For more information see the
article by Arkibong Bayan
Book Review by Jeremy Agar
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“FORGING A
NATIONALIST FOREIGN POLICY”
by Roland G
Simbulan, Ibon Books,
Quezon City , 2009
Roland Simbulan
is a Filipino academic, active in the movements to free the Philippines
from nuclear weapons and American troops. Nationalism, he insists,
is not about “advancing your country’s interests at the expense
of those of other peoples”. On the contrary, it can be an aspect
of what the Americans might call a good neighbours policy. To
Simbulan, nationalism and internationalism are linked.
The Philippines ’
struggles have been partially successful. Simbulan sees a 1991
Senate vote to close the country’s
US
bases as a highlight of his country’s history. The Philippine
archipelago, handily off the East Asia
mainland, had served as an anchor on an American chain of
foreign bases. For a century the US saw the
Philippines
as vital for the projection of its military power to key places
like China , Vietnam
and Japan
. The host elites, Simbulan writes, had been traditionally servile
and opportunist. So why did they surprise everyone and give
Uncle Sam his marching orders? Simbulan suggests that it had a
lot to do with the late, unlamented President Ferdinand Marcos.
Marcos, who grabbed dictatorial power in 1972 as his American
sponsors squatted in the Philippines , began to lose his
grip, forcing the Yanks to increase their aid, and Marcos his
terror, so that he could hold on. This showed just how much the
two countries’ interests were incompatible and some Senators
were emboldened.
US Military
Back
Since the door
was locked, the
US
has been rattling the windows, trying to get back in. The
resulting tensions are Simbulan’s theme. In Manila Presidents
come and go, sometimes promising democracy but never delivering.
Local elites, who often need soldiers to prop them up, have to
keep out a complex number of opponents. Violence lurks below,
emerging in crisis into the open. Basilan, a small island with a
mixed Christian and Muslim population, is known variously as
“the kidnapping capital of the
Philippines
” and as “the second front in the war against terrorism”. There,
as Simbulan sees it, US troops support the Philippine Army
against a “rag-tag bandit group” whose average age is 18 (McCoy
– see my above review - says they were originally a Muslim group
but degenerated into a kidnapping gang. It’s a typical
regression). The Governor, a former member of the rebels - and
believed by some to be secretly loyal still - conducts a
“balance of terror” policy, exploiting the situation to settle
personal accounts.
That’s just one
island. Others have quite separate dynamics. Given the Philippines ’
difficult and exploitative history, it’s not surprising that
Uncle Sam is still around. The Visiting Forces Agreement allows
the US military to
enter the country to carry out “activities” that don’t have to
be specified and to stay for as long as they like, immune from
local law. There might not still be a Clark Air Force base or a
Subic Bay
Naval base, but they’re back. With all the conflicting agendas
being enacted, Simbulan muses, the countryside is a “free-fire
zone”. This book, a collection of essays and speeches, is an
authoritative account. The author has a long and consistent
record in speaking up for the Philippines .
Those wanting to look closely will find the appendices useful.
They contain photocopied texts of the key agreements.
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