Gina Apostol

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Ferdinand Marcos, Sr., shaking hands with President Richard Nixon in 1969 in Manila. Bettmann/Getty Images

MundoAméricaMundoAsia,

For Filipinos like me who grew up under the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos Sr., the news that the U.S. military would expand its presence in the Philippines has been dizzying and wounding.

The image of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin shaking hands in Manila last week with the country’s fatuously smiling president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son of the former despot, was like some tragic Groundhog Day. Mr. Marcos was elected in May. So Filipinos not only find themselves with another President Marcos, but also with another creeping occupation by the U.S. military under the guise of East Asian security.

The Philippine Senate put an end to the permanent basing of American forces three decades ago.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia

The Philippines is haunted by its relationship with the United States. I remember the day, in 1991, when the Military Bases Agreement between the two countries was rescinded. The headlines yelled, finally: Freedom! But worrywarts held on to their beads. Clark Air Force Base and Subic Naval Base were America’s largest overseas outposts — powerful vestiges of colonial rule decades after the American occupation, which lasted from 1899 to 1946, had ended. In American history books those decades have fallen into an Orwellian memory hole: lost or abridged.

On the Philippine side, however, the relationship with America looms like Donald Barthelme’s balloon, a deep metaphysical discomfort arising from an inexplicable physical presence.…  Seguir leyendo »