Why some Filipinos can be called idiots

AS I WRECK THIS CHAIR
By William M. Esposo
Philstar

Time and again, your Chair Wrecker has made reference to the eminent Professor Emmanuel Q. Yap’s adopted term for one who does not know the truth — an IDIOT. Prof. Yap credits Webster for originally defining an idiot as one who does not know the truth.

One Chair Wrecker column reader who reacted to our Tuesday column on the Bush shoe throwing incident was taken aback when I called his attention to being an idiot, one who did not know the truth. He felt that I resorted to name calling after he wrote something I did not agree with.

He failed to understand that it is name calling when there is no justifiable context for using the term. If you argued with your neighbor and called him stupid for no reason at all — then that is name calling. But if your neighbor deliberately jumped out of an airplane without a parachute, then you are well within your right to call him stupid.

The Chair Wrecker column reader wrote: “The invasion in Iraq was not a misadventure! It was a move to free a people shackled by the brutality of dictator Saddam. What would the Philippines be today if the Americans did not return and shed blood to free the Filipinos from the tyranny of Japanese occupation? The Japanese would have invaded (the) PI (Philippine Islands) whether or not the Americans were there. They have expansionist aims in their minds.

The plague that Bin Laden started will continue on whether or not the US invaded Iraq. Their objective is world domination and there is no negotiating with them. Being nice with those terrorists will not stop them from their evil schemes. Do you have (a) better idea (how) to solve the problems in Mindanao? Maybe the US will learn from it when the insurgency in the south is settled peacefully by the Philippine government.

Many Americans today are getting tired of fair weather allies like the Philippines whose only interest in the US is what it can get economically. It would be great if America will wake up one day and declare a hands-off policy in foreign affairs — isolationism. All foreign aid will be terminated since they’re only wasted by corrupt governments. I think the world will be a better place for it and the Philippines will be finally freed of imperialism.”

It was so easy to see why the fellow did not know the truth. Up to now he buys the big lie that the Iraq invasion was to free the world of Saddam Hussein. He did not know that it was all about Iraqi oil. He also failed to realize that dictatorships per se do not bother the US. The US promoted many dictatorships in the 1970s including the Marcos dictatorship here.

He also thinks that the US liberated us from Japanese occupation instead of simply retaking their prime Pacific possession. He forgot or maybe never knew that General Douglas MacArthur argued with Admiral Chester Nimitz before President Franklin Delano Roosevelt that the US must retake the Philippines which Nimitz proposed to bypass. When they were planning the Pacific Offensive against Japan in Hawaii, Gen. MacArthur posited that the push towards Japan cannot be accomplished while a major armed Japanese force remains operational in the Philippines.

The Chair Wrecker column reactor was so sure that Japan would have invaded the Philippines whether the US were here or not. He failed to realize that Japan respected Thailand’s neutrality. He thinks that the goal of the Al Qaeda terrorists is Islamic world domination and not the removal of oppressive US foreign policy. He does not even realize that promoting mayhem may be able to scare nations but will not be enough to dominate the world.

Prof. Manoling Yap is right when he says that the Filipinos can only be united when the Filipinos finally realize and understand the historical truth — what really happened to our country and who were really responsible for the pitiful state we now find ourselves in.

And I have not met anyone who can better provide the most insightful glimpse to the historical truth than Prof. Yap. Manoling Yap has not only researched the hidden truth about our history. He had the rare ringside seat to many of the important events that happened.

When Manoling Yap was a scholar (sponsored by the late President Jose P. Laurel) and studying in the US - he was able to read many rare books about the early years of US occupation of the Philippines. Manoling looked for these rare books following the specific instructions of former president Laurel who told him: “Pag-aralan mo kung paaano tayo linoloko ng mga Amerikano (Find out how the Americans are fooling us).”

Manoling Yap has been an adviser to Presidents Laurel, Garcia, Macapagal and Marcos. Manoling Yap was there when Marcos confided to former House Speaker Pepito Laurel that martial law was imposed on US insistence. It was Manoling Yap whom Marcos tapped to open Philippine relations with Socialist and Communist countries. Manoling had met and dealt with the then top leaders of China and the other Eastern European bloc countries.

Manoling Yap was there in Vladivostok to witness the accord that ended the Cold War in 1989. He saw for himself that it was not the Philippine Senate that kicked out the US from their bases here but the Russians who demanded that the US bases in the Philippines be dismantled.

Prof. Manoling Yap can tell you who among those we regard as heroes are actually quislings who willingly served a foreign interest — to the detriment of our national interest. And who among those we have been conditioned to regard as heels were closer to being heroes.

There are those who attempt to inform Filipinos about their history. Theirs is a noble attempt. However, what is very much lacking in what they share with us is the proper context with which we can form the big picture. Much of what are discussed fall under the category of mere data or sometimes — trivia.

Filipinos must adopt a positive attitude to being qualified to be called an idiot, one who does not know the truth. Instead of taking offense, Filipinos must strive to know the historical truth. Filipinos can really protest when they’re called idiots — only after knowing the historical truth.

Chair Wrecker website: www.chairwrecker.com