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<img src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources-22/marcos-jr-security-forum-2024.avif" loading="lazy" alt="Marcos Jr at security forum, Singapore 2024" />
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(President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. delivers his opening speech for the 21st Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore, May 31, 2024.)
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<p>
Marcos replied as if he were a president of a superpower: 
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"If by a willful act a Filipino - not only serviceman but even a Filipino citizen - is killed ... that is what I think is very, very close to what we define as an act of war, and therefore we will respond accordingly."
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<p>
He noted that Filipinos had been injured in recent clashes, but none had been killed yet. "Once we get to that point, we would have crossed the Rubicon. Is that a red line? Almost certainly, it's going to be a red line". (That idiom, meaning making an irreversible decision, is derived from Roman general Julius Caesar and his army's crossing of the Rubicon in 40 BC to rule as strongman of the Roman Republic.)
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<p>
A more rational president would have replied that water cannons are not classified as fatal weapons, and the Philippine government would have to determine its appropriate response or ask Asean to intervene. Whether it was a braggadocio, whether he had not had enough sleep or had a hangover from something else, Marcos' immediate answer was shocking: that he would go to war against China - "a Filipino killed is an act of war, and therefore we will respond accordingly." Needless to say, China is the only country likely to have a Filipino killed in some kind of incident.
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A Chinese military spokesman, in effect, responded to Marcos, "Game!" as a BBC article quoted him: 
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"If only one personnel was accidentally killed in a conflict or accident that triggers war, then I really believe it's a belligerent country."
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<h4>
Insanity
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<p>
I don't need to rattle off the facts on the Chinese and Filipino militaries to conclude that war against a nuclear superpower is insanity. This makes me conclude that our president may be mad.
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<p>
Marcos reminds me of Argentinian junta leader Lt. Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri, who, in order to reverse his unpopularity and distract his people from the country's recession, insanely led his country to war in 1982 against the United Kingdom in order to wrest control of the Falkland Islands, off Argentina. Galtieri's people concocted similar catchy slogans to raise jingoism among Argentinians, such as Marcos and Aquino III's "What is ours is ours!"
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<p>
Galtieri, like Marcos, thought that the US would support him since the Argentinian military undertook a ruthless "dirty war" against communists, encouraged and backed by the US CIA, that had 30,000 Argentinians killed. The US, of course, was loyal to its most trusted ally and its mother country, the UK. Argentinian forces were routed, resulting in 649 of their soldiers killed and their Navy practically destroyed, including their prized aircraft carrier and a submarine.
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<p>
The allegation that Marcos from the very start of his administration has been merely following the US playbook in its belligerent stance against China has been bolstered by the fact that his "we-will-go-to-war-if-one-Filipino is killed" talk on Friday (May 31, 2024) is the new propaganda line introduced by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on his visit here last April.
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<h4>
Austin
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Marcos said that in his talks with the US defense secretary, the American official said: 
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"If any serviceman, Filipino serviceman, is killed by an attack from any foreign power, then that is time to invoke the Mutual Defense Treaty." 
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Marcos apparently was unaware that the US defense secretary does not make foreign policy.
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<p>
Marcos in revising Austin's statement to expand "who is killed" to mean any Filipino, is obviously playing to the crowd, and appeasing his mercenary force the Atin Ito/Akbayan that has been giving fishermen groceries and diesel supply, as a bribe to pretend to swarm the Chinese-controlled Scarborough Shoal.
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Is he mad, and a warmonger?