The Philippines has long been seeking additional support in its disputes with China over areas such as Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal. Thus, this made our government to decide to agreed with the United States with regards to Enhance Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) / Balikatan Exercises. This agreement between the Philippines and the United States envision and aim to strengthen the Armed Forces of the Philippines for external defense and for the humanitarian assistance and disaster response. This earned different reactions among the netizens and the masses. Some people accords that this will not guarantee any protection and it will only be beneficial to US troops. Otherwise, some Filipinos claims that it would help our defense against countries which beholds and step-down our rights and dignity as a democratic country.
Despite of these negative reactions, we as a Customs Administration students strongly believes that the Balikatan Exercises between the Philippines and the Unites States will give and provide job opportunities to many Filipinos in construction activities that they will done in our nation specially the procurement of local goods and supplies by US military personnel. This will also helps our country to nurture and strengthen our capabilities for any external and territorial defense when the situation demanded. We already know that we are currently experiencing from territorial disputes from other foreign countries specifically with China and the Balikatan Exercises will help to develop our defense securities against them.
Just like what Dr. Jose Rizal mentioned, “It is just fair if the Spaniards will govern our nation as long as it can help to improve and enhance our capabilities to be a progressive ...
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... in a friendly means. It’s an insult to the Americans if we show and hatred animosity and anger against them though it is a clear fact that they voluntarily help us.
As a concern Filipino citizen, our aim is not to develop a negative instincts about the Balikatan Exercises through rallying which only causes conflict, pain and suffering. If we are a real Filipino, our concern must be about how we are going to develop a stronger relationship with co-alliance countries who are always ready to help us in times of our need. Just imagine who will help us anymore if we also develop a conflict with United States? As long as the Balikatan Exercises with United States will not cause to weaken and step-down our rights as a democratic country, it is a good opportunity for the Philippines to develop and fade its way towards a progressive and economical country.
Dear fellow senators: Yesterday, February 6, 1899 was a big day in United States history; we decided as a nation to annex the Philippines. The Philippines is an island country in Southeast Asia, and was independent until 1565 when the Spanish colonized the islands. I have one question for you, my fellow senators, should the U.S. have annexed the Philippines? The United States should have annexed the Philippines for three reasons: our duty to spread the values of democracy overseas, the Filipinos natural inability to govern themselves, and saving the Philippines from the tyranny of Spain or other European countries. The first reason the United States should have annexed the Philippines is because it is our duty as a country to spread the values of democracy overseas.
In my opinion The United States ordeal with Annexing the Philippines and the idea that we had of going into war with them was great mistake and should have been avoided. The Filipinos and Americans were deadlocked in war with each other. This all became a controversy with the two nations in 1898 when the Treaty of Paris between Spain and the United Stated ceded all seven thousand islands of the Philippine archipelago to the United States, for just a mere twenty-million dollars. Congress had approved the treaty with Spain, by February of 1899. Mckinley was on the verge of calling for the annexation of the Philippines which brought on a bloody two year struggle. In my opinion the United States was the cause of all of this because of three different reasons, for one our government would not...
After viewing the documentary: America's War on Drugs - The Prison Industrial Complex, it is clear that the Criminal Justice System is in desperate need of reconstruction and repair with policies such as the mandatory minimum sentencing act which has proven to be unsuccessful and unjust in its efforts to deter 'criminals from committing illegal acts' as seen with the increase of incarcerations of the American people and the devastating effect it has had on those in prison and the family members of those incarcerated.
Following the Spanish-American war it thought that it was America’s duty to help them form a civilized society. In reality it was the idea of imperialism that if we did it before with Hawaii why we can’t do it again with the Philippines.
In conclusion, the Philippines never should have been annexed. The United States believed they were better the Philippines when in reality they were dictating over them just as the Spanish had done before. Also, it was a complete waste of money and resources. Philippines finally received their independence in 1946, for which the United States received no compensation for the 20 million dollars they spent to purchase the land in the first place. Resources for the military, and schooling, and government also went to waste because the Philippines didn't accept the American lifestyle or civilization, therefore the funding for those institutions were useless. Hopefully the United States learned that controlling other countries against their will is unethical, and will choose to learn from the mistake, and not be doomed to repeat the past.
In Douglas N. Husak’s A Moral Right to Use Drugs he attempts to look at drug use from an impartial standpoint in order to determine what is the best legal status for currently illegal drugs. Husak first describes the current legal situation concerning drugs in America, citing figures that show how drug crimes now make up a large percentage of crimes in our country. Husak explains the disruption which this causes within the judicial system and it is made clear that he is not content with the current way drugs are treated. The figures that Husak offers up, such as the fact that up to one third of all felony charges involve drugs, are startling, but more evidence is needed than the fact that a law is frequently broken to justify it’s repeal.
To begin, by America walking away from an empire it will lessen racial issues between Filipinos and Americans. The Filipinos are incredibly diverse from the citizens of the United States; they speak a dissimilar language, they practice a different religion and they...
The Filipino American War began because the Americans did not want to give them back to Spain nor did they want to hand them over to their rivals, France and Germany.They also came to the conclusion that they were too weak to govern themselves. And to please the people, they told them that they were going to be Christianized and civilized. Proof of this can be found when President Mckinley said, “That there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them” (313). However, America 's true motive for war was to gain a profit out of the Philippines since, “No land in America surpasses in fertility the plains and valleys of Luzon. Rice and coffee, sugar and cocoanuts, hemp and tobacco. The wood of the Philippines can supply the furniture of the world for a century to come” (314). William James was somebody who opposed the war, he wanted to, “ educate the American public about the horrors of the Philippine war and the evils of imperialism” (314). And in response, many innocent Filipino civilians would be killed. The Philadelphia Ledger reported, “our men have been relentless, have killed to exterminate men, women, children, prisoners and captives, active insurgents and suspected people from lads of ten up, the idea prevailing that the Filipino as such was little better than a dog”
However, the main motive of the War on Drugs was to prevent a population of people from their legal rights as citizens. People believe that drug abuse was starting to rise when the drug war was issued. Michelle Alexander points out, in the chapter “The Lockdown” from The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness that “Drug use and abuse is nothing new; in fact, it was on the decline, not on the rise when the War on Drugs began” (72). Alexander explains that the War on Drugs wasn’t started because of the ‘sudden rise of drug abuse’ but rather a different reason. The motive of the start of the War on Drugs was for income for many agencies to confiscate the goods and income that the incarcerated person had in possession. Understanding the actual motive is important because the War on Drugs needs to be further researched before people fully accept it as something that is helping everyone. Mass incarceration is the hidden motive under the War on Drugs and many people believe that the prosecutors are given fair and equal rights when facing a jury trial for their crimes. It’s common that it’s not the case and many times they are lead to plead guilty and often lose their rights to vote as well as having to ‘mark a box’ that labels them as a felon. Nearly all applications have the felon question. It leads many people who are trying to get their lives back together after going to prison nearly impossible. Many can’t affording housing and their families are skeptical on allowing them to live with them. Few can still get back on their feet after being prosecuted and released from prison, but it’s
In today's world, it seems like all too often we have woken up to another mass shooting, terrorist attack, or hate crime. However, the injustice does not end with the perpetrator. These acts of violence and hate are terrifying and receive a lot of media attention, yet there are many injustices that continue to permeate our society that are not often discussed. One of these is our incarceration system. The system is flawed and oversaturated with nonviolent drug offenders. Out of the approximately 2.2 million people in our nation’s prisons and jails, about one in four are locked up for a nonviolent drug offense (Criminal Justice Facts). According to the Department of Corrections, the largest single category of offense among prisoners is “drug
Giving away the Philippines would have been bad business and kept the same issue continue. The Philippines needed some help in government, so we took them in to guide them down a good path. During the Filipino Revolution, they wanted to get away from Spanish rule. The United States helped them defeat Spain and annexed them to help them out, but they are still mad. This doesn’t make any sense since we just helped them. Who is really making a big deal out of things? Although the Filipinos could have been fine on their own, they still needed guidance in the right direction like away from
The truth is I didn’t want the Philippines, and when they came to us, as a gift from the gods, I did not know what to do with them.… I sought counsel from all sides— Democrats as well as Republicans—but got little help. I thought first we would take only Manila; then Luzon; then other islands perhaps also. I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way… that we could not give them back to Spain… that we could not leave them to themselves— they were unfit for self-government… [and] that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them.” (Thomas G. Paterson and Dennis
In South America, Native Americans had rebelled against Spanish rule as early as the 1700s. These rebellions had limited results, however it was not until 1800s that discontent among the Creoles sparked a widespread drive for independence. Educated Creoles like Simo¢n Bolivar applauded the French and American Revolutions. He dreamed of winning independence for his country. When Napoleon occupied Spain, Simo¢n returned to his South America and led an uprising that established a republic in his native Venezuela. But his newly found republic quickly toppled by conservative forces. Bolivar then got a daring idea; he would march his forces across the Andes and attack the Spanish at Bogotá. He managed to free Caracas then moved into Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru to do the same.
INTRODUCTION : a brief overview of the current situation regarding the security issue in the Pacific region
The article “U.S., China and Thucydides” (Robert B. Zoellick, 2013) addressed the security dilemma between the rising China and the U.S. through the historical story, “the Thucydides trap”. In addition, the chapter 15 in the book US FOREIGN POLICY, by Michael Cox and Doug Stokes, indicated the situation of changing East Asia, rising China, and the role of the U.S. in this region in different periods. Therefore, the materials have revealed an important question about Sino-US relation, which is should the United States cooperate or compete with the rising China?