Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte gestures during a Malacañang Palace speech. Photo: AP he closer one looks into Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s recent debacle; the more one sees the sheer pettiness of his decision to abrogate the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) between the Philippines and the United States. His critics say Filipinos will rue this decision for generations to come. His stated reason is mind-boggling. Duterte is scrapping the agreement because his loyal henchman, Senator Bato dela Rosa had his visa to the US revoked. So now, the future of 100 million Filipinos is in jeopardy because a single individual is barred from flying to Las Vegas to watch his fellow senator, Manny Pacquiao’s future boxing matches—a steep price to pay for the sake of one man’s vanity. The President shot himself in the foot with this decision, but it will be Filipinos who will feel the pain for decades. Today, we live in an increasingly bipolar world, and this single act by Duterte has pushed the Philippines away from the US and into the open arms of China. So, the country that has illegally occupied Scarborough Shoal since 2012, and sank the Gem-Ver fishing boat in the middle of the night with 22 sleeping Filipino fishermen aboard, can now have unfettered access to the entire country. There will be no US forces around to restrain them. Yes, there are Filipinos who say that America never really did much to help the Philippines anyway. To a certain extent, that might be true. But the Philippines’ close ties to the US served to check Chinese aggression—they never built on Scarborough Shoal like they did on other islands, for fear of American retaliation. Thanks to Duterte, Beijing can now do as it pleases; there is no one to stop them. Without America at its side, it will be impossible for the Philippines to negotiate with China from a position of strength. Then again, that might be Duterte’s goal all along—a total and complete capitulation to China. As we said in a previous editorial, the Philippines is strategically located in the Western Pacific, and the South China Sea. It will easily become a significant strategic asset for the Chinese military. In the future, the Philippines might even become a vassal state of China. Filipinos would be forced to give up most, if not all, of their rights and freedoms. China will then rule over the Philippines just as Spain did for centuries. Sadly, this is the dystopian future is the one Duterte appears intent on foisting on Filipinos. His vision for the Philippines is, at its core, a defeatist vision. Duterte wants all Filipinos to follow his lead and bow down to his communist overlords in Beijing. Future generations of Filipinos will no longer control their own destiny; they will instead be taking their marching orders from Beijing. And when some of those Filipinos question why their fate is so, it will be explained to them that their country once had an incompetent and narcissistic leader who turned his back on America because America canceled the visa of one of his lackeys. And that lackey could no longer fly to Las Vegas to watch Manny Pacquiao's boxing matches. Published 2/15/2020