President Ramos does not use the phrase "special relations." Bu he say as much & more fulsomely when he speaks of a continuing community of strategic & "economic interests" as a "central fact of life" which transcends fluctuations in the political & psychological climate & which denotes in valuable constants in bilateral affairs, which either the US or the Philippines can either ill-afford to subordinate to transient considerations & ephemeral exigencies. Great word its sounds much like the import of conjugal vows - in sickness or in health, for richer or for poorer, until death. But it is this descriptive of actual fact or more the unfulfilled yearning of a disenchanted lover?.
The actual fact seems to be the United States can well afford to ignore us & past historical relations. The global development to which President Ramos alludes, both strategic & economic, precisely are the direction of making it easy for the United States to pretty much ignore the Philippines. The same geopolitical developments which had bolstered the position of the anti-US bases advocates have diminished the strategic value of the Philippines for the United States, & the opening of markets I Eastern Europe & the unification of South & North American trading blocs, coupled with our own inability to manage the economy, have attracted American investment away from the Philippines. Thus, when one listens to power discourse in the corridors of American decision making, the impression one gets is one of "benign neglect." Should we therefore build upon the expectation of inviolable conjugal vows? Or would it not be more salutary for us to strike on our own not with any expectation of being treated as "special"? because every indication in this cruel but real world seems to be that we will not be so treated. .
Then there is the matter of mutual defense. What does President Ramos realistically expect of America? Once upon a time, the security of the United States were intertwined with ours because US military forces were based on Philippine soil.
