Philperiodicals

The Vietnam War in relation to the Philippines

1966 was a year marked by incendiary debates in congress about Filipino involvement in the Vietnam War. In March, Senator Sergio Osmeña Jr. supported sending troops there, an opinion that, as Panorama remarked, was neither that of the journal nor of all Filipinos. Osmeña blamed the war on the communists (their only way to take over a well-faring South Vietnam) and argued that US president Lyndon Johnson was just defending peace. Invoking his father, late president Osmeña, he advocated for an alliance and a military base agreement with the US, arguing this would have spared the Philippines the Japanese Occupation and would protect them now from a Red Chinese invasion. For Osmeña, the Philippines had an obligation to South Vietnam, and could not afford not to afford it if it wanted to preserve its own liberty and freedom. Debates about the Vietnam War remained a dividing issue until the end of the conflict on 30 April 1975. President Ferdinand Marcos had to be convinced of supporting the Americans after his electoral victory in 1965, but massive demonstrations against it pressured him to retire the 2000 Filipino contingent. For the Philippines, the cold war was over in the summer of 1968.

Fecha

1966

Fuente

“The Vietnam War in relation to the Philippines”, Panorama, Vol.XVIII, N.º 3, March 1966, pp.
44-62.

Relación

Jagel, Matthew. "'Showing Its Flag': The United States, The Philippines, and the Vietnam War." Past
Tense: Graduate Review of History 1.2 (2013).
Woods, Colleen. 2020. Freedom Incorporated: Anticommunism and Philippine Independence in the Age
of Decolonization. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/74494.

Materia

Vietnam War and the Philippines
Sergio Osmeña Jr.
Panorama