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Again, I'm not going to get into taking sides or who's that, I'm on the side of humanity, I'm on the side of justice, I'm on the side of just peace, that's my side, I'm on the side of all the innocent children, I'm on the side of justice for lives that were unnecessarily lost.

I'm on the side of making sure that self-defense is not turned into vengeance, that self-determination is not turned into wanton violence, I'm on the side of that 100%. So dun sa mga dumb ass people out there who are trying to imply something here and there, just be absolutely clear, you know who you're talking to.

My convictions, my moral convictions are 100% clear to me. This comes from out of years and decades of not only scholarship but also reading the scripture, of exposing myself to different faiths and my absolute 100% respect for all the Abrahamic religions from deep, deep, deep inside my heart.

And as you know, we even have very strict Sabbath and this is not about being Jew or Muslim or Christian, it's because I do believe that one day of your week should go to praising of God Almighty, there's only one God, and spiritual introspection.

Now, having cleared that, because again there's some dumb people out there saying dumb things and want to, you know, demonize whole peoples and when you're trying to show the humanity of certain people, they take it as, oh this is a leftist progressive whatever. No, shut up, right? No, this is about showing humanity, right?

We all condemn what happened the other week, but we also have to remember that there are also other human beings in this world and that we also have to empathize with these people. We are human beings, right? And you might, of course, you might, you know, claim to be Christian and pious and I'm telling you, think also about the Christians in Gaza, Christians in West Bank, Christians in the Middle East, our own Kababayans in the region whose safety is very important to us, alright?

Okay, so let's be very clear, okay? You have to be, you know, I hope these people know what they're dealing with, okay? Sometimes we laugh at each other and all of that, but I'm quite a serious person, okay?

Now, what are the broader geopolitical implications here? President Biden, just a few hours ago, came up with this big speech trying to explain to the American people that the United States can be active in multiple theaters and support multiple allies against aggression.

On one hand, of course, he's still talking about Ukraine. We'll talk about the number of the big huge aid that America is giving to Ukraine, more than 46, almost 47 billion dollars. At the same time, of course, he's also essentially preparing the American people for potentially long-term American military involvement again in the Middle East in light of the latest cycle of violence that we're seeing right now.

Now, the question I have is, okay, I understand the President of the United States wants to stand with all allies and, you know, for instance, in the case of Ukraine, they have absolutely the right to self-defense because they've been invaded by an imperialist power. Sure, support them, 100%.

And as I said, we have to condemn terrorism, we have to condemn indiscriminate attacking as violence, etc. I understand. I understand all of those things. Ang akin lang, you know, bilang isang Filipino, I'm not trying to be selfish about it, but I think few reasonable people would disagree that the most important geopolitical region in the world right now is our region, East Asia and the broader Indo-Pacific. This is the most important part of the world today.

Now, you don't believe me? Look at the statements by American presidents themselves since Barack Obama until today. Now, what I'm saying here is I understand President Biden's, you know, call for continuous support for allies. Well, Ukraine is not technically a treaty ally, but it's effectively an ally right now, all the way to the Middle East. They're an ally in the Middle East, of course, with everything that's happening there. Alam niyo na yan.

Ang question ko lang dito is, hindi naman unlimited ang resources ng America. Hindi unlimited yung kanilang strategic bandwidth. And just to put things into perspective, my concern here is may interest din tayo na magkaroon ng kapayapaan, just peace, in the Middle East, and God willing, also in Ukraine soon, right? Just peace.

Because if the United States is bogged down in other parts of the world, they're not in a position to help the Philippines if ever things go crazy in our part of the world.

Let's be absolutely clear. Yung kalaban, well, hindi naman kalaban pa, pero yung karibal ng Pilipinas sa West Philippine Sea ay isang bansa na pinakamalaki pagdating sa naval power.

You see, China's navy is larger than America's. And China's economy in purchasing power part is even larger than the United States. And China is not a superpower yet, so it can concentrate its military assets and more than $200 billion of defense spending in our region.

So this is not about facing a militant group. Of course, we have to deal with militant groups, with extremists, given na yan. Alam na alam natin yan, yung situation natin sa Marawi, of course. But, let's be absolutely clear about it, the Philippines is facing a superpower.

Now, the situation is even worse for Taiwan, which is close to us, and actually damay din tayo dyan. Because Taiwan, alam natin yung situation dyan, may open threats of invasion ang China sa Taiwan based on the claim that Taiwan belongs to China.

So far, they have avoided military intervention, although there were three or rather four Taiwan Straits crisis, and some of them got very violent during the Maoist era. So, the situation is horrible in Ukraine. I'm absolutely worried about lives of people and problems with indiscriminate violence and terrorism in the Middle East, of course.

At the same time, I'm just saying, here sa Asia, kung ikaw ay isang Pilipino, at umaasa ka sa mga aliado mo, you don't want a situation whereby your ally is overstretched. Because as powerful as the U.S. is, this is not 1920s, this is not 1990s even, or this is not even 2000s. The U.S. is not the same superpower it used to be.

I mean, just to give you an idea how U.S. is not a superpower anymore, like before, I mean, they're still the most powerful country in the Middle East, but the other day, they were snubbed by Arab countries. They said, no, we don't want to meet you. People are too angry at you. Jordan, for instance, said, no, we're not going to have a summit with you. Dun ka lang sa Israel. Dun ka lang sa alay mo. I mean, these things were unthinkable not long ago. Arab countries saying, no, we don't want to meet you, sir. Dun ka lang sa kapila.

The world is changing, and you have China and other superpowers coming out and challenging the United States and presenting themselves as global powers. You can check my recent op-eds in order to understand the context here.

Now, so just to give you an idea how much the Philippines, I mean, actually, alam natin na ang Pilipinas, medyo malaking problema natin in terms of basic capacity, etc., but just to put things into perspective, this is the amount of aid that the United States has been giving to other countries.

And so, more than $300 billion since 1946 all the way to 2022. May dagdaggan naman a few billion dollars in the case of Israel, and that's why Israel is a very, very powerful military, powerful country, right?

South Vietnam, before they were occupied by North Vietnam and becoming unified communist socialist Vietnam, they got $180 billion. Egypt, it's not even a U.S. ally. Sometimes you're not even sure if they're a U.S. partner even. They got $180 billion in aid.

Well, Afghanistan is a different case because this was a case of occupation and U.S. trying to build things from scratch, but we saw things turned out. South Korea, more than $100 billion. UK, $100 billion. India, $100 billion. Iraq, again, similar to Afghanistan, it's an occupation case. Turkey, almost $100 billion. France, almost $100 billion.

I don't think the Philippines even barely comes in the top 20 or something like that. The annual aid we got last year sounds huge. If you don't know anything about the world, you'll think, wow, that's a huge amount of money, and it's better than nothing. But this is the aid that the Philippines got last year from the United States, $100 million.

So imagine, every year the Philippines gets $100 million, even if you multiply that by 70, you're talking about $7 billion, for instance. And then look at these other countries getting $100 billion throughout this period.

So let's be honest, there's so much more potential to the U.S. helping the Philippines. It's that simple. And if you look at the needs of the Philippines, the needs of the Philippines are huge. And now we're challenging China. There could be a conflagration in Ayungin Shoal, conflagration in Scarborough Shoal.

So the problem is that people like Tatay Digong are using this argument to say that we should just go pro-China. That argument is even more sublime, especially since we didn't get anything from China. And China is actually our rival. So no, we're not going down that road.

But just to put things in perspective, what I read here is simple. Actually, to be honest, I think Claro Emrecto is wrong. When Claro Emrecto said that the Philippines is a mendicant foreign policy, like we're always begging the U.S. why are we like this, at first I was like, yeah, he's right.

But actually when you think about it, all these other countries got billions of dollars from the U.S. throughout time. Japan, Korea, South Vietnam, Israel, Turkey, France, whatever. So all of them actually begged the U.S. at some point and got a lot of money from the U.S.

The problem with the Philippines is we're not even good at being mendicant. Our strategic culture is too weak. Our political leaders are too weak. We're just getting too much. So I absolutely do not buy this argument of some people saying that we're not like them. No, no, no. Seriously, the threats the Philippines is facing, are you saying that we're only up to 100 million compared to 3 billion or 4 billion in other countries?

Now, of course, the case of Ukraine is a special case. It's a country that's under invasion. But just to give you an idea of how generous the U.S. can get to even a non-allied country in a single year. Again, Ukraine is a different case because they have been invaded. Thank God it hasn't happened to us yet. But Ukraine got 46.6 billion dollars in aid from the United States in 2022. And they're still asking for another one. So that's Ukraine.

And those are other countries throughout the year. And in the Philippines, 100 million. So, that's all we're saying. So obviously, the Philippine-U.S. alliance is very undertapped. And it's undertapped not in terms of, hey, we just want a big...

Compared to the threats we're facing, right? Just look at the threats we're facing in the West Philippine Sea. I think there's something missing. Just to put it nicely.

So either we're not taking it seriously enough, or we're not doing our diplomacy strongly enough, or probably it's a combination of both. But what's very important for us to do as Filipinas, first of all, not to just accept this as a reality. We shouldn't just accept this as a reality. We have to say... I mean...

This is it. The population of Filipinos in the United States is huge. How many Filipinos are there in the U.S.? 4 million? 5 million? We're like top 3 biggest Asian communities? Or number 2 even by some counts? What are the Filipinos doing in the U.S.? Why aren't they making a very effective lobby that makes sure that they're not just giving us peanuts? But we get billions of dollars of aid every year, especially considering how much behind the curve Filipinas are.

We don't even have a single real modern fighter. We have F-A-50 from Korea. You know what I'm saying? We don't have the real ones like F-15X, F-16 modernized, or at some point hopefully something like F-35 or something like that. But we're still far from that.

Of course, we'll blame the Filipinas, our leaders, given that. But it cannot be always us just blaming it ourselves. You know, as Tagora said, we should not hypnotize ourselves into just accepting being treated like second, third rate ally. We're a treaty ally. I mean, many of the countries here, actually, they're not even U.S. treaty allies. They're not. They're not U.S. treaty allies.

Actually, they're not on the list. Pakistan, Jordan, these countries. Egypt is not a U.S. treaty ally. 100% clear about that. And look at the weapons system. They have Abrams tanks. They have advanced fighter jets. American weapons. This is Egypt. It's not a U.S. ally. Pakistan is not there. Jordan is not there.

So, my argument here is I'm not saying that the U.S. doesn't have a story. Of course, it has a story. It's important that the U.S. is there. It's important that we're allies there. Because if we're not allies, look at what my dad did. He bullied us and he didn't get anything from China. But you get what I'm saying? This is the problem. People think either or.

However, the implication of this analysis is let's hope that the conflicts in other parts of the world resolve as soon as possible so that our allies can be more focused here in our region. And hopefully, we can step up our diplomacy so that they won't just give us what we want.

Look at what the Philippines is offering the United States under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement. My goodness. Access to some very important bases. Balabac, Antonio Bautista, Pampanga, Cagayan, Isabela, potentially in Batanes. So, I don't know. Parang may kulang.

I don't know. Maybe if there were more Haydarians in charge of the Philippines throughout the decades, maybe we got something better than that.

Speaking of, by the way, thank you very much again to our official sponsors here. Thank you very much to Team Manila. Thank you. Super thank you to the t-shirt you gave me. I'm wearing this one right now.

The other one is a bit of a color meta. It's very handsome. I really like this kind of thing. It has an AI lab level. Thank you so much. So, please check it out. The back is actually very nice. When I turn around, the logo of our West Philippine Sea is visible. So, please go and buy. It's cotton. It feels very comfortable.

Please support Team Manila. Their shirts are very affordable and you can order it online. So, thank you to Team Manila for giving us this shirt. I really appreciate it.

I know that they're giving it to us not only because of Sir Ronald. Ronald's size is different. Ronald likes leather jackets. Excuse me. His TF shouldn't be that big.

There we go again. No, no. I gave it to someone else. Alright. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Kmeta. I need to prepare for the next commitments and engagements. Godspeed. Thank you so much. Thank you, Vice President Sara Duterte.

Very good. Very good. Very good statement. Very human statement. You know, you see Sara as a mother, as a woman, as a human being. And, you know, she ended actually in Shalom, right? So, emphasizing the spirituality of this, right?

Thank you very much. On that note, let me check the supporters. I know we're a bit late today. Sorry. I have a lot to do. Thank you to JC Cesneros, Noemita Blat. As always, thank you so much to Ma'am Jocelyn Lumberio, Greg Calunsog, Isabelita Talatat, Cynthia Jenny, Macurazon Betcho.

Thank you so much to Riz Annie, to Mabs Ambaservs, to Tessie Gomez, to Jesse Cesneros. Thank you so much to all of you, to those who support us. Those who really love us no matter what time it is. Macurazon Betcho. Thank you to those who support and love us. Thank you very much to IMT, to Ma'am Victoria Balthazar. Of course, Sasha and Digweed.

Digweed. Okay. Celeste Calvo, Roy Valdez. What did he say? Ah, okay. Let's not have a discussion on that. Some might say, it's just a job. Let's not be bitter. Let's welcome good stuff. I'm not saying it's perfect and all. I'm just saying, one step at a time.

One step at a time. And then, if there's someone like Marley Cavan, that's it. Then, let's also have a callout. Let's talk about it. That's no problem for me. I am Jenaire. Thank you to Jem Santos. Thank you to Adrian Agkawili. He said, we're like twins. You're stupid. Sorry.

There. There. We're stupid again. No, no. We got this stupidity from Cynthia Villar. We're stupid. No, no. It's okay. You're a troll. I know you need to earn. Okay. Thank you for joining us, Adrian. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's just a joke. It's just a joke.

Thank you for joining us because you're increasing our engagement. Okay. Go ahead. You're a troll. You're spreading the troll of TisoyBoy. Thank you to Manolito Mata. Good evening to you too, sir. Thank you so much. Because I was talking to Cynthia Villar. The words we're using are stupid.

Let's get our mom to scold us. Son, son. You're so professorial. And of course, we were reading the Bible and the scriptures. Sorry, Lord. Sorry, Lord, for that. Anyway, thank you very much, Kameta. Thank you for staying up late to the Filipinas and the Asia time zone. And of course, to the other countries. This seems like a good timing.

So, pleasure. God bless. And for the country. Thank you so much.