WHILE the Marcos administration and Congress have been engrossed in pinning down a 38-year-old Chinese Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator, hunting down a religious leader and undertaking operations to demolish the Duterte charisma, the Philippines has become so much of a US puppet that a US mid-range missile system has been installed here, putting the country dangerously in the middle of an arms race in Asia.

I am referring to the US Typhon missile system in place at the aprons of the Laoag International Airport. While the system is designed to launch and target with its state-of-the-art radar equipment the mid-range SM-6 missiles, it can also do so with Tomahawk missiles which have a 1,000 range that could reach China. The missile system was brought into the country by the US military in April purportedly merely as part of combat exercises with our troops and to test if the system could be transported to the country by a US transport plane.

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