Once Upon A Time in the Philippines
Once Upon A Time in the Philippines
January 2026
The 1910 proposal to trade Mindanao and Palawan for Greenland reveals how colonial governance treated Philippine territory as negotiable imperial property; this episode—documented in Ambassador Maurice Francis Egan’s correspondence—illuminates the commodification of land, the erasure of indigenous sovereignty, and enduring questions about memory and national dignity.
Context and thesis
The suggestion that the United States might exchange Mindanao and Palawan for Greenland appears in diplomatic correspondence from 1910, when Maurice Francis Egan served as U.S. Ambassador to Denmark and described the idea as “very audacious”. This episode is not merely an oddity of diplomatic imagination; it is a revealing prism through which to examine colonial spatial logic, the instrumentalization of islands as bargaining chips, and the epistemic violence of treating inhabited territories as fungible assets.
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Historical background (facts)
- Maurice Francis Egan’s letter (1910): Egan floated the swap in private diplomatic channels while the United States was consolidating control over the Philippines after the Spanish–American War and the Philippine–American War. The proposal also referenced the Danish West Indies (now the U.S. Virgin Islands) in the same diplomatic context.
- Geopolitical motives: U.S. interest in Greenland has long roots tied to strategic Arctic positioning and later economic and military considerations; contemporary interest in Greenland echoes earlier strategic calculations.
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Analytical frame: colonial commodification of territory
Treating Mindanao and Palawan as negotiable items exemplifies a colonial ontology that separates land from people. Under this logic:
- Territory is property: Islands become units of exchange rather than homelands of communities whose consent matters.
- Sovereignty is performative: Colonial administrators assumed authority to reassign sovereignty without meaningful consultation with indigenous polities or settler populations.
- Racialized valuation: The calculus implicitly ranked lands by perceived strategic or economic value, often discounting the cultural and human costs borne by colonized peoples.
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Esoteric implications: memory, identity, and juridical erasure
Beyond geopolitics, the episode raises deeper questions:
- Collective memory: How do nations remember near-transactions that would have radically altered their territorial integrity? The near-swap is a counterfactual that sharpens national narratives about loss and resilience.
- Legal imagination: The idea exposes how international law and diplomacy historically permitted great powers to reassign territories with scant regard for indigenous legal orders.
- Ethical ontology: Commodifying islands forces us to ask whether land can ever be ethically treated as fungible when it anchors identity, livelihood, and cosmology.
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Key considerations and guiding questions
- Consideration 1: The voices of Mindanao and Palawan’s inhabitants were absent from the diplomatic record—how should historians recover them?
- Consideration 2: What legal mechanisms would have been invoked to effect such a transfer, and how would that have altered Philippine state formation?
- Question: If a swap had occurred, how might Philippine national identity and regional geopolitics have been reshaped?
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Risks, limitations, and sources
- Risk of anachronism: Interpreting 1910 motives through 21st‑century norms risks projecting modern values backward; careful archival work is required.
- Source limits: The primary evidence rests on diplomatic correspondence and later journalistic treatments; fuller archival excavation (e.g., Egan papers) is necessary for definitive claims.
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Conclusion
The audacious 1910 suggestion to barter Philippine islands for Greenland is more than a historical curiosity; it is a stark illustration of how imperial power reimagined geography as exchangeable capital. Recovering this episode forces a confrontation with the moral and political costs of colonial territoriality and invites renewed attention to the silenced actors whose lands were once treated as negotiable commodities.
Sources: Maurice Francis Egan papers; Columbia University finding aid; Philippine Daily Inquirer commentary; historical overview of U.S. interest in Greenland.
While the U.S.–Philippine relationship in 2025–26 is a deepening security partnership anchored on the Mutual Defense Treaty, the Visiting Forces Agreement, and an expanded EDCA network, with the two countries planning over 500 joint military engagements in 2026 as deterrence against rising maritime tensions in the region.
Strategic overview
- Security first. The alliance has shifted from counter‑terror and humanitarian cooperation toward integrated deterrence against state‑level threats; Manila and Washington are intensifying joint exercises, patrols, and interoperability work to respond to maritime pressure in the South China Sea.
- Institutional pillars. The relationship remains anchored on the Mutual Defense Treaty (1951), the Visiting Forces Agreement, and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA)—all repeatedly reaffirmed in high‑level meetings in 2024–25.
Recent operational developments
- Scale of activity: The Philippines and the U.S. agreed to stage more than 500 joint military engagements in 2026, ranging from large‑scale drills to subject‑matter exchanges and naval patrols, reflecting a step‑up in practical cooperation.
- EDCA modernization: Defense leaders have signaled “bold steps” to improve EDCA sites and logistics, aiming to make basing arrangements more resilient and responsive to regional contingencies.
- Networked posture: Analysts describe the EDCA network’s evolution from a niche counter‑terror tool into a broader regional deterrent architecture, integrating EDCA sites with legacy hubs like Subic and Clark.
Political and diplomatic dynamics
- Transactional diplomacy. U.S. engagement is increasingly transactional and strategic, balancing security guarantees with expectations of access, host‑nation support, and interoperability commitments; Manila navigates these demands while managing domestic political sensitivities.
- Domestic politics. Philippine leaders face competing pressures: public wariness about foreign troops on Philippine soil, the need for defense modernization, and the imperative to protect maritime rights—creating a delicate political calculus for deeper U.S. ties.
Economic and non‑military dimensions
- Broader cooperation. While security dominates headlines, the partnership also includes development assistance, capacity building, and limited economic cooperation tied to resilience and infrastructure (these areas are being coordinated alongside defense initiatives).
Risks, trade‑offs, and recommendations
- Risk of escalation: Intensified joint operations raise the risk of miscalculation with third parties in contested waters; clear communication channels and rules of engagement are essential.
- Sovereignty concerns: Public sensitivity over foreign presence requires transparent agreements, parliamentary oversight, and community engagement at EDCA sites to sustain domestic legitimacy.
- Policy recommendation: Manila should continue diversifying partnerships, invest in its own maritime domain awareness, and negotiate clearer operational protocols with the U.S. to reduce friction and preserve strategic autonomy.
Short conclusion
The U.S.–Philippine relationship in 2025–26 is robust and security‑centric, marked by a quantitative and qualitative expansion of military cooperation and a recalibrated EDCA network designed for integrated deterrence; sustaining this trajectory will require careful management of domestic politics, clear operational safeguards, and complementary investments in Philippine defense capacity.
Amiel Roldan's curatorial writing practice exemplifies this path: transforming grief into infrastructure, evidence into agency, and memory into resistance. As the Philippines enters a new economic decade, such work is not peripheral—it is foundational.
Amiel Gerald Roldan
I'm trying to complement my writings with helpful inputs from AI through writing. Bear with me as I am treating this blog as repositories and drafts.
please comment and tag if you like my compilations visit www.amielroldan.blogspot.com or www.amielroldan.wordpress.com
and comments at
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amielgeraldroldan@gmail.com
Amiel Gerald A. Roldan: a multidisciplinary Filipino artist, poet, researcher, and cultural worker whose practice spans painting, printmaking, photography, installation, and writing. He is deeply rooted in cultural memory, postcolonial critique, and in bridging creative practice with scholarly infrastructure—building counter-archives, annotating speculative poetry like Southeast Asian manuscripts, and fostering regional solidarity through ethical art collaboration.
Recent show at ILOMOCA
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