Commentary By MANUEL F. ALMARIO Philippine Daily Inquirer

Having fought for our independence, we know that a price must be paid for freedom, US President Barack Obama said in a policy speech on terrorism last May 23.

For over the last decade, our nation has spent well over $1 trillion on war, exploding our deficits and constraining our ability to nation-build here at home, he said. Our service members and their families have sacrificed far more on our behalf. Nearly 7,000 Americans have made the ultimate sacrifice. Many more have left a part of themselves on the battlefield, or brought the shadows of battle back home.

Among those who have paid the price for freedom were many Filipino-Americans, migrant Filipinos who wanted to share the American Dream, not only by risking life and limb in the battlefield but also by losing their homes and their jobs because of the deficit and recession caused by the wars.

If I were an American, I would probably ask: Why should I and my fellow Americans pay the price for freedom everywhere or anywhere in the world? But being a Filipino, I ask: Is it fair and proper for my own sake to have the Americans pay for my freedom? After all, in fighting for their freedom, the Americans did it all by themselves. They paid their own price.

Also, would it be fair to say that only the Americans have paid the price for freedom? What about the hundreds of thousands or millions of Iraqis, Libyans, Afghans and Pakistanis who died while being handed the gift of freedom by the United States? And before them, the millions of Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians who were killed while being gifted with their freedom at the cost of 50,000 American young lives and trillions of dollars in American taxpayers money?

Did the price for freedom paid by the United States for Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan actually result in the prosperity, happiness and social stability of the lucky recipients of those gifts? Did it nation-build, as Obama put it, these countries? Or do they not daily experience terrorist bombings, the death of scores of innocent civilians, in a gyration of death and destruction that continues after a decade of war?

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The price for freedom