‘There’s no rice shortage in the Philippines’
PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte’s four-day visit to Israel is a historic first, and has provoked varied reactions from various quarters at home and abroad. DU30 is the first Filipino president
to visit the Jewish state in 60 years. In any language, this is historic indeed. The Israelis have
not forgotten President Manuel L. Quezon’s generous move to open the country’s doors to 10,000 persecuted Jews during the Holocaust; they have erected the Open Doors Monument at the Reshion Lezion Memorial Park, just a little outside Tel Aviv.
A mixed welcome
But some Israeli politicians who have heard that Duterte’s murderous anti-drug campaign has killed thousands of drug suspects without due process, and that he has compared those killed by the police and so-called “vigilantes” to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, have wondered why their government should be receiving such a problematic guest. The Israelis should all take an anti-nausea pill during this vessel, said Knesset member Avi Dichter from Likud party; since the visit could no longer be scrapped, it
the opposition Zionist Union Tzipi Livnia said.
As this is written, several human rights groups were still trying to convince Israeli President Reuben Rivlin to cancel his scheduled meeting
Jordan for a four-day visit. We have yet to hear
politicians’ objections, some Filipino critics of both DU30 and Israel have wondered why the Filipino strongman should be visiting what they call a “rogue state” with the worst possible human rights record. One well-known Filipino activist has pointed out in an article online that the visit could paint the DU30 government as pro-Israel, with all its dire consequences.
Possible Arab response
Should the Arab countries retaliate, it could affect the nation’s supply of Arab oil, the status of hundreds of thousands of overseas Filipino workers in a number of Arab countries, and risk another attack from extremist forces supported by the Islamic State, which earlier supported the siege of Marawi, the paper suggested.
in Gaza and the West Bank have spawned a worldwide Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, with international movie actors, singers, athletes and politicians supporting it; DU30 could risk being targeted by the same movement, the article said.
an arms-shopping trip for DU30 to acquire Israelimade guns and other military equipment, and help him pivot away from the United States as the sole Philippine supplier of defense and military equipment. But rumor persists, under the rose, that he is more interested in accessing medical information and services related to his personal health. Purveyors of this rumor point out that he did not have to come all the way to Israel, with a reported entourage of
Galils, Uzis, and other short arms, which he could have purchased even without leaving Manila.
DU30 has already acquired some small arms from China and Russia, and now talks of acquiring a couple of submarines from Moscow, whose ambassador to the Philippines Igor Khovaev has just unveiled a proposal for a joint RussianPhilippine local production of the world-famous a possible Russian submarine acquisition has prompted US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Trade Secretary Wilbur Ross to write DU30 a letter offering him a range of modern US military equipment. There have been no further developments.
Meeting with Netanyahu
DU30 met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for “restricted discussions” and a working lunch, after signing three agreements on Monday. The agreements, signed for the Philippines by Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello 3rd, Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano and Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez, included a memorandum of agreement on the employment
cooperation, and an MOU on investments (between the Philippine Board of Investments and its Israeli counterpart).
Netanyahu was profuse in his remarks about Filipino caregivers: he said it was a Filipina caregiver who took care of his father, who died at the age of 102. I heard the same remarks from the late President Shimon Peres, who said that Filipinos were the only foreigners allowed to become caregivers in Israel.
Nothing has “leaked” or been released from the restricted conversations, so we do not know whether the discussions were all about Galils, Uzis, and related things only. The Philippines is not a warlike state, in fact our Constitution renounces war as an instrument of national
arms race. For its part Israel is known not only for its superior military weaponry, but also for its cutting-edge advances in non-lethal science and technology. It has been able to irrigate and fructify the desert, and on my last visit there, I learned that Filipinos had a preferred position in its continuing agriculture training program.
Israel’s agriculture
Some of the Israeli agriculture technology has already found its way into the Philippines,
friend, the late Vicente “Teng” Puyat, farmer, banker and moving spirit behind the Grand
senatorial election under President Cory Aquino
help modernize our agriculture. He had modest successes, upon which the government could have built a modern agriculture program. Until some years ago, some of these Israeli experts were still working with some Moros in Mindanao in a plantation owned by a young Muslim visionary, who was eager to prove that Muslims and Jews could live and work together in peace.
I found it a pity that out of the planeload of
held talks on an expanded program of agricultural cooperation with Israel. I was not thinking of Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol at all. I was thinking more of a group of experts with presidential instructions. The disappearance of rice from the homes of the Filipino poor should
Agriculture and chairman of the National Food Authority Council, and Jason Aquino’s butt as
people for possible corruption and certain incompetence, the President said he would like them to resign, and when they refused to do so, he said
In any case, this agricultural crisis at home should have prompted DU30 to bring with him an appropriate delegation to sit down with the experts in Israel. Instead, he had all his court jesters with him. There is more.
Missed opportunities
With the reopening of the Boracay island resort, the clearing of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport of the carcass of the Air Xiamen aircraft
and the full resumption of Philippine tourism, DU30 could have made Tourism Secretary Berna Romulo Puyat as part of his delegation not only to Israel but also to Jordan, his next stop.
An hour’s drive from Amman is Petra, one of the most beautiful natural sights in the world, which DU30 himself should not miss. It could have a great therapeutic effect on his body and soul. It could also teach him and his tourism secretary some useful ideas about tourism.
Obama, out of the blue, for calling him a “son of a bitch” in September 2016. He said he has also forgiven him for wanting to talk to him about the extrajudicial killings in his anti-drug campaign. This has made some people wonder whether his announced arms shopping in Israel, which shares many of its defense technology with the US, is really in support of his avowed pivot away from the US, or in fact in support of a pivot back to the US.
He also confessed, with mist in his eyes, to some of his countrymen at the Ramada Hotel that he has rediscovered his own God in the Holy Land, though not the God of others, whom he has recently called stupid, and that he has presumably made peace with Him.
Unforgettable quotes
These are some of his most quotable quotes while at the Holy Land. But to the millions of his hungry, if not starving, countrymen at home, his most astounding quote could still be the one which says, “there is no rice shortage in the Philippines.” ***
Correction: In my Monday column (“Can we rise above our concupiscence?” Manila Times of the last paragraph should read:
and all Christians, in my view, is to recognize that the crisis we face is not like anything we have faced before, and it is not going to be overcome by dividing humanity between conservatives and progressives, or devising doctrines that impose no hard obligations on anyone and replace the constant teaching of the Church magesterium.” In the original copy, the italicized word, devising, was misspelled as “divising.” The obvious error was corrected to read “dividing,” thereby losing its meaning. My apologies to all.