China-Philippines friendship: Illusion to reality
IDID not win the Award for Promoting Philippines-China Understanding (Appcu) for nothing.
That was June 10, 2022. The year-and-a-half after that has been a period of significant events that turned out to be challenges for me to prove true to the award.
To begin with, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., whose first lady Marie Louise “Liza” Araneta Marcos had handed me the golden plaque citing my contribution to the promotion of Philippines-China understanding, had made a complete turnaround. From his avowal of lasting friendship with China while not yet president, he has shifted to a hard and fast alliance with China’s archrival, the United States, once ensconced in Malacañan Palace.
All the gains visibly achieved by the past Duterte administration from deep camaraderie with China appear to have been squandered in an instant. What was particularly perceived under Duterte as an independent foreign policy, for example, became overnight a platform of total subservience to the United States.
Beginning from his audience with American finance moguls on the sidelines of his United Nations visit at the start of his term which betrayed early on his strong leanings toward a US-dominated world economy, to his subsequent meeting with the Indo-Pacific business community in which he highlighted and proclaimed necessary US political ascendance in the Asia-Pacific region, he segued to a series of events that seemed to crescendo in an anti-China symphonic sweep: allowing, despite strong protests by China, transit through Clark Airbase of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in her visit to Taiwan, which visit China deemed an affront to Chinese sovereignty.
His hearty welcome of US Vice President Kamala Harris, whose anti-China motive in visiting what was being intended as a US military camp in Palawan he cheerfully acknowledged; and finally, to a cacophony of drums and cymbals, and trumpets and bugles, and an ear-splitting shrill of a variety of horns and strings, the exhilarating, glorious coda — the grant by Bongbong to America of four additional Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) sites.
That was when the heavens roared. Thunder and lightning rent the eastern skies.
The Chinese dragon, sleeping as it might have seemed, suddenly raged, its mouth spewing fire.
Provocative and increasing tension in the South China Sea region was how Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi worded the development.
Void of hyperbole and literary touches now, we come down to brass tacks.
Bongbong’s sudden pivot to the US in the contest for world domination has caught many unawares. Not the least of whom is this columnist. I had been rooting for Bongbong all the way, all the time of his lost battle for the vice presidency, and in the entire stretch of his presidential campaign. And this, all for Bongbong being consistently open in his partiality to China in all aspects, it seemed.
A short while prior to the election of 2022, the Chinese Embassy held an exhibit of photographs documenting the history of the diplomatic relations begun by Ferdinand Marcos Sr. with China in 1975.
To the opening of that exhibit, Bongbong was the guest of honor. Certainly, that spoke much of Bongbong being China’s favored presidential candidate. And then came what could amount to a coup de grace — the Appcu night at Dusit Thani Hotel. Though already proclaimed winner in the presidential election, Bongbong had not yet been sworn in.
Yet he graced the affair with all the pomp and pageantry of a reigning sovereign. And certainly imbuing his presence with strong Chinese scent and color was Chinese Ambassador to the
Philippines Huang Xilian as his co-keynote speaker. Indeed, their speeches were expressions of the high regard, mutual respect and the undying friendship their countries had for each other.
I distinctly recall Bongbong referring to China as the Philippines’ “partner, most reliable friend and neighbor.”
“How auspicious a start for a president,” I told myself. “In the bosom of China.”
Alas, even before his first 100 days were over, Bongbong executed the acts enumerated above which betrayed his true American scent and color. In one column, I wrote: “Who was twisting Bongbong’s arms?”
Evidently, such kind of powerful coercion was being applied for him to change hearts so easily. I could only conjecture. An account in social media talked about some premium properties here and there in the United States which the Marcoses must preserve come hell or high water. If preserving those properties required abandoning the heretofore sincere close camaraderie with China, then so be it.
Therein lies certainly the stark reality in the current Philippine governance. It must rise way above the illusion of national interest.
All of a sudden, Bongbong must assert Philippine sovereignty over Ayungin Shoal and Scarborough Shoal, areas previously allowed by China to be open to Filipinos on the principle of tolerance. In other words, Filipinos could come and go in those areas not because they own them but because China tolerates it.
Such has been the case in Ayungin Shoal where the decrepit BRP Sierra Madre had been run aground 1999. For 24 years, China has allowed resupply missions to the ship by the Philippine Coast Guard but with express prohibition against bringing construction materials. In instances when violations of the prohibition is committed, the China Coast Guard does its law enforcement prerogatives such as water cannoning.
Note that such has been standard operating procedure even all throughout the past Duterte administration, yet only at the advent of the Bongbong term did the practice generate an uproar. Bongbong protested the act, asserting Philippine sovereignty over the reef. About the reported promise made by President Joseph Estrada in 1999 to remove Sierra Madre from the shoal once conditions permitted, Bongbong was steadfast in his stand, “If there was such a promise, I rescind it.”
What none of us was aware of was that Project Myuoshu was already at work at the time. Crafted by one Raymond Powell, a former officer of the US Air Force, the project was specifically designed to heat up the South China Sea dispute between the Philippines and China in order to bring about the war situation desired by the US. Evidently, Bongbong was into the undertaking, and not quite clandestinely at that, as indicated by his words.
“Sinasabi nila (China) kanila (ang Ayungin Shoal), eh, atin naman talaga iyun (They say it’s theirs, but it’s actually ours),” he said.
In the past, no such talk would occur. The mode observed was, set aside points being differed on and work on joint ventures for mutual benefit.
With Bongbong, the American war scheme visibly prevails.
China cannot be faulted for flexing its muscles in the South China Sea. The Philippines has allowed America and its allies to conduct war exercises in the region. What China does is counter the provocation lest the intruders get the wrong idea and push their war plans.
Meantime, the Philippines suffers the total loss of China’s economic development support. The ultimate sufferers are the Filipino people. It is for this reason that I endeavored to think of ways of salvaging the situation.
America is hell-bent on getting the Philippines warring with China. And the Bongbong government appears completely willing to get it done. But there is no stopping the Filipino people from taking the matter into their own hands. A strong and determined peopleto-people initiative between China and the Philippines can make an impossible dream come true.
The Mutual Benefits Treaty envisions joint ventures in the genre of the aborted Recto Bank oil exploration project.
The Visiting Resources Agreement encourages the entry of Chinese investors in various fields.
And the Enhanced Lending Coverage Agreement (ELCA) intends to integrate the Philippines into the Chinese vision of a “community of shared future for mankind.”
If the names of the treaties resonate those of the Mutual Defense Treaty, Visiting Forces Agreement and EDCA, it is because it has been intended. They are meant to neutralize the military stranglehold exercised by America over the Philippines through those military treaties. The only way to beat America in its military adventures in the Philippines is through economic empowerment of the Filipino people. As I put it already in a past column, a wellfed, healthy populace is the key to a peaceful, prosperous Philippines.