As tensions churn on the high seas, Filipinos find peace on another front

On Oct. 7, 2012, Philippine President Benigno S. Aquino III announced the signing of a peace agreement between his government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The deal, which paves the way for a settlement to one of Asia’s longest-running ethnic conflicts, may turn out to be the crowning achievement of the Aquino presidency – one that’s eluded half a dozen presidents before him.

Jose L. Cuisia Jr., Manila’s ambassador to the United States, said the secessionist guerrilla war has killed an estimated 120,000 people since the early 1970s and has impoverished millions more on the southern island of Mindanao, whose Muslim residents have long chafed under rule by the Christian-dominated central government.

Under the complicated settlement – which took years of countless back-and-forth negotiations to achieve – the Aquino government and MILF leaders agreed to create a new political entity, called Bangsamoro, that will offer the region autonomy but not full independence. It also provides for a transition period over the next few years to establish this new entity, as well as passage of a “basic law” that would define the scope of power and wealth-sharing between the national government and Bangsamoro.

“The Muslims living there will enjoy more rights under the government’s new setup, although there will be certain functions still retained by the central government – for example, defense, security and monetary and fiscal policy,” Cuisia told The Washington Diplomat in an interview three days after Aquino’s announcement. “They will be allowed to raise tax revenue in their particular area, take on subsidies from government grants and get revenue allotments from the central government.

“It’s still a work in process, but the important thing is that there’s an agreement in principle,” the ambassador added. “I think it’s a fantastic development. This is why our government immediately expressed its congratulations.”

So did US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who called the accord “a testament to the commitment of all sides for a peaceful resolution to the conflict in the southern Philippines.” In a press release issued hours after Aquino’s declaration, Clinton said “the next steps will be to ensure that the framework agreement is fully implemented. We encourage all parties to work together to build peace, prosperity and greater opportunities for all the people of the Philippines.”

Peace, prosperity and opportunity – these days, the Philippines seems to be enjoying a little of all three. “Times are pretty good in the Philippines if you are young, skilled and live in the city. Young urban workers are helping to give the country its brightest prospects in decades,” wrote Floyd Whaley in an Aug. 27 New York Times article. “With $70 billion in reserves and lower interest payments on its debt after recent credit rating upgrades, the Philippines pledged $1 billion to the International Monetary Fund to help shore up the struggling economies of Europe.”

The article also noted that by HSBC estimates, the Philippines could become the 16th-largest economy in the world by 2050 if current trends hold.

Geopolitically, as tensions roil the waters of the South China Sea, where nations compete for territory and resources, the Philippines is also capitalizing on the Obama administration’s military and economic “pivot” to Asia as a counterweight against growing Chinese assertiveness in the strategic waterways. That pivot was in full view as a newly re-elected President Obama made a historic visit to Burma (Myanmar) during a swing through Asia last month.

Although Manila wasn’t one of the stops on the president’s agenda, the Philippines has been one of the most vocal supporters of America’s foray back into the Asia Pacific. In fact, US foreign military financing for the Philippines nearly tripled in 2012 over the previous year, from $12 million to around $30 million, and since 2002, the Philippines has received nearly $500 million in military assistance from the United States, according to the US Embassy in Manila.

The ambassador said his country’s long relationship with the United States – which ruled the Philippines from 1898 to 1946 – has had its share of ups and downs, “but this is the best we’ve ever seen.”

Bilateral ties took a nosedive in 1991 when, in the face of strident nationalism and anti-American sentiment, the Philippine Senate rejected a deal that would have turned over Clark Air Base to the Philippine government the following year while allowing the Pentagon to remain at Subic Bay Naval Base for another 10 years. Instead, the United States had to turn over Clark, one of its oldest overseas bases, to the Philippine government two months after the senate’s decision; Subic Bay closed the following year.

“It was probably only in 2002 that we saw some improvement, when we joined the Coalition of the Willing in the Iraq War,” Cuisia said.

More recently, “we’ve seen a resurgence in the relationship between the Philippines and the United States. Secretary of State Clinton has had a key role in formulating that policy, and we also give credit to the assistant secretary of state [for East Asian and Pacific affairs], Kurt Campbell. He’s the one pushing for a greater role for ASEAN in the US,” Cuisia said, referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

President Obama met with the 10-member bloc for the East Asia Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, last month, and his administration has increasingly turned to ASEAN to settle the various territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Beijing prefers to handle the disagreements through direct negotiations, where it will wield more power. But the United States – declaring that freedom of navigation in the economically vital waters is in its “national interest,” much to China’s ire – has pushed for the standoff to be addressed peacefully in a multilateral setting.

The focus of all the competing claims are hundreds of rocky outcroppings that make up the Spratly Islands, which didn’t attract much international attention until the late 1990s, when surveys indicated the possibility of large oil and gas reserves underneath the seabed.

Four of the six claimants to the Spratlys – Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines – are ASEAN member states; the other two are China and Taiwan.

“But it’s only Vietnam and the Philippines which have experienced incursions by Chinese fishing vessels and marine surveillance vessels,” said Cuisia, noting a 1988 confrontation between China and Vietnam that killed 64 Vietnamese soldiers. And in March 2011, Chinese patrol ships harassed a Philippine scientific vessel and fired across the bows of Philippine fishing boats in waters within the country’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone covering the Spratlys.

In April of this year, however, Philippine Navy personnel boarded Chinese fishing vessels at Scarborough Shoal, claiming they had found illegally harvested coral and marine life. The move quickly drew Chinese surveillance ships and eventually gunboats from both sides to the tiny band of coral rocks and reef in a dangerous escalation that lasted two months.

President of the Philippines Benigno S. Aquino III, right, meets with US Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint of the Chiefs of Staff, and US Ambassador to the Philippines Harry K. Thomas Jr. in Manila on June 4, 2012.

Asked about such skirmishes, the ambassador said: “Our claim is with reference to our 200-mile exclusive economic zone as specified in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. If it is within our 200-mile EEZ, we will defend that.”

But experts say that kind of thinking could spark a major conflict that entangles many players. “The United States could be drawn into a China-Philippines conflict because of its 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty with the Philippines,” Bonnie S. Glaser of the Center for Strategic and International Studies points out in the report “Armed Clash in the South China Sea.”

One potential flashpoint, for example, could be natural gas drilling in the area of Reed Bank. “Oil survey ships operating in Reed Bank under contract have increasingly been harassed by Chinese vessels,” Glaser wrote, noting that Manila intends to award 15 exploration contracts over the next few years for offshore exploration near Palawan Island. “Reed Bank is a red line for the Philippines, so this contingency could quickly escalate to violence if China intervened to halt the drilling.”

In the report “Stirring up the South China Sea: Regional Responses” released over the summer, the International Crisis Group argues that there’s plenty of blame to go around for stoking tensions.

“Increasingly assertive positions among claimants have pushed regional tensions to new heights. Driven by potential hydrocarbon reserves and declining fish stocks, Vietnam and the Philippines in particular are taking a more confrontational posture with China,” the International Crisis Group said.

“All claimants are expanding their military and law enforcement capabilities, while growing nationalism at home is empowering hardliners pushing for a tougher stance on territorial claims. In addition, claimants are pursuing divergent resolution mechanisms; Beijing insists on resolving the disputes bilaterally, while Vietnam and the Philippines are actively engaging the US and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.”

But the issue has split ASEAN. At the East Asia Summit in Phnom Penh last month, the Philippines and summit host Cambodia butted heads over bringing the issue up at the regional gathering, with Cambodia, an ally of China, refusing to “internationalize the South China Sea from now on,” according to a foreign ministry official.

That prompted a blunt response from President Aquino, who tersely challenged that statement, saying, “For the record, this was not our understanding. The ASEAN route is not the only route for us. As a sovereign state, it is our right to defend our national interests.”

The kerfuffle mirrored an earlier breakdown at a July gathering of ASEAN foreign ministers in Cambodia, where the bloc failed to agree on a joint communiqué for the first time in its 45-year history because of the South China Sea impasse. The Philippines had wanted a communiqué to mention the confrontation between Manila and Beijing at Scarborough Shoal, but Cambodia seemed to bow to Chinese pressure to shelve the draft, saying the island disputes were bilateral issues. (To be continued)