Following an unchartered course in dealing with China

THE Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is euphoric, having maintained a three-year high satisfaction rating in Social Weather Stations (SWS) surveys involving 1,200 respondents.

In 2020, the AFP garnered a +74 net satisfaction rating from respondents who cited their satisfaction with its response to calamities and disasters and in defeating the Daesh-inspired Maute group in Marawi. The military’s performance rating dipped to +67 net score in 2021, but improved by 9 points after garnering a high public satisfaction rating of “excellent” — its highest — net score in an SWS survey conducted in December 2022.

In 2019, the AFP was cited by the Makati Business Club’s executive outlook survey as among the Top 10 performing non-business organizations in the Philippines.

The military was also featured by PUBLiCUS Asia in a study that the latter conducted involving 1,500 respondents in the first semester of 2022, where 63 percent rated the military as “the most trustworthy government institution.” In terms of approval rating, a bigger number of PUBLiCUS respondents gave the AFP a very high 69 percent.

With the trust and satisfaction ratings having been consistently high, we take our hats off and proudly salute the men and women of the AFP even as we mourn for two Philippine Air Force (PAF) SF260TP pilots who perished in an air mishap in Pilar, Bataan while undergoing proficiency training.

Confidence, capability to defend territory

But even with these SWS survey results in terms of the respondents’ “confidence [i]n the AFP’s capability” to defend the Philippine territory against foreign aggressors and encroachers in the West Philippine Sea (WPS), Filipinos have bigger expectations. In the December 2019 survey, for instance, only 62 percent of the respondents have “much confidence,” 12 percent have “little confidence” that the AFP can defend Philippine territories in disputed waters in the South China Sea while 26 percent are “undecided.” In the December 2022 survey, the respondents gave the AFP a +62 score in its “capability” to defend the country’s territory in the WPS. Comparing these scores to the respondents’ net satisfaction rating of +76 being the highest and +67 being the lowest, it is apparent that Filipinos want more from their AFP in terms of defending the country’s territory and sovereign rights. We cannot blame neither the people for their steep expectations nor the AFP for its restrained behavior toward the Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) in the WPS.

Since 16 million Filipino voters believed that then-candidate for president Rodrigo Duterte would make good his promise to ride a jet ski to plant the Philippine flag on Spratly Islands, our kababayan yearned to see a tougher stance and stronger actions against the Chinese bullies in the West Philippine Sea. Even when President Duterte, later in his presidency, admitted that the promise was a mere “campaign joke,” the people still hoped that his administration would do more than just filing notes verbale. And being instruments of national power, the public rely on their AFP and their Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), for that matter, to champion the cause and protect hapless Filipinos who cannot cast their fishing nets — nay enter their traditional fishing grounds to earn a living. Our people felt betrayed that, instead of our tough-talking Chief Executive doing a Joko Widodo where the Indonesian president blasts and sinks encroaching Chinese fishing vessels, Duterte called Chinese President Xi Jinping a “friend.”

The AFP with its modest capability, while resupplying Filipino troops in their stations and in the performance of its other mandates, is willing and ready to defend and secure the country’s territory, but not if their Commander in Chief declares himself “inutil” in asserting the country’s sovereign rights over the WPS. The military cannot rise above the Chief Executive who admits helplessness against Chinese military might and who concedes that clashing against this powerful neighbor will mean a “massacre” of Filipino troops.

Lessons BBM must learn from Duterte

Former president Duterte, who ended his term with an unparalleled excellent +81 satisfaction rating per an SWS survey, had his reasons for his geopolitical stand in engaging China, and for being pragmatic, we grant him that. What may be a defeatist stance to his detractors is a realist standpoint to most Filipinos. But the country had tried his way for the past six years, and we have not had any substantial or meaningful gains. This irresponsible neighbor extracts giant clams and raked our corrals. Our fisherfolk continue to be robbed of their livelihood in our own waters; our navy while performing humanitarian and resupply missions can do so virtually at the behest of the Chinese; and the present generation of Filipinos are denied the much-needed sources of energy in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) — because China is preventing any exploration deals by the Philippines with other countries other than itself. It is high time that President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (BBM) abandon Duterte’s geopolitical formula especially in dealing with Chinese hegemony in Southeast Asia.

President Marcos, after his recent visit to China, should have realized by now that there can really be no “agreement” with Xi after CCG vessels drove away Filipino fishing boats from Ayungin Shoal on Jan. 9, 2023. He must have been convinced that “deals” with China and any of similar kinds were ploys and lies meant to lull the other party to complacency. The past six years of “closer ties” with China are filled with bitter anecdotes of many of our poor kababayan being subjected to machine gunfires and water cannon blasts and exposed to blinding search lights and various other menacing ways by the Chinese Coast Guard. And the most publicized of Chinese capability to prevaricate — officially — was their embassy’s report that Philippine Navy personnel voluntary surrendered a recovered Chinese rocket debris.

The Marcos administration must invest more fund to modernize the Philippine Navy and the PAF instead of the Maharlika wealth fund and begin the procurement of ships and aircraft that take years to build. BBM can cause the allocation of budget outside of the modernization fund. Patriotic legislators in both houses of Congress can share portions of their greasy “pork barrels” for a mass of fund that will finance the making of 78-footer boats or similar maritime assets. The Naval Sea Systems Command has engineers and shipbuilders schooled abroad who can construct these platforms to increase naval presence in our EEZ. The President can cause the funding for and direct the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources to build more boats, establish more “payaos” and construct storage facilities to capacitate our fishermen for their livelihood and eventually “swarm” our EEZ with fishing vessels.

Defense budget must be increased to allocate for the development of already existing naval stations and detachments on the nine islands, islets and features in the WPS.

Courageous and nationalistic members of Philippine media should accompany naval resupply sorties and expose, with the help of colleagues in the international press, Chinese atrocities and China’s continuing violations of the 2002 Code of Conduct of claimant countries in the South China Sea.

BBM should now allow the military to join maritime drills with the United States, Australia, Japan and Canada where Duterte banned the Philippine Navy from participating to ostensibly prevent offending this neighbor. He should pursue multilateral talks rather than bilateral engagement; continue to build alliances and generate support from the United Nations to pressure China to adhere to the ruling of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea to which China is a signatory. Finally, President Marcos should opt for projects other than those funded by China, learning from the Sri Lanka experience.

It is true that there are many aspects that characterize FilipinoChinese relations, and maritime ties are just one of them. Mutual respect, however, remains to be the hallmark of genuine friendship. Adherence to laws that define borders is still the key to a peaceful neighborhood. The absence of both in our case is a good reason to reassess other modes to attain mutual co-existence.