Rody can be greatest President yet–joma

President Duterte could be the Philippines’ greatest president if he indeed asserts national sovereignty and territorial integrity in tandem with economic and social reforms the communist movement has demanded over the past 50 years.

This was the unsolicited advice of the octogenarian Jose Maria “Joma” Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), when asked about the country’s announced withdrawal from its Visiting Forces Agreement with the United States.

“There would be lasting peace with the revolutionary movement,” said Sison in an online interview from his base in Utrecht in The Netherlands.

Sison stressed that ending the military pacts with the United States “must be complemented by national industrialization and genuine land reform in order to ensure the support of the Filipino people and their revolutionary movement.”

Against China, too

If President Duterte can assert national sovereignty against the United States, Sison said, “he should also be able to assert the same against Chinese imperialism.”

He urged the President to demand that China withdraw from the artificial and militarized islands built in the country’s exclusive economic zone in the West Philippine Sea and that Beijing comply with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and international arbitral tribunal decision in favor of the Philippines.

Duterte could then strengthen the country’s alliance with member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that have been “aggrieved by the aggressive extraterritorial claims of China and with the overwhelming majority of states in the world, including the United States, without going into unequal treaties with it.”

‘No man is an island’

“If Duterte can do everything that I have said, then I will salute him as the president fundamentally different from and superior to all his predecessors in terms of patriotism and progressiveness,” Sison said.

But that is not necessarily so, said Sen. Panfilo Lacson, chair of the Senate national defense and security committee.

“No man is an island. It’s bravado to say we will stand on our own two feet alone. No country is like that,” Lacson said over dwiz, stressing that anti-americanism would undermine the benefits the country receives, like technical assistance and intelligence sharing, from the United States.

Lacson said all countries rely on alliances with other countries, and smaller and underdeveloped nations, like the Philippines, need the help of allies, particularly those with whom the country shares strategic interests.