Man up, Mr. President

For a president who has sold himself as a rough and tough leader of the Philippines, Duterte is showing the world an awful lot of weakness. I don’t know if age has shaken up his knees, but the more he weighs in on the issue of our sovereign rights over the West Philippine Sea, the more he sounds like a sellout kneeling before China.

In my last column, I hinted at communications on the highest levels between the Philippines and the United States to protect and defend all territories within the WPS against the swarming of Chinese militia vessels.

In doing so, I put some faith in the President that behind the curtain of silence he had draped over the maritime security issue for weeks on end was a tactical maneuver to counter China through a military response from the Philippines coordinated with Washington’s movement of its US naval forces from the Pacific into the South China Sea.

So it brings me and our great nation greater disappointment and embarrassment when he took a defeatist stance in his last pronouncement the other day, saying there’s no way we can claim our Chineseoccupied territories well within the WPS without bloodshed. As Commander-in-Chief, he just shot himself in the foot.

To make things worse, Duterte goes on record to point out that these territories being claimed by China within our Exclusive Economic Zone are “disputed,” when – in fact, reality and law – they are not. With that said, our country’s leader did not just shot himself in the foot but shot every Filipino in the back.

* * * It makes me wonder now if the rumors of a division of loyalty to the President within the military might be true, even if Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana – our fiercest lion growling at Beijing – denied such a breakaway.

Frankly, I find Duterte’s appeasement policy towards China’s war of attrition more discomforting than the idea that there are disgruntled military officers who are driven to override Malacanang’s weak response by setting out to sea to challenge China’s occupation of our reefs and islands head-on. Isn’t that prospect – although in direct defiance of the Commanderin-Chief ’s subservient inaction – more comforting?

To have soldiers willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to defend our territories and the honor of our nation is, to my mind, uniting than divisive.

* * * What I had picked up from foreign policy and maritime law experts like former Justice Antonio Carpio, Professors for Peace spokesperson Henry Yusingco, and UP Professor Jay Batongbacal is that Duterte’s chewing on an appeasement policy and making us swallow it should stop.

While military supremacy might rest on China, a military response from the Philippines by patrolling the WPS does not constitute an act of war nor initiates violence to draw blood Duterte projects to be most fearful of. It is simply a positioning of our defense because by all means do we have the right to defend what is ours.

It would be a signal that we prioritize defending our territory even as we take steps for a peaceful, lawful, and practical settlement of this maritime row. The reality is, we should develop a multilateral approach and get countries with interests in the maritime region not just involved but taking our side.

And with the rock-solid case we won against China’s sweeping maritime claims before the International Tribunal at The Hague, allies like the US, Japan, and Australia would easily be engaged. A diplomatic petition before the United Nations is also available play in our cards since The Hague ruling and the United Nations’ Code on the Laws of the Sea or UNCLOS both favor our cause.

Likewise, a practical middle ground is workable through the mediation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN, whose 10 memberstates have China as their top trading partner.

It only falls in the mutual economic interest of all parties that such a dispute over what is not even an island in the middle of the sea should not get in the way of flourishing trade partnerships. But first, our President should man up to defend our nation’s honor and territory, starting with his words.

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