Catch Du30 before he crosses Yangtze
NEW YORK – The United States better catch President Rodrigo Duterte with its Best Offer before he crosses the Yangtze River – the “Rubicon” in his mind – on his way to Beijing for hard negotiations this month with China over long-term relationships.
With all that colorful cursing from the Philippine president, who explodes with invectives when the other party refuses to listen – the US cannot say it has not been advised. Any miscalculation may push Duterte into an irreversible crossing.
The stakes are high for the trio – the US, China and the Philippines – thrown into a geopolitical ménage à
trois. Whichever way Duterte goes will mean a drastic realignment of forces and redefinition of ulterior designs.
The US will have to recalculate its pivot to the Asia-Pacific region if Duterte makes good his threat to have his long- neglected country lean toward Beijing and Moscow, in a shift away from its sweet-sour love affair with Uncle Sam.
While the US has other parking areas for its air and naval forces in the region, those facilities cannot match the strategic value of Philippine bases, such as Clark Field and Subic Bay that it had developed to meet strict requirements.
The Philippines’ possibly tolerating Chinese military presence and operations in its territory could upset the military equilibrium in the region and disturb the traditionally free navigation in critical lanes in the South China Sea and the air above it.
Duterte says his country’s needs are simple, foremost of which is respect. This sentiment (more of “sentimiento” with a tinge of “tampo”?) was amplified days ago by Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay when he declared, “America has failed us!”
The US and the watching world may want to know where America – to whom generations of Filipinos have looked up – failed its friend and ally. Some call it perfidy, and it is all there on the record.
• There are also people-to-people ties FORTUNATELY, relations between nations move on various levels. While official government-to-government dealings may look bumpy at times, other parallel lines, such as people-to-people contact, can be smooth and productive.
Foreign relations is too grave a matter to leave to politicians and government officials. Foreign policy should be people-based. After all, government is just an attempt to carry out the wishes of the governed.
It may be useful at this point, before Duterte crosses the Yangtze, to have an honest survey conducted on how Filipinos view having extra-lateral relations with China and what they think of the Philippines distancing itself from the US.
Pressing his tirades against his counterpart in the White House, President Duterte told President Barack Obama last Monday to “go to hell!” Earlier, he announced also that the two countries’ joint military exercises conducted under existing agreements will be stopped.
Still, the two countries’ soldiers carried on as comrades-in-arms. The spirit of “balikatan” (shoulder-to-shoulder) is evident in their Amphibious Landing Exercises (Phiblex) that followed the bigger exercises last April involving more than 8,000 troops.
Despite (or because of?) Duterte’s harsh words, the State department said this week the US is committed to provide $180 million in assistance from now till September 2017 – with the string attached that security units assisted must not violate human rights.
Manila defense officials sniffed at that promise, pointing to a supposed shortfall of some $50 million-$100 million a year in aid. Duterte himself said earlier that the US should just cut its aid to zero if it continues to treat the Philippines like a beggar or nag him about drug-related killings.
But Duterte’s diatribes seem to be becoming productive – in the sense that dollar figures are now surfacing. In the real world, words are cheap. Numbers are often needed to plumb hidden agenda, to measure interests and intentions.
Unmindful of the noise, a good number of Filipinos continue to migrate to the US, regarded by many as a land of equal opportunity and higher level of social security. One estimate places the number of Filipinos in the US at four million, most of them in the west and the east coasts.
American investors, meanwhile, do not slacken in their business in the Philippines, which is a steady supplier of raw materials and highly-qualified manpower and a big market for US goods.
• Duterte’s cue: Entry of new UN SecGen PRESIDENT Duterte will have a chance to veer from his collision course with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon with the coming election of former Prime Minister Antonio Guterres of Portugal as Ban’s replacement.
Selected unanimously by the UN Security Council, the 67-year-old Guterres is expected to be elected next week by the 193-member General Assembly for a five-year term to start on Jan. 1 next year.
Duterte once threatened to pull out the Philippines from the world body (he later said he was joking) after Ban raised the issue of human rights in connection with his anti-narcotics campaign.
The Philippines is a founding member of the world body and a member of the UN Human Rights Council. Many of the various missions to the UN have Filipinos on their staff.
Guterres told the press that his 10 years (two terms) as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which ended last December, were “excellent preparation” for a secretary-general who has to be seen by countries as independent.
Duterte, a socialist, should find common cause with Guterres who was secretary-general of the Socialist Party, the Portuguese opposition in 1992. He joined the party after the 1974 “Carnation revolution” which ended nearly five decades of dictatorship.
Guterres reportedly prefers to have a woman as deputy secretary-general, saying that it was crucial in the maledominated United Nations to “have gender parity.”
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