THE dean of the Philippine Senate, Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile, blamed President Benigno Aquino III for the country’s China crisis, saying Aquino failed to prepare the country when the situation worsened with the occupation of Panatag Shoal.
“What is [our] preparation to protect ourselves? Nothing,” Enrile said during a news forum at the Annabel’s restaurant in Quezon City.
“Maybe we will not be begging America to save our asses [if we had prepared ourselves],” Enrile said, adding that the only reason we are beholden to America is because we have “no security cover against the regional hegemon, China.”
Back in 2012, Enrile criticized Aquino for not heeding the advice of knowledgeable diplomats on the China issue and instead employed Senator Antonio Trillanes IV as a “back-channel negotiator” with Beijing.
Enrile later accused Trillanes of treason for supposedly working to push China’s interest over that of the Philippines to the dismay of the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Trillanes later criticized the US-educated Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario for drawing the United States into the dispute.
But Enrile defended Del Rosario’s move on Saturday and said partnering with other countries, specifically the US, may be the only way the Philippines can protect its sovereignty at least for the moment.
“I agree [it would be good] to maintain and strengthen our alliance with the United States of America. The United States of America is still the strongest, richest, and most secure and stable country in the world in this century,” he said.
Enrile noted that the Philippines also has strong bonds with member-countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, but each country also has its own interests to protect in the protracted dispute in the South China Sea.
“It is a [group] of countries with separate national interests. Do we profit by it? Economically, militarily, security-wise, or politically, do we benefit from Asean, I don’t know,” Enrile said.
But a ranking DFA official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the China crisis should be understood in the larger issue of freedom of international navigation and commerce in the South China Sea.
“The Philippines has taken all the legal aspects against Chinese incursion, that includes the filing of a case in the International tribunal,” the official said.