The National Security Council convened in Malacañang last Wednesday. The Council was called by President Rodrigo Duterte after two major foreign policy events, all happening within the first month of the Duterte administration.
First, the “victory” of the arbitration case filed by the country against China at the instance of the previous administration. This was followed by two international conferences where the Philippines, through Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr., tried to advance our South China Sea claims in two international conferences—namely the Asia-Europe Meeting conference in Ulanbaatar, Mongolia, and right after that, the Asean foreign ministers conference in Vientiane, the capital of Laos.
The first event: The Permanent Court of Arbitration in Den Haag in The Netherlands ruled that China’s nine-dash line, which to it defined its claim over virtually 90 percent of the South China Sea, was illegal. China in fact refused to participate in the arbitration proceedings. How then could they, or would they, honor its decision?
The conferences that followed were a testament to the reality of international politics: “right” is not defined by international adjudications, even if under the aegis of the United Nations. And international conferences should be viewed as venues with which to advance national interests.
After all, foreign policy is but an extension of domestic policy.
Asem began the day after a “terrorist” ran his rented lorry over a crowd watching a fireworks spectacle at the famed Promenade des’ Anglais in Nice in France. Not an auspicious time to discuss something in the sea that divides “mighty” China and the less mighty Philippines, despite the efforts of our foreign secretary to at least mention the matter in his three-minute remarks.
And so it went from Mongolia to Laos, where a regional pre-summit meeting (also in Laos this coming September) was held last weekend. Our top diplomat had hoped that since Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam were themselves engaged in sovereignty claims over their slice of the China Sea, sympathetic voices would be in support of the Philippine “victory” over the West Philippine Sea.
Host Laos was conspicuously cold. Neighboring Cambodia, as it did in 2012, played the China card. What did we expect? In Phnom Penh, the highway linking it to its eastern provinces bordering Vietnam was built with Chinese money. Spanning its river that connects the huge Tonle Sap to the Mekong is the China-Cambodia “friendship” bridge, built and funded by you know which country.
Laos’ economic survival depends on its selling hydro-electric power to Thailand and Vietnam. Those “mighty” rivers that they dammed with foreign assistance, and again the neighboring country to its north helped tremendously, flow from headwaters located in Zizang Zizhou, in China. (This is what the Western powers refer to as Tibet, one of those Chinese provinces which host a large part of the snows of the Himalayas).
And so from Den Haag to Ulanbaatar to Vientiane, back to Manila with the nagging issue of how the country should advance from where it is on the West Philippine Sea issue. The President, right after his first State of the Nation Address, called for a meeting of the NSC, a consultative body where sit former presidents of the republic, as well as key legislators and national security-involved cabinet members. And he did it right after the Secretary of State of the United States paid him a quick visit after the Asean foreign minister’s hubbub in Laos.
What came out of all these?
Kerry met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Laos, and when he came to Manila, in brief talks with our president, he urged us to settle our differences over WPS/SCS in a peaceful manner. With Wang Yi he said virtually the same thing. In short, while re-stating our “historic bonds of friendship” and securing affirmation of Edca not only from the executive but as well with finality from the high court, the Kerry message was: “huwag kayong mag-away, kasi wala kaming kakampihan”. He he he.
Our former presidents also advised “caution” and “restraint”, as if the incumbent has not been acting with the same. In fact, it was he who publicly stated, in the heels of the Den Haag decision, that “we should not flaunt it.”
But President Duterte plays his cards well. He asked his friend FVR, a former president with good diplomatic instincts, to be his special envoy to China. That received good reviews, both here and abroad and even from China. And then he mentions FVR’s former interior secretary, Rafael Alunan, who has publicly weighed in against China and is considered a “hawk” on the issue, as a possible FVR assistant. Otro he he he.
Now come our outgoing ambassador to the US, Mr. Jose Cuisia, and our former Foreign Affairs secretary, Albert del Rosario, publicly chiding Yasay for “failure” in Laos, and eschewing once more the prospects of bilateral talks.
Why aren’t we bandying about this hard-earned “victory” and using it as a “trump” card against China, the hawks ask.
Simple. The reason is that President Duterte does not want it to be a “pyrrhic” victory. Which is simply put, an empty win, where the toll for pursuing victory at all costs can be so devastating. Why does Duterte keep saying, “I won’t spill precious Filipino blood over war with China?” Why did he say, over a question posed by Karen Davila in the Dagupan debate during the campaign, that he would rather jet-ski to one of the contested “rocks” and plant the Philippine flag, all by himself? The shallow minds thought that was “uninformed;” they could not see through his hyperbole, and the deeper meaning in his mind. Simply because the shallows who try to sound deep do not read history as much as Rodrigo Duterte does.
So where does all this lead us?
Let me repeat an earlier stated fact in this article: “Foreign policy is an extension of domestic policy.” Put another way, what is best for the Filipino people is what our foreign policy should be about.
And the all-important issue which sometimes Westerners find difficult to understand, and which is why they stumble all over the world when they deal with other countries: Face.
In the world of diplomacy, you should always be considerate of the national pride of those on the other side of the negotiating table. Especially to Orientals, “face” is very important.
As our lolos and lolas would say, “huwag mong ipapa-mukha sa iba and iyong katangian.” And the Bisaya Rodrigo says, “let us not flaunt it.”
The bottomline: China is Oriental. The Philippines should likewise be Oriental. Except that sometimes we (or at least our elite) think and act like Occidentals.
Thank God we have a true Oriental and a rock-bottom nationalist as leader.