Before President Rodrigo Duterte left the country for Japan he went into another diatribe against our (erstwhile) ally, the United States, saying it should never treat the Philippines like a dog on a leash. When he arrived in Japan he said he wants foreign military troops—the Americans, pointedly—out of the country.
Last week, during his state visit to China, he announced the Philippines’ separation from the US. He was extra gracious to the Chinese then, even playing down his plans—assuming there were any to begin with—on how to enforce the ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration that rejected Chinese’s nine-dash claim on most of the South China Sea.
It’s a curious situation since his current hosts now are themselves locked in a territorial dispute with last week’s hosts. Mr. Duterte, though, was quick to assure the Japanese that no military alliances were forged with China —just economic ones.
It entails great effort to keep up with the President’s pronouncements when he is overseas, or when he speaks up about foreign governments. Sometimes he follows up and reinforces his hostile words, like he has against the US. In these cases, his subalterns are left with the sorry task of making sense of his words and twisting their meaning until it becomes near-palatable to the public.
What has gained Mr. Duterte the notoriety he now enjoys is his brash pronouncements about an “independent” foreign policy which in itself is a contradiction in terms. Having a foreign policy means acknowledging that one cannot live isolated, and being independent does not mean alienating all others. The phrase is a simplistic way to see the world and one’s place in it.
Perhaps the President is intoxicated with the novelty of his maverick reputation overseas. But at what price?
In this context, the Presidential Communication Office seems woefully incapable of transmitting to the public what the President truly means. It’s great entertainment, but it leaves us all fretting about where our leader is taking us.
Whether we like it or not, Mr. Duterte’s face is our face before the global community. Governments and organizations may equate the future of the Philippines with what our leader says. If they see, as they may already do, that we are brash, arrogant, simplistic—and often have to qualify what we say —then they may conveniently forget that this leader was elected by a mere plurality and that his term will not last forever.