THE British ambassador to the Philippines Asif Ahmad advised President Rodrigo Duterte against his intent to seek closer ties with Russia, urging him to reconsider his plan.
Ahmad was fielding reporters’ questions after Duterte announced earlier he would be first to join if Russia and China formed a “new world order.”
“You cannot cherrypick the positive attributes of a country and ignore the rest,” Ahmad said.
He said Russia invaded Afghanistan which resulted in the creation of Al-Qaida, a terror group founded by Osama bin Laden, who was killed in May 2011.
“If you check the history books, you’ll see Afghanistan was invaded by Russia, and Al-Qaida was born out of that conflict, and the consequences of that have gone global, including here in the Philippines,” Ahmad explained.
Al-Qaeda is reported to have funded the Abu Sayyaf Group, which operates in the mountains of Mindanao and responsible for numerous terror attacks round the country, several kidnappings of foreigners and notorious for beheading its captives if their ransom demands were not met.
He said the Russian invasion in Afghanistan also affected not only the nearby countries but also the Philippines.
“So what was spawned by Russian intervention in Afghanistan, we’re paying the price for it today in Mindanao, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Manila, when the ferry was blown up in the early part of the 2000s,” he said.
Ahmad was talking about the firebombing of a ferry in Manila Bay in 2004 which killed more than 100 lives.
He referred to one of Duterte’s speeches, where the President mentioned the bombing in Syria.
“I heard President Duterte very, very specifically talk about the bombings in Syria,” Ahmad said, urging the President to “well please, fact-check”.
He stressed the bombings in Aleppo were entirely due to Russia.
Meanwhile, supporting Ahmad’s advice, an administration source also urged Duterte to examine the track records of Russia and China before opening new ties with them.
In an interview, the administration source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the planned new ties with Russia and China might leave the Philippines to depend on another “master” with a shady and unknown agenda.
“Before talking about alliances and friendships with China (or Russia), we must examine their records of being a friend,” the source warned.
The source described the two countries and suggested caution why it might not be wise for the Philippines to burn the bridges with the United States and pivot to China and Russia.
“With the President’s plan to shift the Philippines’ diplomatic relationship towards China and Russia, is he (the President) aware of the kind of friendship these two have?” the source explained,
The source said the type and substance of China and Russia brand of friendship was anchored on “realism and realpolitik.”
“They are only friends where their common interests converge,” the source said.
Currently, the source said, Russia’s economy is “still not good,” with Moscow selling its military equipment to other countries.
China, on the other hand, the source said, is seeking regional hegemony and “not friendship.”
“It wants to put and label the whole region as its own sphere of influence,” it added.
The source, who has a deep knowledge on governance and diplomacy, said China will not lend any country a monetary aid without expecting “more than” what it lends the Philippines.
Since Duterte assumed office, he has been cursing at will officials, including President Barack Obama of the United States.
In June, Duterte told the United Nations’ Ban Ki-moon to “shut up” as the body “can’t even solve the Middle East carnage.”
In August, Duterte in his speech called US ambassador to the Philippines Philip Goldberg a “homosexual son of a whore.”
Also in August, the two UN special Rapporteurs on Summary Executions Agnes Callamard and the Right on Health Danius Puras urged Duterte to put an end to the current wave of extrajudicial executions and killings of the alleged drug users and pushers.
Duterte slammed the call of the two rapporteurs and theatened the Phjilippines would pull out from the UN – but later he said that was only a joke.
Before he left for his first official overseas trip to attend the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations Summit in Laos, Duterte warned Obama not to raise the issue on extrajudicial killing or he would curse him “son of bitch” in that forum.
In September, Duterte said the scheduled war games between the Philippines and the US would be the last, because China did not want them continued.
In October, Duterte again made fresh rhetoric, calling both the UN and the EU hypocrites.
Duterte also launched into new tirades against critics of his bloody anti-illegal drugs campaign, telling Obama to “go to hell” and the EU “to choose purgatory” because hell was already full.
But the Duterte administration source, who seemed not too keen on the idea of turning the country’s back to the United States, said that would mean helping China accomplish its plan of “regional hegemony.”
The Philippines may fall from a false hope that by being friends with China, the latter will let the Filipino fishermen fish in Scarborough shoal, the source said.
“We are now helping China accomplish this with the false hope that it will give us what is ours once it attains that status. And if it does not, we have nowhere to turn to, as we have isolated ourselves from our old friends or allies,” the source said.
The source added the Duterte administration should weigh carefully how much it would lose if the Philippines cut ties with the U.S and how much it would gain if the country formed alliances with China and Russia.
“©“The current ‘either or’ track of the President in gaining new friends is risky and narrow, and might have irreversible consequences,” the source warned, adding the President should not throw his cards away and deal with another deck of cards.
The source said it was possible to form alliance with China and Russia without burning the Philippines’ bridges with Manila’s long-time ally Washington.
“©“We want to ally ourselves with China and Russia without any clear objectives about what we are supposed to gain and what type of alliance we really are seeking. And we can do business with these countries without burning bridges with our old friends,” the source said.
