The administration likes to point out that it is on track to fulfill almost all of the campaign promises of President Duterte.
One area that the administration has been relatively quiet about, however, is the shift in our foreign policy direction towards China. It is muted at best but the shift is unmistakable.
This all started when the administration started its war on illegal drugs and former United States President Barack Obama issued a warning to the administration to follow due process to avoid excesses in the anti-drug campaign. President Duterte responded with tirades calling the former US President names—and did not stop there.
He warned that he wanted to abrogate the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement between our two countries and stopped the traditional yearly Balikatan exercises.
Being the astute politician that he is, however, he must have sensed the difficulty of completely breaking our decades-old defense relationship with the US. So, he stopped short of doing it. There might be a backlash he cannot control and there are also close to 3 million Filipinos.
The President, however, he has single-handedly increased the favorable rating of China among Filipinos.
Our relationship with the US improved somewhat when President Trump took office but just slightly.
Our relationship with China, on the other hand, has gotten immensely better, and fast. In the two trips of the President to China, he brought home pledges of tens of billions of dollars in investment and development assistance. Senior Chinese officials also paid a visit to the country praising the newfound friendship between both countries.
China must be very pleased with itself with the way it has handled the Philippines. If not, the country would be very hard to please indeed.
We no longer hear our Department of Foreign Affairs talking about the United Nations arbitral ruling except for Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio who has taken it upon himself to champion our sovereign rights in the West Philippine Sea. Our DFA will also soon be meeting with its Chinese counterpart on a bilateral basis which China wants to discuss outstanding Fil-Chinese issues including the West Philippine Sea dispute.
Where exactly is the President taking this country? Is it his intention to take the country from the Western democratic values that the country has grown accustomed to for more than a hundred years and make us embrace the values of our giant neighbor to our west? If so, should not the President at least open up with the people so that a public debate can ensue about the merits and demerits of such a move? That is after all, the essence of democracy where our government is based upon.
Right now, what we can see is that the President is the principal actor moving the country toward China regardless of what his critics are saying. I hope this strategic move by him to move our country away from our traditional allies and closer to China will end up being good for our country. If not, he will be pilloried in history.
For better or for worse, China is now the center of our foreign policy initiatives. This is in spite of the fact that nothing much has changed when it comes to Scarborough Shoal. The Chinese are still there but because they allow Filipino fishermen to fish around the shoal, this seems to satisfy the current administration by not issuing any statements that would displease the Chinese leadership.
Even our desire to improve our facilities in Pagasa had to be stopped because of “advice” from China not to proceed.
The plan of Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana to protest the militarization of Kagitingan did not also push through. The administration keeps saying that there will be a proper time to take the issue of United Nations decision on the Scarborough Shoal but one and a half years into the administration of President Duterte, this has not yet happened.
In the meantime, what has happened are the following: On the apparent instruction of the President, the third telco player that will come into the country to break the stranglehold of Smart and Globe is a Chinese company. This is in addition to another Chinese company controlling our power grid distribution.
Also on the instructions of the President, China will conduct a maritime scientific study on the Philippine Rise. In 2016, a Chinese ship was spotted in the area but the Chinese said that it was only exercising the right to safe passage. Still, the ship was observed by our Navy to be zigzagging indicating that it was doing something else. Now, we are allowing them to do it openly but with a consolation price of Filipino scientists joining the study.
But why, of all people, the Chinese? Some opposition senators were asking could Filipino scientists not do the study alone, or perhaps with other countries? Why open the Philippine Rise to a country that already does not recognize our sovereign rights over Scarborough Shoal as mandated by the United Nations arbitral ruling?
The administration for its part has so far given unsatisfactory answers. Even the Presidential Spokesperson, Secretary Harry Roque, who before joining government service was a staunch critic of what China was doing, appears to be singing a different tune at the moment.
Maybe more transparency is needed. We need to understand the apparent fundamental shift toward China.
