Is America isolating itself from the international community because of President Donald Trump’s misguided policies?
If Trump does have advisers, he should listen to them. They would probably counsel him to mend fences instead of building walls as he said he would to keep out illegal immigrants from Mexico. But then, this is a president who runs his government like he used to host his TV reality talk show “The Apprentice.” There is a world of difference between running a TV show and the reality of running the government of the still-most-powerful nation on earth.
Trump’s oft used phrase is “You’re fired!” So what advisor would dare tell Trump to do this or that and not risk hearing these words?
So they quit, which explains the spate of resignations of officials in Trump’s official family. A wag quipped that at the rate Trump’s officials are resigning, First Lady Melania Trump might do the same. Let’s hope not—the US president needs someone like Melania after a hard day at the Oval Office.
Former President Bill Clinton made the mistake of relieving his stress right inside the Oval Office with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. See where it got him and wife Hillary Clinton’s presidential run against Trump. Voters were reminded of Bill’s indiscretion every time they see him at Hillary’s campaign sorties. They see Monica instead of Hillary. And Trump benefitted from this Oval Office sexcapade.
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Meanwhile, opposition senators last week questioned before the Supreme Court Malacanang’s move to withdraw the Philippines’ membership in the International Criminal Court. In a petition, Senators Francis Pangilinan, Franklin Drilon, Risa Hontiveros, Paulo Aquino, Antonio Trillanes IV, including the incarcerated Leila de Lima said the executive decision is invalid without the concurrence of the Senate which is the final arbiter of all the treaties the country enters into.
The senators sought the issuance of a high court hold order compelling the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Philippine Mission to the United Nations to revoke the notice sent last March withdrawing the Philippine membership to the Rome Statute.
The Philippine is one of 121 countries that signed the Rome Statute. Only three countries—China, Russia and the United States—are not members. The difference between the Philippines and the US is that Manila signed the ICC statute; the Senate ratified it. The US Senate did not ratify the UN treaty on the concern it would place at risk its military officials and soldiers from being put on trial when the US embarks on foreign wars which it does on the belief it is protecting freedom, democracy and human rights.
Critics of the Duterte administration think the President is concerned that he might be haled to the ICC because of the alleged human rights violations committed in his brutal war on illegal drugs. The Philippine National Police, which is at the forefront of the drug war, denied that EJKs are involved in suspects slain by authorities. The police claimed that the criminal suspects reportedly resisted arrest and in fact fired first during police team operations.
We will never know who’s telling the truth—the police or the relatives of the slain suspects? But as they say, dead men tell no tales.