Saturday, March 25, 2023
manilastandard.net
ADVERTISEMENT
  • About
  • News
    • Top Stories
    • National
    • World News
    • Pinoy Abroad
    • Features
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • Columns
    • Soundbytes
  • LGUs
    • NCR
    • Luzon
    • Visayas
    • Mindanao
  • Business
    • Corporate
    • Economy & Trade
    • Stocks
    • Money
    • Agri & Mining
    • Power & Tech
    • IT & Telecom
  • Sports
    • Basketball
    • Volleyball
    • Fightsports
    • Active
    • Sports Plus
    • One Championship
    • Columns
  • Entertainment
    • TV & Movies
    • Celebrity Profiles
    • Music & Concerts
    • Digital Media
    • Columns
  • Lifestyle
    • Food
    • Culture & Media
    • Fashion
    • Health and Home
    • Leisure
    • Shopping
    • Columns
  • Others
    • Pets
    • Pop.Life
      • Newsmakers
      • Hangouts
      • A-Pop
      • Post Its
      • Performances
      • Malls & Bazaars
      • Hobbies & Collections
    • Technology
      • Gadgets
      • Computers
      • Business
      • Tech Plus
    • MS ON THE ROAD
      • Sedan
      • SUV
      • Truck
      • Bike
      • Accessories
      • Motoring Plus
      • Commuter’s Corner
    • Home & Design
      • Residential
      • Commercial
      • Construction
      • Interior
    • Spotlight
    • Gallery
      • Photos
      • Videos
    • Events
      • Seminars
      • Exhibits
      • Community
    • Biyahero
      • Travel Features
      • Travel Reels
      • Travel Logs
  • Advertise with Us
No Result
View All Result
  • About
  • News
    • Top Stories
    • National
    • World News
    • Pinoy Abroad
    • Features
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • Columns
    • Soundbytes
  • LGUs
    • NCR
    • Luzon
    • Visayas
    • Mindanao
  • Business
    • Corporate
    • Economy & Trade
    • Stocks
    • Money
    • Agri & Mining
    • Power & Tech
    • IT & Telecom
  • Sports
    • Basketball
    • Volleyball
    • Fightsports
    • Active
    • Sports Plus
    • One Championship
    • Columns
  • Entertainment
    • TV & Movies
    • Celebrity Profiles
    • Music & Concerts
    • Digital Media
    • Columns
  • Lifestyle
    • Food
    • Culture & Media
    • Fashion
    • Health and Home
    • Leisure
    • Shopping
    • Columns
  • Others
    • Pets
    • Pop.Life
      • Newsmakers
      • Hangouts
      • A-Pop
      • Post Its
      • Performances
      • Malls & Bazaars
      • Hobbies & Collections
    • Technology
      • Gadgets
      • Computers
      • Business
      • Tech Plus
    • MS ON THE ROAD
      • Sedan
      • SUV
      • Truck
      • Bike
      • Accessories
      • Motoring Plus
      • Commuter’s Corner
    • Home & Design
      • Residential
      • Commercial
      • Construction
      • Interior
    • Spotlight
    • Gallery
      • Photos
      • Videos
    • Events
      • Seminars
      • Exhibits
      • Community
    • Biyahero
      • Travel Features
      • Travel Reels
      • Travel Logs
  • Advertise with Us
No Result
View All Result
manilastandard.net
No Result
View All Result
Home Opinion Columns Formation by Gary Olivar

Neighbor, ally

June 1, 2021, 12:10 am
in Formation by Gary Olivar
Reading Time: 4 mins read
A A
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Email

"The key is not to become a pawn."

 

I’m happy to welcome the return to (online) print last March of the quarterly journal of the Philippine Council for Foreign Relations, a foreign policy think tank from EDSA days that was recently revived by several like-minded senior diplomats and national security officials led by former DILG Secretary Raffy Alunan.

The maiden issue, not surprisingly, focuses on our outstanding issues with China. As this already contentious controversy starts being further muddled up by campaign posturing on both sides, it would be good to remind ourselves of first principles, using some quotes from the PCFR journal.

* * *

First, the face-off between the US and China is what’s driving the face-off today between us and China.

ADVERTISEMENT

We’ve been trading and inter-marrying with the Chinese far longer than with anybody else. Except for a brief flirtation with exporting revolution in the seventies, the Chinese communists see themselves as a “middle kingdom” in Confucian coexistence with neighbors (or “vassals”, if you want to be unkind) whom they’re trying to embrace even tighter through initiatives like the Belt and Road.

To quote DFA Undersecretary Ricky Manalo—a son of career ambassadors and my MA economics classmate in UP—“While the US is our ally, China will always be our neighbor”. We might quarrel over things like fishing rights and undersea resources. But that is bound to happen between littoral states sharing common waters. Preventing those differences from blowing up is what prudent neighbors do.

The picture vastly changes, though, with the presence of the US—openly jealous to maintain its global prerogatives, unabashed about wanting to encircle China from its allies among the island states off the Asian mainland while sailing their ships anywhere they damn well please.  Now, neighborhood spats become existential showdowns.

* * *

Which brings up the second point: When you’re caught between two battling elephants, you don’t choose sides; you just try to look out for yourself the best way you can. Or, according to career Ambassador Jaime Bautista: “China/US rivalry positions the Philippines to negotiate for better trade terms with China and better defense terms with the US”.

This is the stated philosophy behind Duterte’s foreign policy, although how well it’s being actually executed can legitimately be argued about. Critics are asking how much of those long-promised Chinese investments are actually coming in. And the littoral disputes remain a sore spot until a maritime Code of Conduct is hammered out that we can believe the Chinese will actually comply with.

On the other hand, the American alliance remains hamstrung by the conditionalities of agreements on mutual defense and visiting forces, as well as the usual triumphalism. When former President Trump was threatening to withdraw his military bases unless host countries contributed to their upkeep, I could only scratch my head in disbelief.

The accession of President Biden signalled that US foreign policy is back in adult hands. Looking for common ground bespeaks a new sophistication; in the words of CSIS senior fellow Stephanie Segal, “[the US and China face] shared challenges of global health security, climate change, and preventing weapons proliferation”.

In this kind of big-power game, neither machismo on one hand, nor capitulation on the other, best serves us. In Ambassador Manalo’s words again: “The key is not to become a pawn,” on either side of the board.

* * *

Which brings up my third point, best directed to all the armchair commandos now being recruited by 1Sambayan: “The surest way to prevent war is to be ready to fight and win one,” according to Secretary Alunan, who missed what should have been a full-time military calling.

The World Bank says the Philippines only spent 0.95 percent of its GDP on defense in 2019, or less than half the national policy target of 2 percent. And this was before Covid took its toll on the country’s fiscal resources. Funds are now being diverted from the P300-billion AFP modernization program. We are even weaker today, with even less bite behind our bark.

In our present fix, we cannot help but depend even more on allies, no matter how unreliable they may seem.  As former AFP Southern Command chief General Eddie Adan quoted from Winston Churchill: “The only thing worse than fighting with allies is fighting without them.” And it’s obviously no time to shoot off our mouth when we have to ask somebody else to back us up.

We are novices in this new game of cat and mouse with China. General Adan also passed on the following advice he got from a former Vietnamese ambassador years ago:  “You should not easily believe what the Chinese are saying. Instead, watch what they are doing. We know them. We have been fighting them for a thousand years.”

There are obviously a thousand years of hostile feeling in this statement.  But there are also a thousand years of bitterly-learned experience that we can learn from.

Readers can write me at gbolivar1952@yahoo.com.

Tags: ChinaGary Olivarmaritime Code of ConductPhilippine Council for Foreign RelationsUS
ADVERTISEMENT

Related Posts

Time for LP to junk the Reds

June 29, 2021, 12:10 am
0
14
Time for LP to junk the Reds

"Stop the on-and-off flirtation."     Last Saturday was the inurnment of former President Benigno “PNoy” Aquino III. His former...

Read more

Rizal at 160

June 22, 2021, 12:15 am
0
41
Rizal at 160

"What would he think of us today?"     Last Saturday, unnoticed by too many people, marked the 160th birth...

Read more

One-two-three

June 15, 2021, 12:15 am
0
8
One-two-three

"What did Quezon know?"   Let me open with a commercial for my company CenSEI’s monthly webinar for June, on...

Read more

Biden to the rescue

June 8, 2021, 12:20 am
0
8
Biden to the rescue

"Still the world’s best salesmen."   Congratulations first of all to our wunderkind friend Dr. Karl Kendrick Chua, who breezed...

Read more

Changing the dream

May 25, 2021, 12:15 am
0
12
Changing the dream

"But first take violence off the table."     One of the industries I used to monitor for the country’s...

Read more

Big, hairy, ambitious

May 18, 2021, 12:15 am
0
8
Big, hairy, ambitious

"Thinking far out of the box."     Last week saw a fresh new round of gloomy prognoses from the bears....

Read more

Print Edition

View More

Recent Posts

  • Sneakers for Makati : AB4.0
  • Group behind Negros slays
  • DOJ eyes divers to rate oil spill, PCG says too risky
  • Speaker: House for Con-con but open to discuss Senate Con-ass
  • PH tells China sea issues remain ‘serious concerns’ for Filipinos
  • Power supply fine, still note Earth Hour
  • At least P1 oil price rollback up next week
  • 112 pupils hospitalized in fire drills

Advertisement

Latest News

Power supply fine, still note Earth Hour

byJoel E. Zurbano
March 25, 2023, 1:10 am
0
8
LNG Terminal gets clearance from DOE

The government has asked local officials to join the Earth Hour celebration and encourage their constituents to switch off lights...

Read more

At least P1 oil price rollback up next week

byAlena Mae S. Flores
March 25, 2023, 1:00 am
0
8
Gasoline hike

The country's oil firms will likely cut pump prices by as much as P1.50 per liter effective Tuesday to reflect...

Read more

112 pupils hospitalized in fire drills

byManila Standard
March 25, 2023, 12:50 am
0
8
Vax wastage, infection surge feared in Odette-hit areas

An inquiry is being conducted into the surprise fire drill done in a school in Cabuyao City, Laguna that led...

Read more

President frets over Masbate Reds

byVince Lopez
March 25, 2023, 12:40 am
0
8
As Muslims mark Ramadan, PBBM calls for solidarity

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Thursday said he is "deeply concerned" over the increasing activities of communist terrorist groups in...

Read more

PBBM confirms Catapang vice BuCor’s Bantag

byVince Lopez
March 25, 2023, 12:30 am
0
8
PBBM confirms Catapang vice BuCor’s Bantag

Gregorio Catapang Jr. was formally appointed Director-General of the Bureau of Corrections by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on March...

Read more

Advertisement

ADVERTISEMENT
Facebook Twitter Instagram Youtube

ABOUT US

Manila Standard

Manila Standard website (manilastandard.net), launched in August 2002, extends the newspaper’s reach beyond its traditional readers and makes its brand of Philippine news and opinion available to a much wider and geographically diverse readership here and overseas.

Digital Edition

In tone and content, the online edition mirrors the editorial thrust of the newspaper. While hewing to the traditional precepts of fairness and objectivity, MS believes the news of the day need not be staid, overly long or dry. Stories are succinct, readable and written in a lively style that has become a hallmark of the newspaper.

Download – Today’s Paper

Search

No Result
View All Result

6th Floor Universal Re Bldg., 106 Paseo De Roxas cor. Perea Street, Legaspi Village, 1226 Makati City Philippines

Trunklines: 832-5554, 832-5556, 832-5558

© 2021 Manila Standard - Designed and Developed by Neitiviti Studios.

No Result
View All Result
  • About
  • News
    • Top Stories
    • National
    • World News
    • Pinoy Abroad
    • Features
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • Columns
    • Soundbytes
  • LGUs
    • NCR
    • Luzon
    • Visayas
    • Mindanao
  • Business
    • Corporate
    • Economy & Trade
    • Stocks
    • Money
    • Agri & Mining
    • Power & Tech
    • IT & Telecom
  • Sports
    • Basketball
    • Volleyball
    • Fightsports
    • Active
    • Sports Plus
    • One Championship
    • Columns
  • Entertainment
    • TV & Movies
    • Celebrity Profiles
    • Music & Concerts
    • Digital Media
    • Columns
  • Lifestyle
    • Food
    • Culture & Media
    • Fashion
    • Health and Home
    • Leisure
    • Shopping
    • Columns
  • Pop.Life
    • Newsmakers
    • Hangouts
    • A-Pop
    • Post Its
    • Performances
    • Malls & Bazaars
    • Hobbies & Collections
  • Technology
    • Gadgets
    • Computers
    • Business
    • Tech Plus
  • MS ON THE ROAD
    • Sedan
    • SUV
    • Truck
    • Bike
    • Accessories
    • Motoring Plus
    • Commuter’s Corner
  • Home & Design
    • Residential
    • Commercial
    • Construction
    • Interior
  • Spotlight
  • Gallery
    • Photos
    • Videos
  • Events
    • Seminars
    • Exhibits
    • Community
  • Biyahero
    • Travel Features
    • Travel Reels
    • Travel Logs
  • Pets
  • Advertise with Us

© 2021 Manila Standard - Designed and Developed by Neitiviti Studios.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Install Manila Standard Web App

Install App