SENATE President Juan Ponce Enrile and Sen. Joker Arroyo have been around for some time, enough to understand what “self-interest” of nations truly means. That is why on Sunday, the eve of meetings between Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie and Philippine officials, the two senior senators said essentially the same things in separate interviews.
That is: that whatever happens, Filipinos must rely on themselves in dealing with rival territorial claimants, and America will always act in its self-interest, despite the two agreements that still mark its “special relations” with its former colony after the 1991 ouster of the US bases at Clark and Subic. These accords—the Mutual Defense Treaty and the Visiting Forces Agreement—still serve, at most, a “psychological purpose,” while the Philippines is yet unable to beef up its external defense for lack of resources, according to Enrile.
The question of Manila’s special ties with Washington was raised in light of fears that China has stepped up its bullying in the South China Sea against other claimants, notably the Philippines. Some quarters were wondering whether the latter could run to its former colonizer for help in case things got out of hand in the scramble over the oil-rich Spratlys island group.
A report on Monday (May 23, “Nation” page) in the BusinessMirror quoted Enrile and Arroyo as having said it would be wiser for Filipinos to realize this early that they can only fall back on themselves in any major international tussle over territory. That is the sad fact, especially given the country’s fitful attempts to modernize its defense, a program that should have proceeded well since the 1990s, when the bases-conversion program began and billions of pesos from the sale of these former military sites were supposed to have been applied to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) upgrade.
Indeed, barely 48 hours after the two senators were quoted in BusinessMirror, US Ambassador to the Philippines Harry Thomas made it clear that America will not take sides in the disputes in the South China Sea, and reports quoted him as advising all claimants (four of them Asean members: the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia) to “behave.”
Ambassador Thomas deserves an “A” for candor, if one goes by the remarks he gave: “We do not take sides on this issue,” followed by, “The United States shares great trade with China. We have a larger trade with Asean. But we need to trade with them both....”
Interestingly, just a week before, the AFP spokesman, Commo. Miguel Jose Rodriguez, was explaining to reporters the sudden visit here of the US warship Carl Vinson, described as the “hearse” of al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, because it bore his body before his burial at sea after he was felled by special US SEALs in a raid in Pakistan. In stressing that the Vinson’s docking in Manila had long been planned under the VFA, Rodriguez told reporters: “These visits are…part of their [US] national interest to project their forces where their interest lies. Definitely, the Southeast Asian region is a place of interest for the United States. [If] it so happens that our national interest is parallel with the interest of other countries in the region, then we work together toward attaining this common interest,” he said.
Did we expect Ambassador Thomas to say anything else? Did we expect America to signal to China that it would take the side of the country with which it has always claimed to have “special relations?” The US, in the end, can only be expected to act according to its self-interest, which could be defined according to present circumstances; and any country for that matter, including the Philippines, acts only according to its people’s best interests.
In 1991 the “Magnificent 12” in the Philippine Senate voted not to renew America’s lease on its bases here, including that of Subic, its largest military base outside the US mainland. The debate over the bases was long-drawn, fierce, occasionally ugly, but in the end, a decision had to be made, and all parties abided by it. The Philippines, to its credit, has exploited the economic benefits from converting the former US bases, but there is much room for
improvement in the way it has harnessed private investments to develop Clark and Subic.
In short, all things considered, it was in Philippine national interest, as determined by the treaty-ratifying Senate then, to end US military presence in the country. Unfortunately, the other part of that self-interest, i.e., to use the proceeds from bases conversion to develop the Philippines’ own military, was not fulfilled as hoped for. That is why we now find our executive and military officials scrambling to fast-track the defense modernization program, at a time when other South China Sea claimants like China and Vietnam have made leaps and bounds in asserting their presence in contested territory.
Indeed, we don’t expect Philippine officials, like President Aquino and Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin, who met with China’s defense chief Liang on Monday, to confirm the expansion of Beijing’s military garrisons and outposts in seven sites in the Kalayaan Island Group, which the Philippines claims and on which it has long detailed an AFP contingent. They will not confirm what was reported on by News5’s DJ Sta. Ana, complete with overhead photos of the Chinese outposts in six Manila-claimed islets in Kalayaan, because they have just agreed to peaceful multilateral dialogs with China and other claimants—and because confirming the neighbors’ buildup will increase the pressure to beef up the Philippines’ own defense.
The claim that the outposts were “old” and were the same ones reported in the 1990s is crappy because, let’s face it, no one in possession of territory will just sit idly and not do anything to it in 15 years. Even a squatter keeps adding to his shanty; what more a giant like China, which has shown grim determination to find ever more new and bigger resources to sustain its economy and feed its billions of people?
A postscript may provide some perspective of where China is coming from. In recent months it has actively put up stakes in parts of Africa that can supply some of its most essential requirements for manufacturing and food. Par for the course, if one looks back on a chilly reminder by a senior Chinese official to visiting Philippine senators in the mid-1990s. When one senator dared raise the matter of those “fishermen’s shelters” (Beijing’s euphemism for its first outposts in the Mischief Reef), he was politely but firmly told, “if you have to feed as many people as we have, you’d understand what we’re trying to do,” or words to that effect, with the additional remark that Manila is not being invaded, because the Chinese are just “fishing.”
Again, as with America’s case, China is simply acting in its own self-interest. Credit the two giants with knowing what they need and want. We Filipinos had better be sure we know what’s in our best interest, and will do whatever it takes to defend it. And that includes prosecuting, if need be, anyone caught pocketing those billions of pesos that should have gone to the AFP’s upgrade from the sale of the base lands to the private sector; and hundreds of millions that went to high-living generals’ families when they should have been used for our troops in the field—whether in some lonely outpost in Kalayaan or a terrorist-threatened camp in Mindanao.
Fernandez is founding editor of the BusinessMirror and is now managing editor of InterAksyon.com
