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Friday, March 29, 2024

Revisiting the WPS issue

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“The President’s behavior is perplexing.”

 

 

The Supreme Court was right in dismissing a suit brought before it to direct President Duterte to more vigorously defend vital Philippine interests in the West Philippine Sea from what China is doing.

The court believes that the President has enough tools at his disposal to deal with the problem. The question that should be asked, however, is why the suit was brought to the court in the first place. Did the people who went to court believe that the government was not protecting the nation’s vital interests in the West Philippine Sea?   Ever since the start of President Duterte’s independent foreign policy, a perception has grown in some quarters that he has not been aggressive enough in protecting Philippine sovereignty from the encroachments being made by China to our exclusive economic zone in the WPS. In fact, if he can only have his way, he would have abrogated the Visiting Forces Agreement with the United States which is the lynchpin of our military alliance and perhaps the only thing preventing China from grabbing more.

The only reason that I could think of why he has not done so is that he is not sure whether the Military and Police will back him up. He also probably realizes that the Philippine military is heavily influenced by the US military. Our military doctrines, table of organization and equipment, armaments, training, customs and traditions are all patterned from the US military. Our two service academies alone are clones of the US Military Academy. While he can lambast western leaders and countries left and right, he is so respectful and reverential toward the Chinese leadership. Add all these together and we have an idea why the case was filed with the Supreme Court in the first place.

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The next question to ask is why President Duterte is so enamored of China in spite of what that country is doing? Does he really honestly believe that it will be easier for him to convince China to modify its nine-dash line and exclude our internationally recognized exclusive economic zone from what China is claiming in the WPS?

I doubt this very much. On the contrary, this approach might be interpreted as a sign of weakness. We all know about his famous jet skiing promise during the 2016 presidential elections. But since he took office, all his rhetoric has made a 180-degree turn. He has avoided any direct accusation against China with regard to its militarization of the South China Sea, its nine-dash line and he even joked about the country becoming a province of China if indeed that was only a joke.

All these have disconcerted many people. His main reason why he is not more bellicose towards China as he has repeated so often is that he does not like his soldiers to be massacred in a war that we cannot win. He cannot seem to understand or see that no one in this country is advocating a war with China. What people wish him to do is to lead a more forceful rhetorical defense of the country by being prepared to call a spade a spade. For instance, he must be prepared to continuously challenge the permanent presence of Chinese militia ships in our exclusive economic zone. We can also keep on asking China to explain satisfactorily why it is not abiding by the provisions of the Law of the Sea, a treaty that it signed and ratified. Even with the most recent incident wherein the Chinese Coast Guard water bombed our Navy supply boats, the best that the President could do was ask bigger and more powerful countries to settle international differences peacefully.

With this, we can all heartily agree but why can’t he bring himself to name the country directly? This is what mystifies a lot of people. It is his subalterns who are doing the stronger talking but as everyone knows, this does not amount to anything much if the boss man is not on board.

I can agree with the President that a peaceful resolution to our differences is the best option. We must, however, be resolute in making all countries understand that we are prepared to defend what is ours at all costs.

In the coming months, we will be electing a new president. Let us hope that the next leader will involve a wider segment of our political leadership to have a broader consensus on what our best options should be with regards to the SCS. Calling for a National Security Council meeting which has never been done would be a good move. Right now, it is only President Duterte who is calling the shots when it comes to the SCS issue. This must change.

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