Bizarre

FIRST PERSON

Bizarre

By Alex Magno

Somewhere along the way, we took the wrong turn. Now we are walking into a quagmire.

The last policy suggestion for the problems we are encountering in the South China Sea descends from the pathetic to the comical. One veteran legislator suggests we go to the UN and ask for the deployment of a peacekeeping force to patrol the contested islets and shoals in what has eventually become a very crowded sea.

Assuming the proposal will be seriously advanced by our diplomats, and seriously entertained by other nations, such a force will be very expensive to deploy. It will require a small multinational navy deployed for an indefinite period, with a very long logistical line. Even if the UN decides to deploy such a force, it is doubtful any country would volunteer scarce naval assets to the area for an open-ended tour.

UN bureaucrats must have rolled their eyes before slumping into their seats on hearing the latest brilliant proposal coming from Filipino politicians.

As things stand, the UN has its hands full trying to avert a bloodbath in Syria. Over the past year and a half, Russia and China vetoed several Security Council resolutions aimed at applying pressure on the Assad regime.

The international body is now in one of its most humiliating moments of helplessness. As the carnage escalates, all the UN has in Syria is a tiny unarmed observer mission confined to their hotel.

There is great reluctance for the European Union to deploy the same forces they did in Libya last year, and in Kosovo and Bosnia many years before, to prevent a genocide from progressing. The Europeans are consumed by a debilitating financial crisis that will likely require a generation to sort out. They are trying their damn best to pull out their forces from that interminable war in Afghanistan as fast as they could without losing too much face.

Meanwhile, Somalia remains a failed state. War looms between Sudan and South Sudan. The clouds of military conflict are gathering in central Africa. Civil war could escalate in Nigeria. On top of it all, there is widening famine in the Sub-Sahara that strains the resources of all UN agencies.

There is more than enough on the UN’s plate at this time. The member-countries will not even think of underwriting a costly naval deployment in the South China Sea. The proposal to do so is simply absurd.

Even if Filipino diplomats, displaying the same degree of diplomatic Asperger Syndrome we put on display at the ASEAN meeting, push and nag the funny proposal to the meeting room of the Security Council, China will simply wave its veto power at it. The funny proposal will instantly dissipate.

The world’s second largest economy enjoys a permanent seat in the Security Council. Beijing’s expects the same sort of unwavering diplomatic support from Moscow as much as China unwaveringly supported Russia’s position in the Syrian question.

We may stretch our imagination insanely to the maximum: maybe the Russian and Chinese ambassadors might be absent in a Security Council vote on the Philippine proposal, thus failing to cast their vetoes. Consequently, a puny “peace-keeping” naval force is assembled in the South China Sea. All Russia and China have to do is to muster a blue ocean fleet from Hainan and Vladivostok, bringing that to bear on whatever is there around Pagasa Island.

In a word, the proposal to request a UN force be deployed in the South China Sea is even worse than that earlier proposal to unilaterally bring the Scarborough issue to international arbitration. That earlier proposal, now dead, grossly overlooked the prerequisite for international arbitration: that both parties first agree to submit to the process.

Before making all such bizarre policy proposals in the open media, it should be better for our politicians to first convene a competent policy think tank that will think through all such newfangled ideas. The main reason we find ourselves in the diplomatic predicament we are now in is a distinct propensity on the part of this administration to talk more than we work.

As a case in point, President Aquino in his last SONA made it sound like we are on the brink of becoming a naval power in the region just because we will acquire another old frigate once destined for the junkyard. It is twin to the BRP Gregorio del Pilar, the ship that single-handedly militarized the situation at the Scarborough Shoal.

The President oversold our unimpressive acquisitions. As a result, it now appears the Philippines embarks on an arms race to compel China to bow to our territorial claims.

Not surprisingly, one reporter pointedly asked the President the other day if we are ready for war with China. That is the peril of allowing boastfulness to overpower a clear sense of proportion.

There is no question our armed forces need an upgrade rather direly. Every care ought to have been exerted, however, to separate our meager equipment upgrade from the burning South China Sea issues. Every care must have been exercised to dispel any suggestion we are trying to match the Chinese fleet in strength — for the simple reason we can never afford to do that.

The truth is we can barely afford the equipment upgrade just to enable our military to accomplish its routine missions. War can never be on the agenda — although the President’s boasting blurs that point.

Consequently, he fuels a jingoistic hysteria that narrows the space for creative diplomacy even more.