This is simply because I saw in his bravado, all captured in his crass, vulgar hyperboles, a man who had the courage to stand up to the leaders of strong and powerful countries. In fact, even if I was scandalized when he cursed the Pope, a part of me was amazed at his audacity that apparently spared no one, or at least that’s what I thought.
As a country, we have always been treated like a doormat, a distant outpost, a loyal server by our stronger allies. Ours is a history of being seen as a dependent economy by our creditors and aid-givers. Ours is a reliable vote that can be counted on by the United States, as we continued our post-colonial existence as some kind of an indicator country for US interests. Wherever the US went, there went the Philippines too. And it is something that pained me so much.
It is precisely because of this that I simply endured and shrugged off many of the President’s imperfections and flaws, and willingly staked my name and friendships, even my employment, if only to support a President who inspired me to hope that we will become truly a sovereign country with an independent foreign policy. I even celebrated his diplomacy as a form of creative destruction, where his boldness would disrupt the familiar patterns in which we have found ourselves embedded and implicated, even destroying this, if only to create new ways of engaging our partners. And I saw it as a clarion call that would usher in a new identity for us as an autonomous, independent and sovereign player. I imagined a Republic that would be taken seriously and be respected as an equal. While pragmatically such would have been a tall order, there was no doubt in my mind then that the President would lead and inspire us. Watching him curse President Obama and the Pope, leaders of two entities to which we have loyal but contentious relationships, greatly impressed on me the hope that indeed change had come.
I take sovereignty seriously. I treasure the day we will embrace a truly independent foreign policy. This is precisely why I supported the President’s decision to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC). It is less because it is singling out the President, but more because the actions of Fatou Bensouda, its Gambian chief prosecutor, have the potential of amounting to an assault on our sovereignty. I am offended by the possibility that we will be treated like a failed state that is unwilling and unable to investigate and prosecute crimes listed in the Rome Statute.
We are a sovereign country. The President rode into office full of the promise to be different, and by different I thought it meant, as what I initially gleaned from his early actions vis-à-vis the US, EU and our other traditional partners, that he would usher in the era of a truly independent foreign policy. Unfortunately, what we saw instead was merely a pivot towards China. The change that came turned out to be not towards an independent and autonomous stance, but towards another epicenter of power.
And this is, with all honesty, truly disappointing. The President abandoned the gains we made when we received a favorable ruling from the Hague on the West Philippine Sea. Admitting our weakness in being unable to enforce the ruling, which to him was a merely a useless piece of paper, he opted instead to approach China from a less confrontational stance. Indeed, the warming of our relationship enabled us to secure loans from China to finance his ambitious infrastructure programs. But at the same time, China also kept harassing our fishers even in areas to which we have rights.
While I oppose the filing of cases by former Foreign Affairs secretary Albert del Rosario and former ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales against China at the ICC protesting the harassment of our fishers, I am greatly disturbed by what has been exposed by Associate Justice Antonio Carpio that our government has waived the immunity of our patrimonial assets in connection with the Chico River Pump Irrigation loan agreement signed with China. I am greatly disturbed because this can pave the way for China to seize some of our national patrimony in the event we fail to pay for our loans.
It was revealed by Justice Carpio that under paragraph 8.1 of the loan agreement, the Philippines has waived immunity over all its assets, except those properties used by Philippine embassies and missions, those under Philippine military control, and those assets for public or governmental use. These would cover all our patrimonial assets and assets dedicated to commercial use. These include the oil and gas in the Philippine exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the West Philippine Sea, including the gas fields in the Reed Bank which the 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling declared as within the Philippine EEZ.
The Department of Finance has already denied that such a loan agreement exists, but the revelations of Justice Carpio appear to be more convincing. What is certainly not comforting is the stance of presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo, when he claimed that there is nothing wrong in using our natural resources as collateral for our loans since we will be able to pay these anyway. This, even as he once again publicly admitted our helplessness in relation to China, which he acknowledged as the one in control of the West Philippine Sea, practically undermining our claims over the area.
While running to the ICC to intervene only makes us appear weak that we can’t talk to China directly on the issue, Panelo’s declaration can be construed as a self-inflicted affirmation that we are indeed weak.
https://www.manilatimes.net/diminished-sovereignty/532695/
https://www.manilatimes.net/diminished-sovereignty/532695/
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