Category: foreign relations

special envoy to china

MANILA – Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr. on Monday emphasized the need for a special envoy in China amid the controversies surrounding the maritime disputes in the South China Sea.

very important decision.  how about chito sta. romana — “It is up to us to defend our national interest …  the Chinese … do not want to be portrayed as an international outlaw.”  or jaime florcruz — “I tend to look at China as a glass half full rather than half empty because I’ve seen it virtually empty.”

from luneta to china

In his first public response to the sanctions, Mr. Aquino said he had no plans to apologize, saying that doing so could create a legal liability and noting that China had not paid compensation to the families of Filipinos who have died in episodes there.

“legal liability…” googled it and, yes, it would seem that apologizing would / could mean admission of guilt, which could be used against the apologizer should the hostaged hongkong survivors and victims’ families take the ph government to court for redress.

hmm.  kaya pala ayaw mag-apologize ng presidente.  in a court of law, baka maobligang magbayad ng just compensation at maparusahan ang mga nagkasala.  but in the court of public opinion, lusot na lusot, especially now, given filipino disgust at china’s aggressive moves on philippine terrritory.  in comment threads on mainstream news and social media sites, parang mas maraming aprub kaysa di-aprub sa pagmamatigas ni aquino, kesyo, tama, wag magpa-bully sa hong kong/china, kesyo it’s a matter of national pride, apologizing would be a sign of weakness.

but, really, it doesn’t mean that we, who believe the president should apologize, are wrong.  what’s wrong is to think that the two occasions in beijing when filipino tourists were killed are comparable to the almost 10 hours hostaging and eventual killing of 8 and wounding of 7 hong kong tourists in luneta.  alex magno is right:

The first incident involved an accidental death caused by a wayward vehicle. The second incident involved the killing of two Filipinos by a seriously deranged man (subsequently executed for the crimes).

Neither involved acts of official neglect or incompetence. They cannot be compared to the official failings during the Luneta incident, which our own fact-finding committee established. That committee’s recommendation for charges to be filed against former Manila mayor Alfredo Lim and others have been blissfully ignored by Malacanang.

as far as the aquino admin is concerned, it has already done daw its utmost best to address the issue.  this was the official reaction of the DFA sec to news that govt officials will now have to obtain visas to travel to hong kong:

“The sanction is unfortunate because a substantive closure on the Quirino Grandstand incident has been arrived at three years ago with the previous Hong Kong SAR government and the victims as well as their families,” DFA spokesperson and Assistant Secretary Raul Hernandez said in a statement he read to reporters.

Hernandez said that a renewed appeal for compassion was made to the government in October 2013 and it responded by offering “additional tokens of solidarity” that were pledged by Filipinos “at the behest of the Philippine government.”

“These amounts that are being offered are substantially more than those that have been previously accepted by the victims and their families. We have been made to understand that the victims and their families have agreed to this offer,” he said.

But Hernandez said the Hong Kong SAR government responded by opening a “total renegotiation’ to seek a demand for an apology over the deaths of its citizens. He said the Philippines, as a sovereign nation, “is not prepared to consider” this demand.

“Our nation has already expressed its deepest regret and condolences over the incident and we are preparing to reiterate this,” Hernandez said.

He said the government “remains committed to manifest compassion for the victims and their families and is ready to turn over the additional tokens of solidarity from the Filipino people … as soon as possible.”

“We would like to assure the Filipino people that the Philippine government has done its utmost best to address the Quirino Grandstand issue,” Hernandez said.

what intrigues me is that i can’t find any source specifying exactly how much the hong kong victims are asking for and exactly how much the philippine government and/or its supporters have paid or offer to pay.  the only figure i get from googling is the 120M that erap was offering to raise, and i have no idea if that’s anywhere close to what is just compensation.

surely we can find the money for this.  if we can find the money to keep the patronage system alive by awarding senators and congressmen millions (billions?) in pork barrel funds and in generous salaries and allowances and bonuses every year, surely we can find the money to do right by the victims.  it is the honorable thing to do.

or is it that the bigger problem is that the prez cannot abide the idea of disgracing his incompetent subordinates because kabarkada, or political ally since cory times?  or basta, hindi lang sanay mag-sorry pag nagkamali?  o hindi lang sanay umamin pag nagkamali?

whatever, i can’t help wondering, what if the president had apologized right away?  would china be a little less offensive over in the west philippine sea?  maybe not.  china seems to be preparing to just take it over, “china sea” or bust, and seems to be testing limits all around.

interestingly, aquino’s hitler jibe could not have come at a better time, almost synchronous with america finally speaking out and criticizing china’s maritime claims, while talks on “temporary” facilities promise to continue, and u.s. warships arrive in manila and cebu ports, and who knows where else, soon after.

parang coordinated.  and i suppose it makes sense.  the hitler analogy may be flawed, but like peter beinart of the atlantic says,  it at least recognizes the magnitude of the stakes. 

apologize

the killing of the taiwanese fisherman by the philippine coast guard and the president’s refusal to apologize brings to mind the august 23 2010 luneta bloodbath that claimed the lives of 8 hong kong chinese.  the president also refused to apologize then.  a year later, the  survivors and the families of the 8 who died came to manila to commemorate the deaths of their loved ones with a buddhist ritual at the scene of the crimes, and again, still, the president refused to meet with them.  i blogged about it then, and reading it now, remember how offended i was for the hong kong chinese, and now that the president is adamant, all over again, in his refusal to personally formally apologize to the taiwanese, i can’t help wondering if this is a personality problem of sorts.  a hang-up that has to do with the killing of his dad in ’83?  maybe no one apologized to the family for that?  okay, maybe it’s a stretch.  maybe it’s just that the taiwanese demand for a formal apology is part of a package that includes paying compensation to the family of the victim and bringing the perpetrators to justice.  the very same demands made by the hong kong chinese, a formal apology, reparations not just to the families of the victims who died but also to the victims who survived but are scarred for life, and appropriate punishment of the government authorities whose gross negligence caused the bloodbath.  certainly, acceding to the taiwanese would mean finally acceding to the hong kong chinese, or else.

read teddy locsin’s What is to be done with Taiwan, alex magno’s Assymetrical, and a luneta survivor’s horrifying tale posted by raissa robles.

Paths to change

By Calixto V. Chikiamco

OUR CURRENT situation seems hopeless. Our economic oligarchy is powerful, rich beyond imagination. It controls conglomerates that reach into almost every aspect of Filipinos’ lives, its unassailable position protected by law or other barriers to entry. More importantly, its rent-seeking power provides self-reinforcing means for enrichment and impregnable authority: it can penetrate, influence, and manipulate the weak state and its institutions almost at will. In other words, it can buy off or influence politicians, judges, bureaucrats, and media organizations to thwart change, prevent competition, and extract more economic favors or rent through the weak state.

The state of our politics also provides reasons for hopelessness. Whereas the political class is supposed to be distinct from the economic oligarchy in that the former must at least answer to the people through democratic elections, that has not been so. Cheating, vote buying, and voter intimidation through private armies have undermined the true expression of the people’s will. Also, an almost non-existent party system with politicians changing parties and positions at the drop of a hat undermines democratic accountability.

Moreover, with the amount of money needed now to run for elections, running for office is a rich man’s (or woman’s) game or a corrupt man’s game. Therefore, either the politician must be rich himself and is part of the economic oligarchy or has sold himself to vested interests. Politics has also become a family business. Dynasties rule our political landscape. The interests of the state are subsumed to the interests of the family.

Much hope had been placed that President Aquino’s Daang Matuwid will bring about change. While his moral style has been a marked contrast to the blatant corruption under former President Arroyo, President Aquino has proven himself to be a reactionary, unable and unwilling to make changes to the system of which he’s a product. He was, after all, a congressman then a senator, before becoming president. Political reforms are absent from his agenda. There’s no talk of campaign finance reform, dismantling private armies, eradicating jueteng, banning party turncoatism, or reducing the role of political dynasties.

Forget about revolution. The Left already missed its opportunity with its disastrous boycott of the 1986 elections. Furthermore, the Philippine Left has proven to be a tool of the Right, equating nationalism to keeping out foreign competition and promoting laws like CARP that only enrich the rent seekers in the government.

So, how will change happen then? Is the Philippines doomed to a thousand-year rule by an irresponsible political and economic oligarchy which will resist any reform of its privileges and rent-seeking power?

Change can still happen, although very slowly. Change can happen under the following scenarios.

The threat to the state. This is the circumstance by which almost all countries in Asia got its act together and started their remarkable rise. External and internal threats often spur the state to positive change: South Korea with the threat of invasion from the North, Taiwan from the threat of invasion by communist China, Singapore vulnerable as a tiny nation surrounded by big countries and formerly threatened internally by Communist subversion (read Lee Kwan Yew’s biography), Indonesia threatened by the Communist coup de e’tat in 1965 and where a million people died in the aftermath. Japan, as a thousand year old civilization, embarked on the Meiji Restoration, a revolution that modernized Japan after its feudal backwardness and vulnerability was exposed by US Commodore Perry’s black ships in 1853.

Therefore, the threat of China bullying the country may similarly spur changes internally as well. Narrow vested interests may have to be subsumed as the state tries to strengthen itself in a possible confrontation. For example, the country may be forced to finally amend the Constitution to lift the restrictions on foreign ownership if it’s to join the US-sponsored Transpacific Partnership (TPP). Joining the TPP and moving closer to the US may be needed to get the US as counterweight to China. Japan is already doing so, and has indicated its willingness to sacrifice its powerful rice farmers and automotive lobby in order to join the US-sponsored TPP.

Tail wagging the dog. This is the Shenzhen scenario. Deng, faced with powerful opposition from conservative interests in Beijing, created a capitalist experiment in Shenzhen, then a tiny, undeveloped fishing outpost in the far south. The experiment proved so successful that the rest of the country had no choice but to follow, and opposition melted away.

Can the country have its own Shenzhen? That was supposed to have been Subic with its free port status, but Subic and other free port zones just became havens for smuggling. The ARMM with its economic and political autonomy, could have been a Shenzhen but it failed because Misuari built it on the same corrupt political patronage system as the rest of the country. Will the new Bangsamoro Region be our Shenzhen or will it be another failed experiment? It remains to be seen whether the MILF leadership can use its autonomy to build a region with a political and economic model different from the rest of the country.

A change in political economy. The political economy may change if the local oligarchy or at least parts of it, is forced to become more outward-looking. Why? Because the need to compete in the world market would temper its abuses and the elite would see the need to have a strong bureaucracy, efficient infrastructure, and vibrant domestic industries to compete in the global markets.

For the economic oligarchy to become more outward-looking, it would have to find exporting more profitable than extracting rent from regulated, non-tradable industries (power, telecommunications, ports, shipping, banking, etc.). The key to this is to undervalue the exchange rate, as it had been in other countries like Taiwan, China, and South Korea and to open up protected service sectors to foreign competition.

Change from below. It’s still possible to defeat powerful vested interests in a democracy. Coalition-building, voting, organizing, and protesting through social media or in the streets, legal challenges, and other forms of democratic collective action, given the right historical moment, can force positive change even if these are opposed by powerful vested interests.

Social security, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, civil rights legislation, the Glass-Steagal Act and other progressive legislation got passed in the United States despite opposition from powerful vested interests. Recently, the sin tax got passed because a broad coalition pushed for it and won despite the power of the tobacco monopolist. Therefore, the way forward is not, as some suggest, to revert to a dictatorship, but to strengthen democracy. Change in the Philippines will be forced from below and not initiated by an enlightened leadership.

Will change happen? If we don’t hope, we die.