SPEAKING
FREELY US-Philippine relations: Beyond the
hostage crisis By Mely
Caballero-Anthony
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SINGAPORE - It has been two weeks since Filipino
truck driver Angelo de la Cruz was released by militants
in Iraq after the Philippine government bowed to the
captors' demands to withdraw its 51-man contingent from
Iraq. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's decision to
bring back the troops less than a month earlier than
scheduled had been widely criticized, particularly by
the United States and Australia, on two counts.
First, the withdrawal meant that the Philippines
reneged on its commitment to the US-led coalition in the
war in Iraq and, in effect, the "war on terrorism".
Second, by capitulating to the kidnappers' demands, the
Philippines, in the words of Australian Foreign Minister
Alexander Downer, "empowered the kidnappers".
One of the possible fallouts of the Philippines'
action is a reassessment of US-Philippine relations,
which had recently been revitalized after a decade-long
hiatus following the closure of US military bases in the
country in 1991. US Ambassador to the Philippines
Francis Ricciardoni returned to the United States
recently for urgent consultations with the "people in
Washington ... [who] will be the ones making decisions,
reassessing bilateral relations".
Given the turn
of events, among the concerns raised are: (1) whether
Washington will review financial aid for the
Philippines' development and cut military support for
Manila's battle against domestic insurgencies and
terrorism; and (2) whether the Philippines' decision to
bring back its troops will lead to long-term
consequences for the global war against terrorism. While
the extent of the damage to bilateral ties has yet to be
determined, a few factors need to be mentioned to
caution those who see doom in the days ahead.
All politics are local It bears
reiterating here the dictum of former US House of
Representatives Speaker Tip O'Neill that "all politics
are local" in order to put into context the nature of
this bilateral fallout and assess the possible
consequence of Manila's "broken" commitment to the
US-led war in Iraq.
Both governments need to
look beyond the dismay and consternation of the
coalition partners that the Philippines' move only
served to embolden the terrorists and President Arroyo's
adamant stance that her decision was taken to protect
the interest of the nation. They need to have a more
nuanced perspective of what is at stake.
As far
as the Arroyo government is concerned, it has to
convince Washington that being accountable to its
domestic population was paramount before it could
convince them that an endeavor like the "war on
terrorism" was worth fighting and/or dying for.
For the millions of Filipinos who find
themselves trapped in poverty-stricken conditions, it is
the responsibility of their elected government to
address not only the challenges of economic development
in order to check the outflow of human resources, but
also to ensure that their security is not compromised in
the name of an "abstract" principle of not caving in to
terrorists.
The plight of the
Philippines The plight of Angelo de la Cruz
touched every Filipino with a family member forced to
work overseas because of unemployment at home. According
to official figures, there are some 8 million
(registered) Filipino contract workers abroad, who
annually remit close to US$9 billion (P504 billion),
which keeps the country's economy afloat, particularly
in times of crisis.
It was indeed telling of the
sorry state of the country's economy that even during
the height of the kidnapping crisis in Iraq hundreds of
Filipinos were still queuing up outside employment
agencies hoping to land a job overseas, especially in
the Middle East.
The heightened emotions fanned
by de la Cruz's possible decapitation could therefore
have triggered a cataclysmic backlash by this massive
force and would have brought down Arroyo's fledgling
administration that was, and is, still struggling to
consolidate its hold on power after a hotly contested
electoral result.
More important, ignoring the
potential risks could also have provided just the right
fodder for the communist and Muslim insurgents once
again to mount their campaign to destabilize the
government. A quick scan of the Philippine political
scene would also have revealed the possible coalition of
militant labor unions, nationalist activists and many
other groups who would exploit this weakness to bring
down a newly elected government that was perceived to be
more concerned with maintaining international
credibility rather than domestic legitimacy.
In
short, the hostage crisis happened at the worst time,
when the Philippines and its government were the most
vulnerable. Unlike its Asian neighbors such as Japan and
South Korea, the Philippines is a weak state, enfeebled
by the fact that it is captured by many strong interests
at present.
In other words, the hostage crisis
showed that the Philippines cannot be an effective ally
if the government in power is weak and cannot muster
enough domestic support to remain committed to the
US-led coalition. The picture becomes more complex when
the imperatives of meeting domestic demands have to be
weighed against the necessity of upholding the
Philippines' commitment to an international cause -
especially when the basis of fighting this cause, like
the war in Iraq, is increasingly put in doubt.
Hence US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's
recent statement that "weakness is provocative" should
indeed be heeded - but, for different reasons. Indeed,
it is precisely because a state is weak (not only
politically but in security and economic terms) that it
needs to be helped and that rushing into punitive
actions for reneging on a commitment could be
counterproductive. Weak states have narrow options and
any expectations of solid commitments from them by a
powerful state such as the US might need more
circumspection, given the volatile politics that beset
weak states at any time.
Reality check for
US-Philippine relations To the Philippines, the
hostage crisis serves as a reality check for a weak
country that has chosen to align itself with a
superpower without careful considerations of the
consequences of joining and participating in the
coalition of the willing.
Going by the
sentiments expressed by many Filipino nationalists, the
lessons of the US-Philippine Military Bases Agreement
(MBA) of 1947 that allowed for the stationing of US
naval and air bases in the Philippines should have been
instructive.
Despite the imposition of martial
law from 1972-86, the Communist Party of the Philippines
(CCP) and its political arm, the National Democratic
Front (NDF), were able periodically to raise the bases
issue to portray the uneven and asymmetrical
relationship between the two states. They could claim,
at the height of the Cold War, that the military bases
were going be the "bases of the country's insecurity",
because the Philippines was going to be caught in
great-power rivalries and would be exposed to the
possibility of a nuclear conflict between the United
States and what was then the Soviet Union.
The
presence of US military bases in the country therefore
became a useful propaganda tool for the left to foment
discord and instability in the country. There is a close
parallel between the national protests then and the
kinds of protests and discourses heard across the
country today with regard to the US-Philippine bilateral
cooperation on counter-terrorism - that the renewed
cooperation served as a Trojan horse to allow US
military installations back into the Philippines and
once again make the country vulnerable.
Confronting two fronts While not
absolving the Philippines for going back on its
international commitment, and despite the domestic
reverberations regarding the country's close ties with
the United States, the onus is clearly on the Arroyo
government to convince Washington that the country
remains committed to the global fight against terrorism.
This would mean that, beyond trying to justify its
actions in Iraq, as Arroyo did in her State of the
Nation address on Monday, the government should now
seriously confront the problem on two fronts.
First, it has to show visible progress in its
own local war against terrorism by being on top of the
situation vis-a-vis the dangers posed by local groups
who are reported to have links with terrorist groups
such as al-Qaeda and Jema'ah Islamiya.
Arguably,
Arroyo could insist that the fight against terrorism
begins at home. But the Philippine military, being the
major recipient of US military aid and counter-terrorism
training assistance, must be able to demonstrate its
capability of fighting terrorism and insurgency.
Meanwhile, having offered crucial assistance to the
Philippines, the United States cannot now afford to
leave it alone in this battle. Any cutting off of aid to
the country would not serve America's larger interest of
fighting terrorism, knowing that the Philippines in
particular and Southeast Asia in general have become
another major front in the battle against this global
scourge.
Second, there is the much bigger
challenge for the Arroyo government to take the country
out of the rot and address some of the root causes of
Filipinos' insecurities - poverty, corruption, and other
related issues that insurgents, terrorist groups, or any
group for that matter, could use to challenge and
destabilize any regime. It is sine qua non for
any credible government to respond decisively to these
challenges to enable it to stand in good stead with the
rest of its neighbors who could take a no-nonsense
approach to dealing with such problems as terrorism.
More important, regardless of media hype, it is
necessary for both the United States and the Philippines
to realize that their bilateral relations are not based
on a single issue alone but on larger, multifaceted
interests. Both nations, and perhaps the United States
in particular, must be able to assess the depth of this
bilateral relationship to determine, rather than
confuse, who their real friends and enemies are. It is
the maturity of this bilateral relationship that could
weather a crisis of this nature and allow both countries
to forge ahead on the basis of their shared commitment
to peace and security.
Dr Mely
Caballero-Anthony is an assistant professor at the
Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies,
Singapore.
Speaking Freely is an Asia
Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click hereif you
are interested in contributing.
