28 January 2021, NIICE Commentary 6751
Amadeus O. Quiaoit
President Duterte’s State of the National Address (SONA) in 2020 featured unconventional rhetoric and pronouncements on the disputed islands chains within the South China Sea. Avowedly anti-West, Duterte’s regime pioneered the pivot towards China under the DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs) former secretary, Perfecto Yasay, who made an about-face from the West. This diplomatic trend increased with the succession of Teddy Boy Locsin as duly appointed DFA Secretary in 2018. President Duterte’s vicious tirade’s attempt to appeal to his populist supporters was to demonize American foreign policy towards the Philippines. The various methods to admonish the US administration resulted in making de facto Duterte a pawn to forward Beijing’s hegemonic aspirations in the region. One of the instances of this approach was the abrogation of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) in 2020, a critical bilateral security pillar of the US-Philippine relations. This, however, was reversed when the Duterte administration decided to suspend the termination of the agreement. This holds an undying symbol of what America values the Philippines as – the key ally in Asia-Pacific against China.
People were outraged as the Filipino national leader made no promising stance against the territorial dispute. Another was the SCS dispute intersects within some areas of the 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone of WPS (West Philippine Sea), which witnesses regular skirmishes and ramming between PLAN (People’s Liberation Army Navy) frigates and local Filipino fishermen. One such pivotal incident was the deliberate destruction of F/B Gem-Ver in Reed Bank in 2019, which President Duterte casually dismissed as an unprecedented accident. Another global controversy spanning in this transnational dilemma is the illegal construction of naval-military installations on Panatag Shoal by the PLAN in 2016, which began in 2011, thereby making the Spratly islands a certified epicenter of possible conflict escalation. The maritime global commons were a major flashpoint between the US-China great power rivalry in the region for the past several years. In this regard, almost all littoral states of South-east Asia, namely Vietnam, Malaysia, and Singapore to name a few, had made firm commitments to preservation of sovereign rights. However, Philippines under President Rodrigo Duterte did not provide any assurances or any guarantees.
The question is what were the reasons behind it. The answer is within the realist justification. The tendency to confuse national self-determination with material conflict against other nations is a false premise of realpolitik. The history records show from 1962’s Cuba of Castro to Assad’s Syria is the common pattern of behaviors observed from these Third world populist nations, this notion of weaker states to bind or bond. This preconception was met with adamant rebuttal from former Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio, as he said in a recent Rappler interview; “A country does not need to go to war to assert its sovereign rights. There are lawful and peaceful means of asserting sovereign rights.” Even his miserable dream to reach an “Independent Foreign Policy” is lopsided with Chinese backed diplomacy. Influx of POGOs (The Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators), illegal entrance of PLAN maritime fishing militia within West Philippine Sea, encroachment of irreplaceable maritime resources, and various BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) sponsored debts, which are now astronomically high, during this tenure made possible during his collusion with President Xi Jinping. Since 2017, China has emerged as the regional power. Hence, the Philippine leader was generous enough to share joint explorations of natural resources to exercise “friendly” activity with China.
According to the Neo-Realist variant of realism in International Relations, two prominent structural realist scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt together coined the term “Bandwagoning.” This concept essentially dictates the logic of strategy conceding a weaker state to align itself with a stronger adversarial power and urge to abandon the rivalry, thus converting conflict escalation into peaceful partnership or co-existence. While an extremely attractive notion to smaller/minor powers to usually shroud its self-defeatist “weakness” and outgunned inferiority to confront a great power, this may only be true for myopic pragmatist ideas. There are much greater compelling options for President Duterte to strife against China without declaration of war. Various think-tank institutions and political analyst surged his administration to invoke the 2016 Arbitration award to their advantage. However, as pervasive and powerful, the presidential bandwagoning with China, not one under his executive cabinet, let alone the National Security Committee, makes use of a legal ruling to exercise Filipino sovereign rights. This takes back to the point about President Duterte’s misleading reductionist concepts of security, which he declared during the SONA, that China is in possession of territory. By possession, of course, he meant relative military power to legitimize the pre-occupations that are in violation under international law. He simply jeopardizes the discourse by positioning the Philippines as incapable to make a difference against China. This follows the hijacking of context by further intertwining legal retaliations with warfare. He even blunts the punch line of the possibility of China considering the option of using it. Again, as learnt from Waltz’s defensive realism, the prerogative assumption, which will dissuade China from using Nuclear Weapons, is the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). In other words, the term implies that China is cautious of the US utilizing its strategic ally and is willing to be a deterrent.
The old Cold War doctrine for futility was thrown out of the window by the Philippines leader for the sake of his political interest and then modified his main idea to dispose of it as national propaganda. The case here is that while President Duterte is successfully dissuaded to make any moves, he did not barter his risk over fear, a non-existent fear, towards China. The positives of risk, however, outweighs the fear as no matter how daunting China’s efforts to dismantle the rules-based international order, various international law, regimes, and its abiding principles will resist its revisionist hegemony.
Duterte’s official pronouncement on live broadcast “Inutil ako dyan”, which literally means “I am ignorant”, mentioned about strategizing for the sake of territorial integrity and security of fellow countrymen living around the vicinity of the West Philippines Sea. However, he means no serious business to interfere with Chinese meddling competition against his own Filipino fishermen. The local livelihood of Filipino fishermen perishes as Type-42 Destroyers and indigenous PLAN naval vessels crush coral reefs in West Philippine Sea. It may be concluded here that if President Duterte clings to his fallacious fears, the Philippines will be unable to come up with an independent Foreign Policy that respects the national constitution and reflects its people’s interest.
