PETULANT, definition, “forward or immodest in speech or behavior, wanton, lascivious, pert, saucy, insolent, rude; displaying peevish or pettish impatience and irritation, especially on slight occasion; a petulant person.” Peevish, def., “silly, senseless, foolish; beside oneself; out of one’s senses; mad; spiteful, malignant, mischievous, harmful, perverse, refractory, froward (not forward), a disposition to be vexed at trifles; morose, querulous; fretful, petty or childish ill-temper.” Oxford English Dictionary.
NOYNOY’s high-handed handling of the Spratlys brouhaha was perfect. Against unanimous expert advice, he took his cue from the Book of Proverbs as retranslated by myself from the Hebrew, “Yielding invites greater offenses.” So he stood his ground in the Spratlys, the first to tread water since You-Know-Who. Noynoy’s petulance and peevishness, like George W. Bush’s similar “immaturity”—if you want to call it that—struck the right chord with the Chinese; essentially, “What are you going to do about that?” when he pulled up the Chinese markers and flung them into the surrounding water which he renamed the West Philippine Sea. Perfect.
Before the Chinese could riposte, the United States of America—whose military might will outstrip that of any other power or combination of powers by 500 years for the next 500 years—announced, first, that the waters around the Spratlys would remain so far as America is concerned open sea and that she would stand by her only military ally in the region—us.
Noynoy’s seeming character flaws (see petulance and peevishness) are just the qualities with which to meet the situation, pretty much as George W. Bush’s impulsiveness sent the right message with the lethal tonnage the US dropped on Afghanistan and Iraq. Not an eye for an eye or a life for a life but two countries for two buildings.
It was the classic Roman response from the 21st century Rome. There has been no attack on the US since 9/11. With the US 7th Fleet packing more firepower than all of Europe, Russia and China combined for the next five centuries, there is nothing more to be said and nothing more to be done but for us to hide behind America and take our cue from her on this issue. Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario did just that in the best water-boy act I have seen.
But he couldn’t leave well enough alone. He opened his mouth that the DFA is mulling over a review of Philippine-Taiwan relations and thereby inserted his shoe.
One of many country-saving things Marcos did as dictator was drop Taiwan well ahead of the rest of the Free World and recognize only Communist China. That pulled us out of the still- ongoing Chinese Civil War. Our cleaving to Taiwan was why China gave arms to the NPA to give us a taste of foreign interference in domestic affairs. The idea of joining Antigua, Cote d’Ivoire and other near-cannibal countries in Africa, along with tiny ex-Soviet satellites nobody wants, the only other country with a One-Taiwan policy will be ours. Here’s my advice and the Palace better take it: Never play a card that is not in the deck. Taiwan is that card.
Second, never ban a country’s designated representative from diplomatic talks because a foreign envoy’s crass or courteous conduct is no business of ours. Some diplomats are precisely picked to be impertinent; all sides play the good cop-bad cop game, swinging from belligerence to bluster. It is to be expected. What would be alarming would be a politely patronizing attitude conveying the idea that the issue is being settled elsewhere—in Washington or on the ocean. An irate diplomat shows we are getting through somehow. To make a fuss about a foreign diplomat’s rude deportment is a mark of amateurishness and, to put it pointedly, gay. Diplomatic talks are not pity parties, as they say in New York.
There is no such thing as diplomatic or undiplomatic behavior other than assassination, like the NPA did the US diplomat James Rowe for which they must forever rot in jail. The notion of “undiplomatic behavior” appears nowhere in the literature, not in Grotius, not anywhere, outside psychological literature under the rubric homosexuality. Real men talk tough to each other.
What there can be is un-parliamentary behavior because it interrupts a necessarily sober deliberation and give-and-take exchange; just as there is such a thing as parliamentary courtesy, which is why GMA will never be invited, let alone be compelled to attend a congressional hearing and listen to regurgitated charges.
Noynoy should tell del Rosario to drop all the idle threat of reviewing our relations with a noncountry and also tell him that he is not after all going to Beijing this year. That would be walking into the lions’ den without a single lion tamer in tow—not even Puno who claims only to be able to tame what he suggested were Noynoy’s leonine appetites.
In Beijing, flanked by the only people he is comfortable with, Noynoy will make the mistake he says GMA, Speaker Joe de Venecia, last year’s Senate, and all the experts at the DFA made of affixing the country’s name to a joint exploration and exploitation agreement covering even islands that were indisputably ours and thereby opening their title to question again. If he does that, as experts are sure to advise him, then the US will lose any reason and interest in coming to our defense against an incursion that we shall have invited by agreeing to it.
On the Spratlys, let us just cleave closer to America, cede her our rights to what is ours in the Spratlys and let her around and take what she can from the place. America will share anyway, as she always does with faithful and compliant allies.
