President Duterte met face to face with United States President Donald J. Trump for the first time last Saturday at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) Leaders’ Meeting in Da Nang, Vietnam, CNN Philippines reported.
Presidential Spokesman Harry L. Roque said their highly anticipated meeting “was short, but it was warm and cordial.”
The two leaders are expected to meet again when Trump arrives in the Philippines for the 31st Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit.
This is certainly a step in the right direction to repair whatever perceived damage our bilateral relations with the US suffered at the onset of the Duterte administration, when the Philippine President resented certain criticism from the US government regarding his antidrugs crusade and human rights record, and Duterte even announced his “separation” from the country’s oldest security ally.
Indeed, it’s about time we strengthen our strategic and diplomatic relationship with the US, as well as our 66-year treaty alliance. This, the Duterte administration can do even as it maintains its close ties with China.
After all, we still have the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty, something that is not an end-all solution to help peacefully resolve whatever tensions there are in the South China Sea, but a leverage nonetheless. Even Trump said he was prepared to mediate between claimants to the South China Sea.
Duterte himself admitted his worries about China’s plans in the South China Sea, amid reports of its construction of facilities in some of the disputed formations in the area. He said he will raise the issue with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Da Nang and Asean should also do so, albeit in a nonconfrontational manner.
We support the President in his commitment to take the lead in asserting and clarifying the maritime rights of Asean claimants in an ongoing effort to peacefully resolve longstanding and complex issues in the South China Sea.
Nobody is arguing that peaceful negotiation is the only sustainable solution to conflict; nobody really believes that an actual Chinese invasion is in the offing. However, the disputed areas in the South China Sea are strategically vital to China’s economic interest, which is, perhaps, why it is bent on asserting its hegemony over the entire area. This, even as it professes wanting only a peaceful and mutually beneficial coexistence with rival claimants.
Faced with China’s display of militarism, asserting its ownership of the entire South China Sea, at times shooing away the civilian vessels of its East Asian neighbors, while they were plying their own territorial waters, indeed, our collective attitude should be: Let’s get all the help we can get.
The Philippines has a mutual defense pact with the US—not a provisional arrangement but a treaty—and as a sovereign nation it has an inherent right to use this treaty in the interest of peace and security. Otherwise, why have a treaty at all when we are not prepared to invoke and honor it?
There is nothing wrong with exploring all possible collective security arrangements that could bolster our measly military strength, expand our defense options and divide our costs and risks against any direct or indirect aggression. This includes the Asean’s stronger show of solidarity on South China Sea issues.
China seems to be taking its cue from the passive, and rather wimpy Asean responses in the past, despite the fact that four of the six claimants are its members. Individual Asean members must realize they can’t act on threats only when it directly concerns their own countries. They need to work together, to speak and act as one to project more strength, especially when dealing with a superpower like China. It is in this same light, this forward-leaning strategy, that we welcome closer cooperation and coordination between the US and the Philippines to enhance our defense capabilities under the Mutual Defense Treaty. Rather than sniveling and being skeptical about US support, we should test it and compel the US to define and concretize it, to help us boost the country’s maritime defense potentials. We should also focus on the framework and the deliverables to make sure the treaty is favorable to us, rather than quibble about its necessity. We can do this even as we pursue parallel tracks of diplomacy, like those provided by the Asean and even the constant and stable trade relations between Chinese and Filipino business groups.
A vigorous national defense cannot exist without strong security alliances with other nations. Let us not deprive ourselves the assurance that those foolish enough to threaten us would be confronted not only by the Philippines but its friends.