Relations

If we step back from the petty political sniping that always engulfs partisan politics in this country, we might better appreciate the significance of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s meeting today with US President Barack Obama.

This meeting is not about President Arroyo. Nor is it about President Obama. It is about the shape and direction of Filipino-American relations in the decades to come.

For decades, it was fashionable to describe Filipino-American relations in terms of a love-hate relationship. In 1991, it became even worse than that. Our relationship degenerated into indifference.

That year, the Philippine Senate voted against extension of the Military Bases Agreement. Then President Corazon Aquino even led a demonstration against her own Senate to push for an extension of the lease.

Some of the senators were blackmailing President Aquino, demanding concessions in exchange for their votes in the military bases issue. Cory balked at the blackmail and the solons carried out their threat of expelling the bases, courting economic disaster in exchange for the short-lived glory heaped upon them by the vociferous nationalist constituency.

The American side, too, seriously mishandled the situation at the most crucial moments. The powerful eruption of Mount Pinatubo completely disabled the Clark facility. Only the Subic base was of any effective use.

Because of that, the US halved it remuneration offer. It was a move that offended the Filipino side even more. We fully expected that a close friend and ally would offer more assistance in the face of a major natural calamity; not cut down its standing offer.

But from the American point of view, the bases have quickly become immensely less valuable as a strategic asset. In 1989, the Berlin Wall came crashing down. The Cold War was quickly dissipating. A new world order was emerging faster than existing strategic doctrines could fully comprehend.

Our strategic alliance with the US made sense in the context of the Cold War. Strategic orthodoxy and military doctrine during that time required that the US maintain forward bases to contain the enemy and sustain a credible defense.

By the terms of Cold War confrontation, the Philippines stood as a frontline state. We needed the strategic military shield only the US could provide. In addition, we were able to maintain our own defense posture with assistance from the Americans. It was a defense posture we otherwise could not afford except at the costly diversion of scarce public resources from social services to military spending.

For Washington, we were a key link in their containment policy, an unsinkable aircraft carrier pressed close to China. We were an indispensable logistical base that proved its worth during the Korean War and then the Vietnam War.

The configuration quickly changed through the nineties. The Soviet Union rapidly disintegrated. China swiftly transformed its economy to joint the mainstream of global trade. Today, the global economy is, in fact defined by the economic partnership between China and the US — or what some analysts now describe as the symbiotic economy of “Chimerica.”

Without any bases here or any need for a frontline ally, the strategic value of the Philippines to the US quickly evaporated. Diplomatically, we simply fell of the American radar screen: a minor economy in the midst of a booming East Asian region, not anymore the key domino it was in the former discarded doctrine.

American policymakers were severely disappointed at Manila’s susceptibility to the unreasonable tides of sentimental nationalism. We were seen as an unreliable ally and a problematic partner in anything. Our politics was simply unpredictable and our demands for economic support often unwarranted. We fell way down in Washington’s list of diplomatic priorities.

After the terrorist attacks of September 2001, however, the Philippines was able to bounce back to some degree of importance in world affairs. President Arroyo was among the first world leaders to offer not only sympathy for the US in the wake of a great tragedy but also support for a global effort to fight back international terrorism.

For a moment, we returned back to Washington’s radar screen. The Philippines offered a small contingent to the “Coalition of the Willing” that helped out in Iraq.

But nearly as quickly as we reentered the radar screen, we fell out of it once more. Angelo de la Cruz was taken hostage by terrorists in Iraq. In exchange for his life, Manila decided to unilaterally withdraw its minuscule contribution to the effort in Iraq.

We did save one Filipino life; but at the expense of a diplomatic disaster. The move reinforced perception that we are such an unreliable partner in any international undertaking, an ally readily abandoning the field when domestic political convenience so required.

One again, our relationship with the US deteriorated into a partnership of indifference.

Today, President Arroyo has the opportunity to restore a damaged relationship, redefine it in terms of new global realities. It is a relationship that must be reset in terms of the new regional realities and the emerging problems the global community must confront in concert.

As the first Southeast Asian leader to be invited for a meeting at the White House, President Arroyo must represent not only Philippine concerns but those of the whole region as well. She cannot go to this meeting with the old parochial mindset.

And neither should our people remain trapped in the old mindset of Phil-Am relations nor in the parochialism of our degraded politics.