Send Binay

In the face of a possible protracted war of attrition with China over the disputed shoals, Foreign Secretary Alberto del Rosario called on Filipinos to prepare to make sacrifices. That is a passive, even defeatist, attitude to take.

Former president Fidel V. Ramos takes a more proactive, more dynamic attitude: dispatch Vice President Jojo Binay to Beijing. There he could sit down with his counterpart, who will be China’s leader later in the year, and discuss all the outstanding issues in a comprehensive manner.

Inasmuch as the Palace seems bent on Noynoying on the matter of appointing an ambassador to Beijing, Ramos’ suggestion makes a lot of sense. China is now our most important bilateral relationship. We cannot allow this impasse in our relationship go on and on.

The ice must be broken. The diplomatic chill thawed.

Beijing sits and waits for us to make a meaningful move. Manila, after all, is responsible for the tensions. We broke the holy silence about sovereignty over Scarborough Shoal. We sent a warship into the contested waters, something the Chinese were very careful not to do, patrolling the area only with civilian reconnaissance vessels.

Earlier, Beijing showed its displeasure with Manila’s cavalier treatment of the bilateral relationship. Ambassador Liu, a ranking diplomat and party official was replaced by a diplomat of lower rank and lower party stature. It was a subtle signal and Manila seems to have missed it.

The replacement happened after the Luneta incident, Manila’s refusal to formally apologize for it, and the administration’s foot-dragging on key Chinese-assisted infrastructure projects. By changing the stature of their ambassador to Manila, Beijing has downgraded the relationship.

Then comes the Scarborough incident and all the stupid things said in Manila about it, including the ridiculous proposal to unilaterally bring the matter to international arbitration. As I mentioned in the previous column, international arbitration can only happen if both parties submit to it. There is no such thing, in the world of diplomacy, as a unilateral submission to arbitration.

President Aquino’s attempt to install a seriously under-qualified family friend to be ambassador to China did not please Beijing. When that nomination was withdrawn, Aquino still went on to appoint the man as “special envoy” to China. To do what is anybody’s guess. What is clear is the move insults Beijing even more.

In the eyes of Beijing, Manila is either grossly insensitive or intentionally insulting. Someone should go there to assure them we were not intentionally insulting. Our officials are just grossly insensitive — or grossly incompetent.

That someone can only be Binay. We do not have a career ambassador in the roster capable of making a huge impression on the Chinese leadership. The worst that could be done from Manila’s end is to send yet another under-qualified person to Beijing, someone without the gravitas required to talk on the level and forge a lasting framework for our bilateral relationship.

Trust Ramos’ instincts, although the proposal might be painful for one Palace faction to accept. We have to show the Chinese leadership how much we value the relationship and how anxious we are to keep it stable and warm.

Only Binay can go there with enough political gravitas, hopefully equipped with plenipotentiary powers to heal a damaged friendship.

Bantay salakay

The tribal leaders of Brooke’s Point in Palawan are far from overjoyed to see Gina Lopez and the ABS-CBN Foundation’s Bantay Kalikasan pitch tents in their ancestral domain.

Tribal leaders from the villages of Aribungos, Ipilan, Mambalot, Maasin and Barong-barong wrote President Aquino to complain of Bantay Kalikasan’s money-making intrusion into their land. Gina Lopez, as we know, is an advocate of “glamping” (glamor camping) or whatever she calls it.

Near Sabsaban Falls at Brooke’s Point, Gina Lopez and her gang of eco-warriors cavalierly moved in, casually cut down trees to construct her field office, a hotel and a restaurant. In their letter to the President, the tribal leaders complained that Lopez’s “hasty construction of a resort in the land of our forebears without the required Free and Informed Consent from us natives, as well as necessary Certification Precondition from the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples.”

In their letter, 30 tribal leaders made it clear they “have not allowed Ms. Gina Lopez to construct a resort … because (they) are afraid that (their) culture and way of life would be lost due to the entry of outsiders.” For this reason, the tribal leaders are asking the President to investigate the “destruction, intrusion and construction of buildings” on land owned by indigenous people.

In the area so blatantly colonized by Gina Lopez’s group, they charge fees for day camping, table rentals and showers as well as for overnight stay in the illegally constructed facility. The group even offers events organizing services and catering for social affairs such as weddings, birthdays and reunions. All these, the tribal elders fear, will produce tons of garbage for which no disposal facility exists.

The tribal leaders demand that Bantay Kalikasan be prosecuted for gross violation of their rights guaranteed under the Indigenous People’s Rights Act (IPRA). Ricardo Sanga, the NCIP field officer in the area, ordered the Lopez group to answer the complaint and desist from undertaking further construction near Sabsaban Falls.

The construction might have been stopped by now, owing to the action of the NCIP officer. But the trees felled to build an illegal haven for self-styled nature lovers are lost.

What an irony this is. Bantay Kalikasan has styled itself as defender of ecological integrity and the rights of indigenous peoples, yet freely violate their creed in pursuit of business.