Asymmetrical

Perhaps Taipei wants our senior representatives to walk on their knees while delivering a letter of apology from our president. But then again, perhaps President Aquino should have signed the letter delivered by his emissary --- as well as addressed it to his counterpart instead of a lower-ranking official.

According to some reports (neither confirmed nor denied by the valiant Palace spokesmen), the letter sent to a Taiwanese minister was not duly signed. That was the reason the Filipino emissary tasked with delivering it was dismissed by Taipei as not duly-authorized.”

There is anger in Taiwan. It spills into the streets. One Filipino migrant worker went to hospital after being attacked by a baseball bat in random and racist violence. Our 87,000 OFWs in Taiwan are staying indoors for safety. Filipinos are not being served in convenience stores and absorb rude remarks in the streets.

Meanwhile, the government of Taiwan issued a staccato of measures as soon as the deadline they imposed on our government for an apology passed. They withdrew their resident representative in Manila, cancelled new OFW contracts, sent home our representative, withdrew from an international food exhibition in Manila, banned their nationals from coming to the Philippines and, most disturbing, paraded their superior military hardware in exercises held close to our border.

There could be more punitive measures forthcoming. Taipei said so.

The government of President Ma is under pressure from its citizens. There are demonstrations in the major cities. Taiwanese television has running coverage of Philippine inaction. Photos of President Aquino with his “smiling dog” smirk shortly after the Luneta massacre are reproduced in Taiwanese media and held up in posters by protestors in the streets.

The staccato of punitive measures by Taiwan is driven by domestic pressure in that island. President Ma is trying its best to deflect accusations it is soft on the Philippines in the wake of the killing, by machine gun fire, of a Taiwanese fisherman.

So aggressive is the Taiwanese reaction, they have unilaterally deployed a prosecutorial team to Manila --- without Manila’s consent. To be sure, they do not want a repeat of the Palace foot-dragging endured by Hong Kong after the Luneta hostage incident.

The angry reaction in Taiwan’s streets obviously has the Philippine government’s sloppy handling of the Luneta incident as backdrop. They are pushing hard because they do not want a repeat of the foot-dragging seen in Manila over two years ago. We are still paying the price for the handling of that tragic incident.

While all these went on, at a rapid pace, Malacanang Palace has not been forthright about the details underpinning Taiwan’s anger. We only know some sort of skirmish happened between our Coast Guard and a Taiwanese fishing vessel at Balintang Channel. For too many days, we were simply told the NBI was investigating the matter.

Good grief, how long does it take to get the basic facts of this case? Was the Taiwanese vessel in international waters, in our exclusive economic zone or in our territorial waters when the skirmish happened?

Remember, what we claim as our exclusive economic zone is different from what international law establishes as our territorial waters. That claim to an exclusive economic zone is the subject of contestation.

Why did our Coast Guard vessel unleash a hail of bullets on an unarmed fishing vessel? A machine gun will not stop a ramming vessel.

If the intruding vessel was in our territorial waters, there is protocol about how to handle it. We might try to arrest the vessel with minimum force. If it scurries away, we simply file a protest.

So what actually happened at Balintang Channel last week? Why did it take so long for our top government officials to get a report about the incident, especially since it produced a casualty? It should not take more than a few hours for such a report to be made, even in preliminary form.

We need Taiwan more than Taiwan needs us. We have an asymmetric relationship. We have tens of thousands of workers in that island. Our most senior officials ought to have attended to the matter with utmost urgency.

They did not, obviously. Now we have a problem that grows more complex by the day.

In three years, we have made ourselves the least liked in the neighborhood.

The Cambodians do not like us because of what they consider President Aquino’s ill-manners during the Phnom Penh Asean meeting. The Indonesians cast a wary eye on us because, the year before when they hosted the Asean summit, President Aquino closeted himself in his room and avoided the functions. At the Vladivostok Apec summit, we misrepresented Singapore’s foreign policy positions. We escalated the spat with China without close consultations with our Asean partners.

When the Thai prime minister paid Manila a visit, presidential sister Kris publicly speculated about a possible romantic link between her brother and the guest. The Thai prime minister is very happily married.

Malaysia, of course, blames Manila for letting the Lahad Datu incident happen. The Vietnamese probably feel we are not consulting them enough about the South China Sea claims.

China does not like us because of the way we handled the South China Sea issues. Hong Kong does not like us because of the unfortunate Luneta incident. Now Taiwan does not like us too.

How have we managed to antagonize so many of our neighbors so quickly?