Strategy

This week, hopefully, the statements our official will make regarding South China Sea issues will be tighter and more coherent.

Last week, the variance in our public statements was simply too wide. That can only suggest absence of a clear strategy on the matter.

That week began with President Aquino delivering a surprisingly aggressive speech during the anniversary ceremonies of the Philippine Navy. It was a speech that mimicked Churchill’s classic “blood, toil, sweat and tears” speech when Britain was in imminent threat of a Nazi invasion.

In his own speech, Aquino declared “what is ours is ours”, suggesting our pithy naval forces will hold the line on every inch of territory we claim. He promised the Navy all the assets necessary to accomplish that – although, it turns out, the 2017 is the earliest the two Italian frigates we plan to purchase might be delivered. That is a year after Aquino leaves office. He was rattling an absent saber.

War, the great statesmen taught us, is merely an extension of diplomacy. Since we are unable to wage war, our diplomacy must be more acute. Countries like Switzerland and Thailand managed to stay out of the last world war because, in the face of military deficiency, they worked diplomacy to the utmost.

Instead of perfecting our diplomatic strategy, however, the presidential state of mind seems disposed towards naval confrontation. This is an approach we can never win, regardless of how much verbal sniping Aquino characteristically includes in his speeches. Words, he must be reminded, never won wars.

Contrast Aquino’s confrontational words at the start of the week with the official statement we issued later last week when two Chinese frigates and a swarm of fishing boats appeared around Ayungin Reef. With that large foreign flotilla around a reef clearly on our continental shelf and shooing away our fishermen, we announced a policy of “maximum restraint” – a diplomatic term translating to, well, doing nothing.

A clear pattern has emerged since the Scarborough Shoal confrontation last year: the more confrontational the language coming out of Manila, the greater the propensity of Beijing (and now, Taipei) to test us. The louder we talk, the more inclined they are to make us eat our words.

The century-old advice of American president Theodore Roosevelt might be heeded here: speak softly but carry a big stick. The smaller the stick we bear, the softer our words should be.

Ayungin Reef, it turns out, is guarded by a handful of Filipino troops sheltered in an old Philippine Navy ship, the BRP Sierra Madre, grounded there a long time ago. That is hardly a credible defense posture.

Pity the hardy Philippine Marines, seeking shelter in the rusty hull of a grounded ship, probably with only a pair of binoculars to conduct surveillance of a vast sea. Before President Aquino escalates the tone of his speeches to half-a-notch below arrogant, he might want to build more humane (never mind more impressive) shelter for our troops assigned to lonely sandbars.

Before even thinking of buying expensive frigates, let us build respectable bunkers for the soldiers we throw out to our farthest outposts, assigned to hold our territorial lines with only the lightest of weapons.

Spoils

The elections, although serious questions linger, are over. It is now time to divide the spoils.

President Aquino is, of course, the principal dispenser of the spoils. Among those most eagerly eyeing their share of the spoils are familiar names and faces from the past, with their checkered histories and all.

Although he cannot officially endorse his preferred leaders for a constitutionally independent branch of government, nearly everyone thinks Aquino is batting for Sen. Franklin Drilon to assume the Senate presidency. There are other aspirants for the post, although the body language of the NP senators suggests the largest party group in the chamber are ready for an alliance of convenience with Aquino’s LP. Only such an alliance can overcome the Enrile-led bloc.

Drilon served as campaign manager for the Team PNoy senatorial ticket. He has been senator for what seems like forever, serving as the Senate president in 2000, from 2001-2004 and again from 2004-2006.

Retiring Sen. Edgardo Angara, whose son will succeed him in the chamber, seems inclined to remain in the thick of things. The rumor mill says Angara the Elder shelved plans to run for governor of Aurora in anticipation of getting an appointment in the Aquino Cabinet. He is said to be aiming for the DFA, surely a more prestigious post than governor of a small province.

Like Drilon, Angara served multiple terms as senator over the past decades. He ran for the vice-presidency and lost, subsequently serving former president Joseph Estrada first as agriculture secretary and then as executive secretary until Edsa Dos happened. The DFA, now a frontline agency considering all our foreign policy troubles, will be a suitable last hurrah.

The third veteran political player seeking his share of the spoils is DILG chief Mar Roxas. Although informally considered the paramount member of the Aquino Cabinet, more frequently at the Palace than in his agency, the expectation is that Roxas will want to expand his footprint in government even more. Doing so will improve his chances for the 2016 elections.

The challenge for President Aquino is to hold the reins tightly in the sunset half of his term in order to shape his legacy, whatever that might be. The ability to have exclusive hold on the reins could be undermined by yielding too much of the spoils to power players abundant in the administration fold.