The ASEAN Summit and Trump's visit

The BBM administration is poised to claim two major diplomatic scores come November 16 to 18, with the holding of the 49th Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit and other related summits in Manila, and the historic second visit to the Philippines of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Both diplomatic events are contemporaneous with China's constant provocative, aggressive, and unilateral incursions into Philippine territories and exclusive economic zones in the West Philippine Sea. The symbolism of Trump's visit is not going to escape Beijing's keen observations and the U.S. president's statements are going to be punctiliously scrutinized by Chinese diplomats and spies in the context of the highly-volatile and strategically-sensitive geopolitics in the Asia-Pacific region.

President BBM has declared November 16 to 18 as special non-working days in the National Capital Region to give way to the 49th ASEAN Summit and other related bilateral and multilateral meetings among the national leaders of Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos PDR, Myanmar, and Timor Leste. President Trump is coming to renew American ties with the 11 strategically-located ASEAN member nations and to balance China's increasing influence on many of the ASEAN 11.

These summits under the Philippine chairmanships are going to happen while our country is navigating very delicately a major economic downturn, and the heightening of tensions in the West Philippine Sea. Rising inflation rates and worsening poverty incidences are exacerbated by contemporaneous volatility of domestic political turmoil driven by the pending impeachment proceedings against the second highest official of the land and a number of unsolved flood-control scandals and other corruption brouhaha.

I hope that the DDS and other ant-BBM movements and aggrupations are going to defer their concerted actions to a time after our visitors have left our country. I also trust that the vice president and her partisan social media functionaries will be decent enough not to take advantage of these events with which to embarrass the president, much less to ventilate their grievances or wash their dirty linen before a global platform.

The coming summits present a major, major security problem to the Philippine government. Imagine assuring the security of the U.S. president, aside from the heads of states and governments of 11 ASEAN member-nations. Add to them the heads of state and governments or the designated representatives of China, Russia, Japan, India, Australia, South Korea, New Zealand, and the United Nations.

The historic summits include the ASEAN Plus 3, the East Asia Summit, as well as the meetings to be hosted by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and ASEAN Secretary General Kao Kim Hourn. The Office of the President, the DFA, the PNP, the AFP, and the cities of Manila and the other 16 cities in the National Capital Region will all have their hands full in making sure that all will be protected and made to feel welcome in Manila.

President Trump is going to bring a complete battalion of security, intelligence, as well as political, diplomatic and economic advisers. Five-star hotels are already fully booked with wives, assistants, security support groups and journalists, reporters, and pundits are all congregating in Manila. Heads of state are bringing their own private jets and their own secured cars and security armored vehicles. It will be a nightmare for our airport, immigration, customs, and police and armed forces personnel.

Any minor problem may further blemish the BBM administration's international and regional image and may result in the added deterioration of our country's already-stained reputation, as a hub for international and regional centers of political and economic conferences. No classes, no work, lesser traffic volume and more focus on the security of all our VIP visitors.

Let us support the government and work for the success of the ASEAN summits. This is our country, and our honor and pride are at stake. Let us set aside petty politics and stand up as one united nation to welcome more than 30 world leaders visiting our land, the Pearl of the Orient Seas.