I vote “yes” on the VFA; and in order to explain my vote, I beg permission to place the VFA in the context of contemporary international relations.
PRESENT GLOBAL CONTEXT.
The current generation is about to enter, not only a new century, but also a new millennium. This is a very rare occasion, and no generation will experience such a moment again, until after a thousand years shall have passed. Since this is a symbolic moment, I humbly submit that this is a propitious time for the Senate to pause and reflect on the VFA in the context of the global condition.
In 1991, the Philippine Senate voted against the extension of the RP-US Military Bases Agreement. From that time, in the space of eight years, a new world order has emerged. The new global power structure is no longer bipolar, with the US and the USSR as the two poles. Instead, the global power structure is now multipolar, with the added multiple poles of China, Japan, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and Developing World states.
The paradigm shift from bipolarity to multipolarity has several consequences. One is that the US and the Soviet Union are now unable to control their formal allies. The Philippines through the Association of Southeast Nations, or ASEAN, can formulate its own policies and even use collective power to influence the policies of the US. The Philippines, on occasion, could even chart our own policies with little regard for the decisions of the US. Against this backdrop of international change, the flow of events is no longer predictable, and it is no longer valid to think of the Philippines vis-a-vis the US in Cold War terms, or to use the self-conscious vocabulary of vituperation to describe the relationship of the two countries.
The reordering of international relations is accelerated by the emergence of new actors on the international stage. The first generation of actors were states. The second generation of actors today consists of multinational corporations. When the US military bases were here, multinational corporations, or MNCs, were viewed as tools of capitalist expansion and exploitation. But today, Third World States -- including the Philippines -- have come to regard MNCs as potential providers of needed investment capital and technology. Other new actors include international governmental organizations, and nongovernmental organizations.
As a modest observer of our Senate debates on the VFA, I was sometimes left with the impression that the arguments back and forth would have been best appreciated in a bipolar world that was based on the old East-West conflict. But the bipolar world has already been consigned to the dustbin of history. We now realize that in 1991 when the Senate voted, although the Berlin Wall had fallen, the meaning of the end of the Cold War was still unknown to the members of the Senate at that time.
Today, based on the historical timeline, we have began to realize the meaning of the end of the Cold War. For by 1991, what had been the single state of Yugoslavia had become five new states, which are now the theater of a bloody clash of cultures. By 1992, the Soviet Union had disappeared, replaced by 15 new states, of which 11 joined the so-called Commonwealth of Independent States. With no Soviet Union, there is no more Cold War. And without a Cold War, the Philippines is no longer in danger of being manipulated into the status of a client state. The Philippines is now a free agent, and our restraints can only be those that are self-imposed.
Thus, the world of the erstwhile Military Bases Agreement is far different from our present world of the Visiting Forces Agreement. Our world is much more complicated and uncertain. The United States itself is searching for its role in the post-Cold War world. It is true that the US remains the world’s unrivaled military superpower. But at the same time, the US has the world’s largest economic debt, and suffers from serious domestic problems.
The world of the VFA is a changed world. Western Europe is forging a single economic market. MNCs are investing in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China. The flashpoints of the world continue to breed civil wars, national liberation conflicts, and ethnic warfare. Fundamentalist Islam insists on its own unique world, rejecting both communism and Western solutions to social problems. Here in Asia, Developing World states, including the Philippines, struggle to recover from the Asian economic crisis.
Within this kaleidoscopic universe, when we vote on the VFA, we do so against the background of a contest for the leadership of Asia between China and Japan, fought on the battleground of economic growth. On the one hand, Japan is the greatest commercial empire on earth, and the second most important power in the world. If the US refuses to maintain substantial forces in the East Asian region, Japan will take a larger defense role.
On the other hand, China looks to become the world’s largest economy by the year 2020. A generation from now, parts of China will be richer than Europe or North America today. But because it is too divided, it is not likely to achieve superpower status by 2020. In any event, during the next century that starts next year, the rest of the world will be frightened of China.
Hence, a benign US, standing alone, can no longer guarantee the security of the East Asian region. Instead, the security of our region will be determined by the relationship between Japan and China. During this process, the Philippine outlook should be shaped, not by Cold War templates, but by our experience as a state of the Developing World, also known as the Third World, the South, or the Less Developed Countries. I refer to the Philippine experience of a colonial past, sharply opposed social and economic classes, and economic underdevelopment and poverty.
We need to recognize that because of this experience, we in the Philippines tend to view the industrialized market economies of the US as both the cause and perpetuator of our poverty. We also tend to feel that the current international system relegates us to a permanently inferior position. But this self-knowledge should not remain a bitter element of our foreign policy; rather, self-knowledge should teach us to be a conscious actor in international politics.
CONCEPT OF NATIONAL INTEREST.
One of the easiest things to do is to say, that voting on the VFA should be determined by national interest. But “national interest” is a concept that has no universal meaning. The best that political science can do is to provide an enumeration of the criteria for national interest. These criteria include: economics, ideology, power, military security and advantage, morality and legality, cultural affinity, or even race and ethnic issues.
Thus, national interest could be defined on the basis of either objective or subjective factors. Objective factors include economic strength, military capabilities, and the size of the resource base. Subjective factors include morality, legality, or ideology. Whether the VFA will promote Philippine national interest, depends upon whether the person defining national interest gives preference to objective or subjective gain. However, it is also widely accepted that there are three basic fundamental interests: physical survival, including territorial integrity; economic well-being; and national self-determination.
At any rate, it is an accepted principle of political science that national interest is not so much a constant set of national objectives, as it is a changing approximation of what the leaders of a country view as important. When the Senate votes on the VFA, we the senators are actually defining the national interest.
Like the concept of national interest, the concept of national security is also undergoing metamorphosis. In the contemporary international system, the term “national security” is no longer commonly defined as military defense. It now includes broad-based policies to improve the standards of the population in education, health, society, and the environment. In the post-Cold War era, economic prosperity and “welfare” concerns have become more important as national goals. Accordingly, economics is now described as “the continuation of power by other means.”
Admittedly, “security dilemmas” and territorial disputes persist in the developing parts of the globe, such as ours. Asia-Pacific currently represents a “zone of turmoil,” in contrast to the “zone of peace” in the developed world. Not only the Philippines but also other Asian states, most notably Japan, are apprehensive over the recent arms buildup by China, as well as the China claim to the Spratlys. Six states including the Philippines claim the Spratlys, some 60 rocky atolls in the South China sea, because they are believed to contain as much as $1 trillion in oil and gas deposits.
As the Spratly example shows, geopolitics, as the world has known it since 1945, is dead. The newly-defined battleground is geoeconomics. Because of the rise of regional trading blocs such as APEC or even the proposed AFTA, we in the Philippines might find that if our country is not a member of a team, we will not be able to sit at the table.
It is possible that the New International Economic Order -- a reordering of the trilogy of aid, trade, and foreign investment -- is now dead. The new imperialists are not necessarily the developed states like the US or UK, but lending organizations like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
PHILIPPINES AS MIDDLE POWER.
The Philippines is categorized as a middle power, which is defined as a state which cannot afford the large and flexible force structures of the major powers, but which has attained a credible minimum level of defense self-sufficiency. Naturally, as a middle power, we should seek to enhance our security. But while we seek to strengthen our capacity to defend ourselves from being drawn into armed conflicts, we do not have the financial means to increase our defense self-reliance.
Hence, our only available option is to participate in collective or cooperative security arrangements with other powers. The Mutual Defense Treaty is a collective security arrangement, because it is proposes a collective response to aggression. By contrast, the VFA is a cooperative security arrangement, because it involves bilateral confidence-building and capability-strengthening. Our government pursues this strategy, as dictated by the configuration of the international system, and by the level and immediacy of perceived danger.
It should be accepted that the Philippines is not as far advanced in the nation-building process as other states in the region, such as Australia and New Zealand. This explains why Philippine national security encompasses both domestic stability and internal security. While our national security has come to be synonymous with economic security, our country is also concerned about secessionism and the disintegrating effects of ethnic, religious, or class tension. Accordingly, we should not overlook the problem of internal stability. The need to maintain domestic security in our country is a powerful factor in the foreign and defense policy calculations of the Estrada administration.
During the present situation, the Philippines as a middle power is compelled to adopt the common strategy followed all over the world for reducing our vulnerabilities. This strategy is to augment our military power, not just by building up our own capabilities, but by enlisting the aid of a major power. Which major power should be our formal ally? Following the advice of Thucydides after his study of the Peloponnesian war, we should look for an ally with whom we share a common threat. According to Thucydides, mutual fear is the most solid basis upon which to organize an alliance.
Our present ally is the US; are there compelling arguments for discarding this ally? I have heard none that would be logical in a post-Cold War world.
The RP-US Mutual Defense Treaty is already in place. It provides for the casus foederis, meaning the situation in which mutual commitments are to become operational. The casus foederis is set out in Article 4: “Each Party recognizes that an armed attack in the Pacific area on either of the Parties would be dangerous to its own peace and safety, and declares that it would act to meet the common dangers in accordance with its constitutional processes.”
Thus, the casus foederis is very precise: there has to be an armed attack. By contrast, the ensuing commitment is vague: the US will act in accordance with its constitution. Some quarters think this commitment is too vague, and would prefer what is called a “hair-trigger” clause, meaning an automatic commitment to military action. I respectfully submit that a hair-trigger clause would be less advantageous to the Philippines, because an automatic commitment to military action leaves very little leeway for Filipino decision makers and diplomats to decide what to do, once the casus foederis arises.
Furthermore, a middle power like the Philippines must consider the cost of military spending. Our country is beset by low-intensity conflict in Mindanao, which compels both our government and the rebel groups to engage in low-tech light arms trade. Even if our government abstains from buying major front-line systems (such as main battle tanks, fighter and fighter-bomber aircraft, and warships) and merely buys so-called upgrade kits (such as advanced-propulsion, fire-control, and armament systems) designed to increase the life cycles of already-purchased materiel, still we cannot afford military and defense spending even on such a modest scale. A mere 2,000 rounds of 7.62-mm rifle or machine-gun ammunition already costs some $500 or P20,000. At this rate, as a senator I have to insist that decreased military spending should be channeled to Third World programs like immunizations, safe water, or education.
U.S. AS WORLD POWER.
The end of the Cold War gave birth to a polycentric world with not two, but several power centers now roughly equal to each other. For the time being, the US is a little more equal than others. But as an industrial and financial power, it is losing ground to Germany, Japan, and even to the European Community.
The US is a major debtor nation because of its trade deficit, and its growing dependence upon oil imports makes it a hostage to Middle East conflicts. This, I believe, is the real reason why the US wants a VFA here. The US wants to reduce its vulnerability to Arab-Israel or Arab-Arab confrontations. For this purpose, Mindanao is significant in American military strategy.
I am only too willing to concede that in the post-Cold War world, the Asia-Pacific strategy of the US is still based on maintaining its strategic primacy in our region. After all, the US is a status quo power. But in addition, because of its growing economic stakes in our region, the US must keep the sea lanes of commerce open for US trade. Hence, Mindanao is also significant for American economic strategy.
Why should the Philippines accommodate American military and economic strategy? The answer is China, the biggest resident power in Asia. The key role in the Asia-Pacific security architecture is China, which has the potential to become the next superpower. It is possible that in the future, the Philippines might find common cause with China, and this could lead to a change in the power balance.
However, for the present, the US remains at the helm of the strongest network of military alliances in the Asia-Pacific. US presence in our region is still important, not because we love the US, but because we fear some of our neighbors. We can live with the US, but let it share the defense burden. And please, stop already the American tendency of preaching down to Asia, or carrying out the occasionally brash foreign policy.
That American presence is a necessary imposition we Filipinos can live with is accentuated by two incidents in 1996. In that year, Japan renewed and even deepened the Japan-US Mutual Defense Pact. And in March 1996, the US sent two carrier battle groups to the Taiwanese Straits, after China held military exercises there. In that way, the US reassured Japan on its treaty commitments, and Taiwan on its reliability as an ally.
That said, I humbly submit that the Spratly Islands dispute is not a life-or-death issue. It does not threaten the sovereign integrity of the Philippines, and neither does it threaten the stability of our government. However, I place two caveats. The first is that until now, China has not renounced the use of force to resolve conflicting claims in the South China sea. The second is that the Philippines, as an archipelago, needs to build up our maritime defense capability.
NEW WORLD ORDER.
The Cold War provided the Asia-Pacific with strategic balance and predictability . The post-Cold War era in the Asia-Pacific today has become more unpredictable and uncertain. There are too many challenges for 2000: population growth, food production, the environment, drugs, health, women’s rights, equitable distribution of wealth, trade and exchange, mineral and energy scarcity.
Appropriately, the VFA has crystallized the conflict of values in Filipino society. Such a conflict has proved to be a potent force for change in the national thinking, and we can only hope for our country that any change shall be for the better. In the meantime, we have to learn to abandon the rhetoric of the Cold War, and to participate in a new world order, where the VFA, for the time being, is a necessary tool of our Third World foreign policy.
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The Isulong Team: Isulong SEOPh, Isulong Seoph by Benj, Pinoy Isulong by Seoph Martinez and Useless Isulong