The President oif the Philippines is a Trumoist. Durerte He has used swears to describe President Obama and is now threatening to end the US Alliance.
PHILIPPINES TELLS US NO JOINT PATROLS IN SOUTH CHINA SEA
SAN ANTONIO, Philippines (AP) – The Philippine defense chief said Friday that he told the U.S. military that plans for joint patrols and naval exercises in the disputed South China Sea have been put on hold, the first concrete break in defense cooperation after months of increasingly strident comments by the country’s new president. Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana also said that 107 U.S. troops involved in operating surveillance drones against Muslim militants would be asked to leave the southern part of the country once the Philippines acquires those intelligence-gathering capabilities in the near future. President Rodrigo Duterte also wants to halt the 28 military exercises that are carried out with U.S.
Either President Duterte is a genius or dangerously naive. True, there might be historical basis for resentment towards the US but playing the China AND Russia card seems to be playing with fire. Does he expect the Chinese to sell advanced weaponry that can be used against them? Does he expect the Chinese navy to conduct patrols mutually beneficial to China and the Philippines? Why should they when they already have a base in an island they constructed within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines? And by taking off the table the international arbitration court’s ruling favoring the Philippines, he is telegraphing capitulation to the Chinese.
True enough, the Philippines needs to assert its independence but I do not see how substituting alliance with one bully for an alliance with the neighborhood bully serves that cause. The Philippines must at least have some economic, military and political benefit over and above that so far provided by the United States.
At this point, however, it is too early to tell how President Duterte’s gambit will play out but he is counting on the support of the Filipino people to endure through hardships with determination as they have historically proven during war and peace. It will take a profound understanding of Filipino psyche and culture to know why Duterte felt offended by the American big white brother’s “interference” in Philippine internal affairs.
There are the massacres committed in Mindanao, Samar and in other Philippine regions; the Sabah issue; the World War II Philippine veterans issue; the lopsided Visiting Forces Agreement; etc. ad infinitum – the resentment is definitely understandable though arguably misplaced from the US point of view.
In the meantime, it is too early to see how Philippine events will play out.