Godfrey Anthony Bañares

AB Foreign Service, FS 302

International Political Economy

Jumel G. Estrañero

March 3, 2018

Strings Attached on the Philippines: Make a Knot or Make it Not

Our country, Republic of the Philippines, firmly believes it stands on its own. Or are we
only standing because of the pulled strings attached on us? This third-world country
conspicuously needs help from other big countries. The default hegemon, United States, have
been continuously aiding us ever since they have colonized us way back early 1900s.
Meanwhile, relations between our neighbouring country and now a rising hegemon, People’s
Republic of China, have gradually improved over the years. We have been getting support from
these hegemons conditionally.

Presently, our relations between these two are exacerbating. RP-PRC relations have
suffered due to the South China Sea dispute. RP-US relations began to sour due to Duterte’s
conflict with Obama expressing his concern over human rights issues on Duterte’s war on drugs.
Now, President Rodrigo Duterte, aims at remedying RP-PRC relations at the expense with the
RP-US relationship. Strings attached from our west-wing and strings attached from the east-
wing have both done the pulling. Too many strings attached consequently make tangled knots.
Thus, it’s a catch 22 situation.

US-PRC relationship has been described by world leaders as the world’s most important
bilateral relationship of the century. This year, U.S. has the world’s largest economy and PRC
has the second’s. Currently, the two have mutual political, economic, and security interests.
However, they remain in dispute over territorial issues in the South China Sea. Due to this, the
two have been playing the intimidation game of casting shadows over each other.
Notwithstanding, China has persistently continued on their operations. That’s probably the
reason why Duterte would rather cut the strings from US and let China have more control. This
action was displayed by Duterte’s shift of foreign policy to China from US.

In all respect with our beloved country, the Philippines haven’t always been a puppet.
We have been one of the economic models of East Asia during 1960’s. Our country is one of the
richest nations next to Japan. From a Korean documentary, Pres. Marcos was praised for his
accomplishments and putting the Philippines at its finest. It was also stated in the documentary
that Marcos inspired Korean Pres. Chung Hee to create expressways similar to ours. And, it is
said to be that this move is one of the keys of the Korean economic boom. So going back to my
point, what happened to our country? We used to inspire other Asian countries. We used to
really stand on our own. Some say that the US manipulated the politics here to make it
favourable to them. We were blinded that we needed other’s helping hand to stand. Yes, other
countries are essential but we forgot that we know how to walk by ourselves.

Other countries have been very careful on engaging themselves with this dispute
between the two hegemons. Like for example, Japan is continuously focusing on advocating
peace. Meanwhile, Russia and Philippines are having good terms and yet, Russia is also careful
not to be involved in this issue. Being in between the two clashing big countries is already
problematic and will only put them in a bad situation.

If Philippines will continue to be too lenient to China, in the next 10 years, they already
have the bone to make us, the underdog, to always follow. In the near future, they fully
furnished their infrastructures and we can’t do a thing about it. Duterte even joked to let the
Philippines be a province of China. Who knows? That might be a prediction or a foresight of
what will actually happen.

It’s never too late to use the strings to tie the knot for binding our relations with them.
Duterte has high respects for Xi Jinping but at the same time, he must be careful of his actions
and always prioritize his people first. Duterte sees himself to Donald Trump and use that
somehow to retain the good terms with the US. If we can make our country in the peak and if
Duterte will pursue his endeavours, which is the same with what Pres. Marcos did, perhaps we
can make us not have strings. We’ll only have our own strings to pull, i.e. strategic plans. The
current administration’s goal is the BUILD BUILD BUILD project. I suggest, we might as well build
on the West Philippine Sea so we’ll not be too overpowered by the China’s infrastructures built.
Or if China will continue building non-stop on OUR territory, maybe we can charge them for
rent and use the court ruling as binding paper to properly and legally charge them because we
OWN it? There are certainly more ideas out there to use, and continue being a controlled by
the strings they pull is definitely not the best choice.