Day-by-day, the Philippine government steps deeper into a foreign policy quagmire.

What Strategy?

The government has become one of the most enthusiastic and unconditional supporters of the United States’ military strategy against terrorism. It has done so without knowing what that strategy really is and what the pursuit of that strategy will require from the Philippines. With its 14-Point Program in support of Washington’s international anti-terrorist campaign, the Philippines has made an open-ended commitment and offered the unconditional use of its bases to a foreign government that, as a recent Washington Post article suggests, may still be “groping its way to a plan.”

In its rush to join the US-dominated coalition, the Macapagal-Arroyo administration is even risking the violation of the Philippine Constitution, which explicitly prohibits the entry or transit of nuclear weapons through Philippine territory. Nuclear weapons are a central component of the arsenal of US warships and warplanes, and there is a really great possibility that those transiting through Subic and Clark will be nuclear-armed. Given the US policy of neither confirming or denying the presence of nuclear weapons and the lack of verification capabilities on the part of the Philippine government, the Macapagal-Arroyo decision amounts to giving a green light to the US to bring in nuclear weapons.

Fight Terrorism under the UN, not the US

The Philippines must participate in the fight against terrorism, but it must do so not under a war coalition led unilaterally by the United States, a great deal of whose motivation is revenge for the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. To ensure responsible decisionmaking, an international anti-terrorist coalition must be a multilateral enterprise under the United Nations, as many countries have demanded. This should begin with a United Nations General Assembly debate on the scope and objectives of an anti-terrorist campaign. Otherwise, other governments would be binding themselves to unilateral decision-making by the United States while being held collectively responsible by the enemies of the United States for the consequences of decisions not of their own making.

The Macapagal-Arroyo administration has brought Philippine foreign policy back to the stone age of the 1950’s and 1960’s, when Malacanang automatically identified the Philippine national interest with that of the United States. National Security Adviser Roilo Golez has even gone on record stating that the administration is willing to let US forces to stay in the country during the entire duration of the anti-terrorist campaign, which, as the US Defense Department has admitted, may last years! What is this but an invitation to Washington to establish a permanent military presence, which our people rejected when they expelled the bases in 1991.

But a failure to discern what is our national interest is not the only reason for the admininstration’s behavior. There is also a mercenary reason, and that is to trade unqualified military support in exchange for aid and loans from Washington. India, Indonesia, and Pakistan have already been bought in different ways by Washington to get them into the military alliance, and the Philippine government feels it too must have its slice of the American pie. Such mercenary motivations compromise our national interest, and they must be strongly denounced.

Seek Justice, not Revenge

Instead of rushing blindly into war, the Philippines should be doing its utmost to dissuade the United States from taking a vengeful military response to the Sept. 11 event. It should urge Washington to seek justice, but through due process and law. The identity of the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 assaults must first be ascertained via established multinational investigating processes. Then they must be brought to justice and tried using accepted international mechanisms like the International Court of Justice or specially constituted courts such as the one convoked in the Hague to try the suspects in the 1988 Pan Am Lockerbie bombing.

Address Roots of Terrorism, not the Symptoms

But even more important, the government should try to persuade Washington to address not the symptoms but the roots of terrorism, which lie in its 50-year-old policy of subordinating the interests of the peoples of the Middle East to its untrammeled access to oil to sustain its high-consumption, petroleum-intensive civilization and in its unstinting support for Israel, a state born out of the massive dispossession of the Palestinian people from their lands and country. Malacanang should be devoting its efforts to convincing Washington that unless the US ceases to stand in the way of arrangements that promote equity, justice, and national sovereignty in the Middle East, there will always be thousands of people who willing to step into the shoes of Osama bin Laden.

Moreover, the best contribution that the Philippines can make to the international struggle against terrorism is not to participate in ill-conceived foreign adventures but to address the roots of domestic terrorism, the most important of which have to do with the historical injustices perpetrated on the Moro people in Mindanao. Only a resolution that promotes justice, equity, and self-determination for the Moro people will lead to a lasting solution to the terrorist problem in the country. Concentrating on police and military solutions will lead to failure locally, as it will lead to failure globally.

Walden Bello

AKBAYAN Chairperson