National bullies enabling international ones

In the hierarchy of bullying, small-town bullies are just small fry in the midst of kingpin types whose areas of control span not only a tiny locality, but also a province, or provinces, and even a huge part of a country. But these kingpin national bullies are just tiny specks in the universe of giant bullies on the international scene. They tend to suck up to the international bullies to enable the latter’s aggressive action on the country whose sovereignty and territory the national bullies are supposed to protect. They are the leaders of client states of international patrons/bullies.

Among these leaders are strongmen/dictators in their own countries, with many of them benefitting from the patronage of international bullies. The patron bullies ensure the local strongmen are continually being propped up to retain their iron grip among their constituents. Additionally, the bully countries support them financially and logistically—although a substantial chunk of these so-called packages of international aid are just disguised onerous loans. This is largely the case in many African countries that have succumbed to international bullies like Russia and China, among others. This partly explains why many of these client states of Russia did not raise a violent howl of collective protest when Russia invaded Ukraine.

Here, in the Philippines, some of these local bullies rose to become senators and congressmen and women, with one of them ending up becoming the president of the country—former president Rodrigo Duterte.

Right at the onset of his administration, Duterte had made it clear that he will not be kowtowing to countries with long bilateral and mutual defense agreements like the United States of America. He also pronounced, on various occasions, his pivot to a rising giant of a bully, China. He disregarded the July 2016 Arbitral Tribunal of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos) that awarded the Philippines “historic rights” to disputed areas in the South China Sea. He instead made friendly overtures to China, agreeing with the Chinese ambassador that the issue can be settled “amicably” between the two countries, and not through a legal settlement like the 2016 Arbitral Award. In many pronouncements and actions, Duterte showed that he was sucking up to China—making some observers think he had become a governor of a province belonging to China.

Together with his band of sycophantic small-town bullies, Duterte made it clear that the Philippines will befriend China despite the latter’s earlier aggressive actions on parts of Philippine territory in the West Philippine Sea. They flaunted “China’s benevolence”—in granting the Philippine government huge loans to finance Duterte’s ambitious “Build, build, build” projects, among others.

On July 18, this year, private citizen Duterte made an “unprecedented,” “strange” visit to his good friend and patron, Xi Jinping of China, raising speculations that the former president will use his relations with the Chinese leader to sway the current administration of President Marcos to veer away from the United States and become a Chinese client. Truly, Duterte has assumed the “messenger’s role” of his Chinese patron, suggesting strongly to his successor to toe the same line as he did.

Just a few weeks after Duterte’s surprise visit, a video showing the water cannon firing at a Philippine Coast Guard patrol boat escorting a ship carrying construction materials was shown on all mainstream print and broadcast media. It was popularly perceived as the ultimate aggressive action on the Philippines that violated earlier rulings by Unclos and other international laws.

While almost everyone in the country was enraged by China’s aggressive action, it is strange that the current Philippine Chief Executive remained tightlipped on his policy vs. China in his latest State of the Nation Address. Regarding the latest Chinese aggressive act, he just issued a short and simple statement: “Let us just remove the obstruction in the area (like the battle-battered M/V Sierra Madre) so it will not create trouble.”

Is this the essence of his foreign policy toward China, to accede to the Chinese government’s aggressive action on our seas? Has he, like his predecessor, become another national bully sucking up to an international one?

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