The Philippines between Scylla and Charybdis
Written by: Lance Vicher and Karl Suyat
Clan Politics at the Dawn of a New Cold War
It was like a page out of a bestselling political thriller. When the new administration of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. cruised into its first six months in power, the house of cards for him and for Vice President Sara Duterte started to fall down. The cracks started to unfurl, and the house of ‘unity’ became divided. The lieutenants of each faction were removed, chased, or chastised. As more events unfolded and more divisions rose, however, it would be clear-cut that the rivalry of the two forces that once comprised the ‘Uniteam’ slate in 2022 is a mirror of a larger Cold War across our land and seas.
A short timeline of events: Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was removed as Deputy House Speaker. VP Duterte resigned from House Speaker Martin Romualdez’s Lakas-CMD and called him a monster [1]. Romualdez, a close cousin of Marcos, would not let this go unpunished. Duterte would face the House of Representatives months later during an inquiry about her questionable confidential funds, leading to her father — the former president — bitterly criticizing the House [2]. Indeed, in a series of political tit-for-tat, the Marcos-Duterte alliance would gradually crumble, leading up to the Bagong Pilipinas rally in Luneta and a pro-Duterte ‘prayer rally’ in Davao on January 28.
The feud has shown all too well that there is only one I in UniTeam. But these fractures in domestic politics reveal rising tensions in international politics. And they play out in the West Philippine Sea, as U.S.-China geopolitics plunges the Philippines into a similar domestic rivalry.
An American Waltz
Before it was China, the United States feared a Japanese takeover of the Philippines following Russia’s defeat in 1905. To prevent this, it entered into an agreement with Japan for control over the Philippines in exchange for recognizing Japan’s control over Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula [3]. Yet, as later decades showed, in the face of a failing economy, the rise of militarism, and the need for more resources to fuel its industrialization, Japan adopted a policy of southward expansion [4]. Threatened, the U.S., already three decades into colonizing the Philippines, bolstered the country to shoulder the costs of war. True enough, it became a victim of a world war in which it was not a participant, as an American proxy. In fact, after the war, Manila was one of the most devastated capitals in the world, second only to Warsaw.
Manila’s destruction proved all the more convenient to America’s image of benevolence. As rehabilitation aid poured into the country, parity rights and military bases were approved [5]. Even the Mutual Defense Treaty — the agreement the U.S. invoked a few weeks ago alongside the Visiting Forces Agreement and EDCA — was a byproduct of this relationship. Economic blackmail made a hostage out of the Philippines that would wag its tail for its imperialist master, following America in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. The Philippines became the linchpin of American security in the Pacific region against a rising communist threat [6]. No better person other than Marcos Sr. himself embodied this: citing American colonial statecraft [7], Marcos declared martial law, launching the Philippines into a dark and grim period of human rights abuses, tortures, and enforced disappearances. Yet even then, the Marcos dictatorship was viewed in a positive light by the U.S. thanks to the Kirkpatrick doctrine — the U.S. foreign policy view that right-wing authoritarian governments, being more likely to be democratic than communist nations, justified U.S. support.
American imperialism had ensured the Philippines’ dependency on it like no other, even in politics. As Claro M. Recto recognized, “Americans may disagree violently with their own foreign policy, but it has no better supporters than the Filipinos.” [8] Since then, our foreign policy has been mendicant.
Dealing with China, Inc.
The chains of dependency tying the Philippines to the United States (and Japan) for the longest time raises a question about China: how has China become an economic, political, and national concern to the Philippines in recent times?
China came out of the 1997 Asian financial crisis relatively unscathed compared to Southeast Asia. Though not as badly hit, Zhu Rongji, China’s then-premier, had sought to become a member of the World Trade Organization. To achieve this, he handed the council on state planning over to the trade commission [9]. And in a move reminiscent of neoliberal restructuring, central government ministries and government personnel were massively reduced [10]. These anticipatory policies turned out to be fruitful for him, as China’s membership was accepted, joining the global competition in 2001.
Arroyo thus came to power during China’s global ascent. Seeing its rise, she broke away from the usual American dependence and pursued large-scale investment and construction deals with China [11]. Yet only one would pass through the political elites and the opposition, rejecting the many major investments by Chinese state-owned enterprises in infrastructure and agribusiness. With the acceptance of the State Grid Corporation of China, the Philippines’ national grid was privatized and handed over to China, meaning that the Chairman of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines is Chinese [12]. Indeed, Beijing’s development finance to the Philippines rose 10.5 times under Arroyo, reducing only under the Aquino administration, who was cold towards Beijing over the West Philippine Sea [13].
Yet, in his pivot to China, Duterte reversed Aquino’s approach and warmed relations once more. This time, he was supported by both Chinese firms and the Filipino business elites. Chinese foreign direct investments sharply rose, coinciding with the growth of the online gambling sector as Chinese capital entered the country illicitly [14]. As shareholders in the sector, Filipino-Chinese business elites funneled online gambling capital into government revenue, side payments to agencies like PAGCOR, and as customers to the oligarchs [15]. Thus, while Chinese FDI has had inroads in infrastructure like the Kaliwa Dam, such investments have only seen a massive boom in Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations (POGOs) that have gone invisible for some time now.
Even worse, Duterte’s tight embrace of the BRI is found in his acceptance of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, China’s counterpart of the IMF. For every project, Filipinos shoulder it as we pay for the infrastructure, the imported Chinese labor, and its maintenance, all the while their Chinese GDP multiplies in addition to ensuring resource flows from the periphery.
Through Arroyo and Duterte alone, Beijing has injected roughly ₱535 billion into the Philippine economy [16]. Hence, with dependence on America and huge Chinese FDIs, Philippine presidents dance between the palms of America and China.
Dynastic Feuds, Discordant Imperialisms
Underneath the seams of the UniTeam alliance is a web of shifting political allegiances, competing interests, and inter-imperialist rivalry that take shape in the West Philippine Sea. Through Duterte and his coalition, Chinese imperialism is sanitized and perfumed as Marcos takes the blame for the Philippines’ military alliance with the US. China, according to this view, is justified in its aggressive actions against America’s provocations. Because of America, this camp claims, the Philippines will be fighting a war it does not want. For this reason, Duterte himself has threatened to have Mindanao secede. Of course, Chinese social media was quick to pick it up, denouncing Marcos’s pro-U.S. position as brewing a civil war and pushing Mindanao to separate [17].
On the other hand, the pro-Marcos coalition absolves the U.S. of any imperialist ambition, pinning it instead on Chinese aggression in Philippine waters. Far from the Philippines ruining regional peace, this camp points at China’s aggression as the reason, warning it further against acts escalating to war [18]. Much like America, the pro-Marcos faction calls China’s maritime aggression a threat. In fact, Marcos’s apprehensions are best captured by his expressed alarm at the gentleman’s agreement Duterte had entered with the Chinese government. Outright calling it a “secret agreement,” [19] Marcos weaves in a narrative of a Chinese conspiracy abetted by his rival against his administration. Yet nowhere near being a secret, a Global Times article would clarify that the gentleman’s agreement was hardly any secret, that even departments and agencies ensured the stability of the Ayungin Shoal seven months into Marcos’s administration [20]. Branding it as a secret was powerful: to see it as such is to have a privilege to an esoteric knowledge Marcos was letting only you know. The power of revelation had even granted him distance from the scene, and all you had to do was read between the lines: Duterte, secret agreement, and China. The terror arising from the threat, while real, becomes fantasized and exaggerated many times more, all too fundamentally, in the form of Sinophobia.
As these camps protractedly vie for supremacy, the web of lies and disinformation becomes more sophisticated. Take the case of Alice Guo, for instance, where both sides are keen to associate her name with their rival, sometimes even fabricating falsehoods to establish their own as more nationalistic. Her identity is pinned on Duterte’s ties with China, but pro-Duterte supporters use Guo’s photo-ops with Marcos to prove otherwise. Not allowing themselves to be beaten, pro-Marcos supporters fight fire with fire, posting images where Guo can also be seen with Duterte. Plain and clear, Marcos and Duterte’s tit-for-tat means political one-upmanship for their supporters, competing for who can be a better “nationalist.”
Yet there is a kernel of truth somewhere to these antagonisms, that rather either/or, it is both American and Chinese imperialisms that are driving the Philippines into war. But it is a war that is neither our interest nor our choice. Because if we were truly independent, to begin with, we could say no to American and Chinese imperialism simultaneously, which they have to respect. Because if we truly deemed our nation as worthy of self-respect, we would not have to chain ourselves to either China or the U.S. and think like them for our survival. Because if we truly thought about our country’s survival, we would take ourselves, the Filipino people, as paramount before America and China.
Instead, we have groveled at the feet of our future masters, denouncing their enemies as if they were our own, so when time proves us right, we reap the fruits of a new imperial dependency. We have failed to recognize that we had no choice to begin with: that to have sided with either China or the U.S. is to accept war as a premise and be doomed to a fate worse than death. Just how mendicant have we become to beg for imperialist powers to bring us into war and to become cannon fodder?
Towards a Genuinely Independent Foreign Policy
Central to any truly independent foreign policy, therefore, is the recognition that neither Marcos-Biden nor Duterte-Xi would save us from their war and that neither the U.S. nor China would save us from their imperialism. Only we can save ourselves. And it is by putting ourselves, our people, and our nation that we begin the struggle for a nationalist and independent foreign policy. To struggle for a nationalist and independent foreign policy is to weed out the economic roots of our mendicancy and dependency, which hold our foreign policy captive, pursue national industrialization to protect our sovereignty, and promote demilitarization and non-aggression in the West Philippine Sea against Chinese and U.S. imperialisms. To practice a genuinely independent foreign policy is to give back, thus, the dignity, self-respect, and humanity of the Filipino people.
Until then, a house divided will be a house ruled against each other. A house ruled against each other is a house more demolishable.
References
[1] Jenny Balboa, “Cracks in the Marcos–Duterte political alliance,” East Asia Forum, December 30, 2023.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Renato Constantino and Letizia R. Constantino, The Continuing Past, Foundation for Nationalist Studies, 1978.
[4] Kōichi Kishimoto, Politics in Modern Japan: Development and Organization, Japan Echo Incorporated, 1982, p. 15.
[5] Constantino and Constantino, op. cit.
[6] George Kennan, “Review of current trends, U.S. foreign policy, policy planning staff,” PPS №23. Foreign Relations of the United States, Vol. 1 №2, 1948.
[7] Adrian De Leon, “What is forgotten in the U.S.-Philippines friendship, Washington Post, September 25, 2022.
[8] Claro M. Recto, “Our Mendicant Foreign Policy,” 1951.
[9] Sarah Eaton, China’s State Capitalist Turn: Political Economy of the Advancing State, University of Toronto, 2011.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Alvin Camba, Sinews of politics: State Grid Corporation, investment coalitions, and embeddedness in the Philippines, Energy Strategy Review, Vol. 35, 2021.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Kathrin Hille, China emerges as one of biggest bilateral lenders to Philippines, Financial Times, June 5, 2024.
[14] Alvin Camba, Jerik Cruz, Janica Magat, and Angela Tritto, “Explaining the Belt and Road in the Philippines: elite consolidation, construction contracts, and online gambling capital,” from Research Handbook on the Belt and Road Initiative, 2021.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Hille, op. cit.
[17] Christina Chi, Chinese accounts pounce on Mindanao secession issue to warn of ‘civil war’ in Philippines, Philstar, June 10, 2024.
[18] Nestor Corrales, Marcos rejects China’s claim that PH ruining regional peace, Inquirer, June 2, 2024; Tessa Wong, Philippine president warns China against ‘acts of war,’ BBC, June 1, 2024.
[19] Luisa Cabato, Marcos ‘horrified’ by idea of ‘agreement’ between China, PH on WPS, Inquirer, April 10, 2024.
[20] Global Times, Current Philippine admin unilaterally abandons ‘gentleman’s agreement’: Chinese embassy, April 18, 2024.
