THIS WEEK, United States Secretary of state Mike Pompeo is making a short (in Thursday, out Friday) visit to the Philippines. He will meet President Duterte and Foreign Affairs Secretary Teddy Locsin Jr.
At the time of writing, there has been no set agenda for the meeting. US Ambassador to the Philippines, Sung Kim, will have sent regular reports to the US State Department.
Before Pompeo’s visit he will produce up-to-date briefing notes of current issues.
The good news is that there are no supplicants. Discussions can take place on a level playing-field basis.
Constitutionally , Art II Sec 7 of the Philippines says that we are to pursue an independent foreign policy. Operationally, this means that there are ebbs and flows in our relationship with other countries. Since Rodrigo Duterte was elected in 2016, this could be interpreted that we have become somewhat closer to China and possibly less close to the US. But the Philippines is the enemy of neither.
We do, however, have a common enemy in the terrorist organization, ISIS.
As US President Trump is finding in I Syria, the complete eradication of ISIS is more difficult than he supposed. The Philippines, however, triumphed over the Maute-ISIS group, though at the expense of Marawi whose rehabilitation, though slow, is progressing.
There is hope for the newly created Bangsamoro region. This is supported by aid from the Japanese Government. Within the Philippines, Presidential adviser for entrepreneurship, Joey Concepcion, is working with MILF leader Abdullah Macapaar, to develop model farms, agri-tech training and Enterprise development in Bangsamoro.
We face a challenging issue in poverty reduction. Progress is slow. The poverty rate is still above 20 percent, much higher than envisaged in the Philippine signed up to the United Nations Millennium Development Goal in 2000. This set a realistic goal of the poverty rate being reduced to 16.5% by 2015. We have four million more people suffering from poverty than our target.
There are probably now more refugees than ever before. President Duterte has offered help as part of international cooperation.
The foregoing represents a few discussion points for the meeting with Secretary Pompeo.
Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the Philippines last November and offered trade and investment incentives. President Duterte may attend China’s upcoming ‘Belt and Road, Forum for International Cooperation’ to be held in Beijing in April.
I believe that 2019 will see a possibly closer relationship between Philippines and the US, together with continued cooperation with China./PN
