Introspective | Romeo L. Bernard

We issued the post below to subscribers of GlobalSource Partners last Oct. 21, the day after the President declared “separation” from the United States. GlobalSource Partners (globalsourcepartners.com) is a New York-based network of independent economic and political analysts.

Last month, when President Rodrigo Duterte said he was canceling military exercises and other cooperation with the US, the general reaction even from inside government was, he couldn’t possibly have said that or even if he did, it couldn’t possibly be what it sounded like. But he did say it. And after the dutiful 72-hour news cycle for the President and his men to clarify what was said, it turned out that what he wanted was for the country to craft an independent foreign policy, a sensible posture considering what many political analysts deemed an overly pro-US stance adopted by the previous administration.

It could have ended there but the President kept on his anti-US litany.

While this “discombobulated talk,” as former President Fidel Ramos called it, has become the signature as far as presidential remarks go, he again managed to give everyone a jolt when he announced in a business forum in the middle of his state visit to China “my separation from the United States… both in military and economics,” adding that he is realigning with China and Russia and that “there are three of us against the world.”

Immediately, his economic managers went into damage control mode. His trade secretary told CNN that “The statement the President made maintains the relationship with the West. What we are saying is that there will be less dependence just on one side of the world.”

In a recently issued statement, his economic team sought to situate the President’s remarks in the broader context of expanding links with Asia rather than shutting out traditional partners. It said that: “We will maintain relations with the West, but we desire stronger integration with our neighbors” naming ASEAN, China, Japan and South Korea.

(N.B. The President’s pivot is in line with need to improve our relations with China that we have been advocating over the years. To read “Frozen,” published in April 2014, please visit the link https://goo.gl/16pmqG. To read “On the Philippines Joining the AIIB: What’s there to ‘WAIT AND SEE’? published in June 2014, please visit the link https://goo.gl/dyxGTM)

Given the President’s record in Davao as a pragmatic politician supportive of business, we firmly believe that what he said could not possibly have meant ending economic ties with the US which last year amounted to $25 billion in goods and services trade, with direct investments reportedly reaching $4.7 billion and remittances coming from US banks totaling $8.4 billion. It could hardly have meant a military divorce either, at least not immediately with the two countries having three official defense agreements in place, one of which, the Mutual Defense Treaty, was ratified by the countries’ respective Senates. (Although joint patrols with the US in the West Philippine Sea/South China Sea have been suspended.)

So what was he saying?

Based on his statements days earlier, he could possibly have meant official US aid that would require him to pay heed to the West’s concern for human rights, an issue that he is hyper-sensitive to and takes personally. But odds are, nobody really knows for sure at this time. At the confirmation hearing of the President’s defense secretary, the Senate panel was told that “the President has been issuing statements without consulting his cabinet.”

At the end of the day, it is this presidential style of policy-making, seemingly driven by impulse rather than study and full consultation with his Cabinet and stakeholders that causes much unease in the business community.

At a minimum, it puts his economic managers in perpetual damage control mode and diverts attention away from more productive endeavors.

Despite his economic managers’ repeated guidance for investors to look at the fundamentals rather than “political noise,” the President’s loose speech cannot but give investors pause and his anti-Americanism is fueling leftist militancy and empowerment that, if left unchecked, would have real business consequences (e.g., labor policies, land conversion, mining environmental activism).

For now, we are taking his fiery rhetoric as driven by (apart from personal history) needed rebalancing in foreign relations in light of the frozen state of relations with China under the Aquino administration.

After what looks like a far swing to the left, we expect the pendulum to, down the road, find its center. After all, a leader cannot stray too far away from the mind-set, sentiment, and aspirations of his people.

Postscript: The President has just returned from a state visit to Japan. He brings home an assistance package as impressive in amount as the one from China. The economic managers and the Philippine private sector have their work cut out in translating these into steel and mortar. The reality is that for a long time now, financing has not been the binding constraint to realizing investments in the Philippines, but “absorptive capacity” and “ease of doing business.” Or in the language of the times — execution.

Source: www.bworldonline.com