Philippines ~ Foreign pals help GMA quash homegrown threats
By Johnna Villaviray
Philippine officials yesterday said President Arroyo’s foreign trips give her a chance to “bond with world leaders” and gather support for the country’s war against local terrorists.
“There’s nothing more important than the bonding of world leaders,” stressed Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Lauro Baja, who represents the department in President Arroyo’s nine-day working visit to the United States.
In Washington DC, diplomats said the international campaign against terrorism could also help friendly nations quash domestic threats.
The Associated Press, meanwhile, said US President George W. Bush is likely to say yes to Manila’s appeal for military equipment and other forms of aid.
Mrs. Arroyo left for a weeklong state visit to the US Wednesday, a day after arriving from a two-day sojourn in Vietnam. Prior to that, the President called on Beijing just days after attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Shanghai, China.
Direct line
Baja said good personal relations always help in the conduct of foreign policy.
“(We take advantage of) the bonding between heads of states so that the things we have difficulty working out between ministers or senior officials, the heads can flesh things out on their own,” Baja said during a round table discussion Friday night with publishers accompanying President Arroyo in the trip.
While critics harp on the President’s absence amid a spate of criminality in Manila and continuing clashes between government troops and secessionist rebels in Mindanao, Baja assured that Mrs. Arroyo’s trips abroad were aimed at ensuring greater capacity to address domestic concerns like security, trade and the power sector.
He acknowledged that much of the benefits of the visit, and of enhanced RP-US bilateral relations, would come in the form of intangibles like concessions on trade and semi-political issues—war veterans, toxic waste and the Balanggiga bells—but stressed that benefits should not always be gauged through “budgetary sum.”
“We’re eyeing to improve our capacity to fight terrorism. The concept is not on aid or loans, but more on concessions they can give for our support. We can get friendship prices for the materials we would acquire, or payment on the long term,” he explained.
US aid
Helping friendly nations quash domestic threats like the Abu Sayyaf guerrillas would likely be a low-risk strategy for the United States that doesn’t include bombs or troops—similar to American aid for the war on drugs in Colombia.
Manila’s military chief of staff went to Hawaii recently with a wish list that included helicopters and night-vision gear, and President Arroyo goes to the White House on Tuesday.
Already, some American help had arrived. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been in the Philippines since the Abu Sayyaf kidnapped an American last year and has building a case similar to the one of the 1998 US embassy bombings in East Africa.
Two dozen US military advisers visited Basilan last month to assess how to help the Philippines fight the rebels, which spent ransom money from last year’s kidnappings on weapons and other gear.
Regional terror hub
Washington says the al-Qaida group of Osama bin Laden, the top suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, has been working to create a terrorist hub in Southeast Asia by building ties with Islamic militants in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. The latter two are struggling democracies rife with the poverty that seems to breed Muslim extremism.
With AP
manilatimes.net |
