Official photo and caption:

STANDING OVATION FOR PGMA — President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo receives a standing ovation at the reception of the Philippine-US Friendship Caucus at the Veterans Committee Hearing Room, Cannon House Office Building at the US Capitol Complex on Independence Avenue, Washington D.C. this morning (Wednesday, Washington time). Directly behind the President is Rep. John Filner while at right is Rep. Darrel Issa, two of the leading supporters of the Filipino veterans bill in the US House of Representatives. Aside from Filner and Issa, eight other US congressmen attended the reception. Also shown are some of the Filipino officials and World War II veterans. (Rodolfo Manabat-OPS/NIB Photo)

That’s 10 U.S. Congressmen versus 52 Filipino Congressmen who accompanied the President on her trip (give or take a couple of last-minute cancellations). A 5:1 ratio.

There’s something about the slap-dash nature of the Palace propaganda corps that bugs me. Take the caption for this official photo:

Official caption: US-RP AGRI ACCORD–Washington DC.–President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo watches approvingly as Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap shakes hands with US Agriculture Secretary Edward Schaefer after the two signed a Framework of Agreement and Cooperation on Agricultural-Related Fields between RP Department of Agriculture and the US Department of Agriculture this afternoon (Washington time) at the Federal Suite of the “Willard Hotel in Washington DC. Also in photo is Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo (2nd from left).

Well what’s wrong with it? First of all, it’s Schefer, not Schaefer; and while I think the simpler explanation for the gobbledygook in the caption above -what is a “Framework of Agreement and Cooperation on Agricultural-Related Fields”- is that the caption writer was clueless when it came to what was being signed or its relative importance, there’s also the possibility the whole photo-op will be less milk-able if the public actually knew what the two cabinet members had just signed.

The Americans are less opaque about these things though, than we are. So, see the US Department of Agriculture’s own press release:

Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer today signed a memorandum of agreement with Philippine Agriculture Secretary Arthur C. Yap to promote agricultural trade and investment between the two countries. The objective is to advance agricultural cooperation, productivity and sustainable natural resource management through science and technology collaboration. In addition to the memorandum, USDA will sponsor a trade and investment mission to the Philippines sometime in the fall…

…The Philippines is a key market in Southeast Asia for U.S. agricultural exports, with sales reaching over $950 million in fiscal year 2007, the highest level ever. The United States remains the top food and beverage supplier to the Philippines. At the same time, the United States is the number one market for Filipino agricultural products, with sales for more than $621 million in fiscal year 2007, including coconut oil, tropical fruits and vegetables and sugar.

The Philippines is the first Asian country to approve the planting of a biotechnology food crop—corn—and remains a consistent supporter of rational, science-based regulations in many international bodies. The Philippines remain on schedule to commercialize genetically engineered, insect-resistant eggplant in 2009 and virus-resistant papaya and nutritionally-enhanced rice soon thereafter.

So they committed to maintaining a healthy market for American exports, and putting together a junket for American agriculturists close to the election, and most of all, to pursuing the export and use of genetically-modified corn, eggplants, papaya and then rice. I’m sure the environmentalists will find this agreement something to chew on.

In the Philippines, what do the Right and the Left have in common? They both think the United States, effectively, still runs the country.

I once shared a panel with the eminent Luis Teodoro, the professor of journalism and tireless columnist whose leftist creds are the stuff of legend. We were taking part in a forum in the University of the Philippines, and for his closing remarks the man many journalists simply call Dean (a post he once held) chose to remind the audience (college journalism students, most of them) about what for him must have been a central fact of life: “Nothing happens in the Philippines without the Americans.”

I smiled when he said that, and took careful mental note of exactly what he said. (To be sure, he may have said “in our country” instead of “in the Philippines,” but the start and the end of his sentence I vividly remember.) It was decidedly non-academic of him to phrase his conclusion in absolute terms. Nothing? Absolutely nothing? In my turn, I said something about living in the world as it is, not as we think it is, but I did not really engage his point (or, for that matter, his audience).

I do not doubt that the United States still exercises inordinate influence in the Philippines, but does it in fact still run the country? Perhaps Dean would have done better to nuance his position, say by limiting his observation to pivotal events in recent Philippine history (then perhaps it would be possible to make a case), but where’s the fun in that?

[Read the rest of this entry »]

TODAY’S Inquirer editorial tackles the same issue that has consumed the attention of this new blog in its first days: the Boxer hearing in the US Senate. The crux of the newspaper’s position:

Does the Boxer inquiry constitute interference in Philippine political affairs? We say No, for two specific reasons. We say this despite the well-known fact that the US government still exercises inordinate influence in the Philippines.

FIFTEEN years after the US military bases in the Philippines closed shop, the political reality Manolo described yesterday remains disconcertingly accurate:

The test of the mettle of a Filipino leader has always been how he negotiates with Uncle Sam, and the proof of the ability of a Filipino administration is whether it gets a friendly hearing or not from Washington.

By and large, this is still true today despite the growth in closer Asean relations, despite President Macapagal-Arroyo’s symbolic first visit to Malaysia upon assuming the presidency, despite the many overtures to China. I do not think, though, that any Philippine politician working today (or, ah, not working) actually conceives of Philippine-American relations as a special relationship. What we have, or so it seems to me, is the detritus of a colonial relationship or, to change metaphors, the amputee’s sense that the leg long since sawn off is still there, below the knee.

(Besides, the term “special relationship” has no meaning to American politicians except perhaps as an infrequently used reminder of the state of US-UK relations.)

[Read the rest of this entry »]