Herman Tiu Laurel
President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. (PBBM) should not make the mistake of continuing his “Mr. Congeniality” act with regards to his foreign policy approach after his state visit to China which begins this day that this piece is submitted to Pinoy Exposé.
China’s foreign ministry spokesman has described PBBM’s state visit as a chance to pursue the “Golden Age” of Philippine-China relations as Human history takes off away from 500-years of the Age of Western colonialism and imperialism into the new age of “Forever Peace and Prosperity” guided by China’s vision and engineering of the “Community of Shared Future for Mankind.”
Filipinos must take note and help direct the attention of its government towards the historic events breaking through the fog of day-to-day history unfolding and visualize the extreme significance of the 2022 November’s “Asian Moment” when the world, including the major Western countries, converged on Asia to discuss world problems under the guidance of ASEAN and Asia.
In the background of the historic event sis another equally historic international body being formed by South-South (the emerging power economies of the major global regions) cooperation under the name of BRICS plus (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa plus) other countries now joining the global South-South partnership including other giants.
Algeria, Argentina, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia are all eying membership in BRICS plus to not just avail of the tremendous trade and technological boon from the combined markets, productivity and resource base of these countries but also financial clout and, most importantly, the expected new currency system under the BRICS aegis free of the sanctions vice of the U.S. and West axis.
We are seeing history change towards the more humane, just and equitable economic order right before our eyes, but not many notice or feel it because history evolves in decades andnot in the short period of human attention span crowded by day-to-day controversies, frustration and fears brought by the daily news cycle.
History, however, reveals itself with utmost clarity when the myriad initiatives of nations gel and form a milestone as we see in the recent developments when the East and the Global South shows itself unwilling to dance to the arbitrary music of the West such as the their refusal to condemn Russia for a self-defense against a US-NATO proxy war in Ukraine to eventually subjugate Russia.
Instead, the BRICS nations and the rest of the non-aligned countries chose to separate itself from the Western spin of the Ukraine War and focus attention on preparing the alternative New World Order based, not on the disingenuous US “rules-based order” but on “UN international rules based order” and the new BRICS and other multilateral networking organizations.
PBBM will effectively be in China during the state visit for only a day as the first and last, third day will be for traveling to and from the Philippines. It is a short visit and mainly ceremonial, for the signing of 14 or 15 agreements and MOUs, but the importance lies in the personal meetings between PBBM and President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang and NPC Chairman Li Zhanshu.
It is the meeting with President Xi that will be all-important for that is where neophyte Philippine president Marcos can imbibe as sense of the “strategic” in the exchange with President Xi and graduate from what he, President Marcos, apparently is practicing as a player on the world stage now – as penny-ante player over SCS claims with the “arbitration award” chip that never had any value.
The real value in the relations with China is the “strategic future” of the Philippines with the rising global power and the vision of the, ”Community of Shared Future for Mankind” with its “Win-Win” international relations, its global economic re-engineering project the “Belt and Road Initiative” lifting all Third World nations out of poverty thence obviating diasporas of poor to rich countries.
PBBM must drop this dalliances with the warmongering U.S. that offers no prosperity nor peace for the future and only certainty of tension, conflict and eventual war of such destructive force and impact that the country may no longer exist as we know it after the U.S. uses it, like Ukraine, as the proxy for its next war-profiteering project.
PBBM must drop the farce of his “balancing foreign relations” which harbors a killer behind its back, expand the US. military baes by 5 more, conducts more US-PHL military drills and ever closer to the flashpoint with China – Taiwan and the Spratlys – preparing to stage a false flag to trigger war and cause death to the last Filipino to preserve U.S. hegemony and lives.
I hope the PBBM brings home not just the bacon but also the breeding of the Asian strategic sense, an understanding of the civilizational significance of the Philippine’s geostrategic role, and help shape the present century towards that permanent “Peace n Earth and Goodwill to all Men.” ###