Below the radar friendship with China

Despite the much-publicized slowly simmering feud between the Philippines and China over the territorial dispute in the South China Sea (West Philippine Sea), I still believe there remains a glimpse of the deep friendship that still exists between our two countries, governments, and people. This is something that I hope will remain intact despite The Hague ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in favor of the Philippines that set aside Beijing’s nine-dash line claim over the entire South China Sea.

I know that feelings are running high after the ruling and we’ve all seen the explosion of opinion on social media, but in the end, intellect must always prevail and we need to still be able to work out our differences diplomatically. This is something I have always promoted and something I still strongly believe in. After all, as I mentioned above, we have had such a long running relationship with China, it is not something that can be lost overnight or over one conflict of interest.

In fact, we got to see just how wonderful mutual cooperation is when we were invited to fly to China as part of a delegation to witness the signing of sister-province agreement between Palawan and Ningxia. The agreement is a people-to-people trade and cultural pact inked by the respective local governments of the two provinces and just shows that good relations still remain and should remain between our countries.

The partnership has been in the works long before the PCA ruling and had nothing to do with the ruling handed down in favor of our country. This was something that was strongly reiterated to our delegation both by Palawan Governor Jose Alvarez and by our gracious host Carlos Chan, the special envoy to China of former president Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino.

The program we attended last week was to witness the formal signing rites of the agreement between Palawan and the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Governor Alvarez and Carlos Chan headed the signing and former Department of Foreign Affairs Secretary Delia Albert was invited to witness the event. It was Albert who strongly promoted the partnerships with China during her time in office. She shared that the idea of people-to-people partnerships was born two years ago in a bid to help bolster and promote local tourism for the provinces.

Also present at the signing of the agreement was Mayor Abraham Ibba of Bataraza who is one of the mayors of the 13 island municipalities of Palawan. He shared that roughly 20 percent of his constituents were Muslim like him. Likewise, Ningxia is one of five autonomous regions of China and home to roughly six million Chinese Muslims. Hopefully this agreement will see growth in tourism and friendly relations between the two provinces for many years to come.

This is not the first agreement between provinces that was promoted by former special envoy Carlos Chan, chairman emeritus of Liwayway Co. Ltd. He also forged partnerships between Bohol and Jiangxi as well as with several cities in China with cities in Tarlac and Cavite. His steadfast commitment to creating stronger partnerships and friendships between China and the Philippines has been very evident in the wonderful work he has done bridging leaders these past 10 years.

Personally, I feel that this particular partnership could not be timelier. While everyone is worrying about rising tensions, we must also find a way to look past the conflict and see how we can sort out our differences peacefully. I have always advocated bilateral talks with China and I think they have begun to show a bit of flexibility in this arena as well. Neither one of us benefits from having our relationship crumble. We are neighbors after all and have been partners for many years. We can’t let this tension destroy everything that we have built together.

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I believe that President Duterte has done everything he can to initiate peace talks, but the Communist Party of the Philippines is not willing to reciprocate his efforts. Much to his dismay, he had no other choice but to withdraw the ceasefire after the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Font (CPP-NPA-NDF) failed to reciprocate despite being given a one-hour extension on the president’s original deadline.

As much as President Duterte would like to negotiate with the communists, he can’t do so if they don’t want to adhere to the ceasefire. On their part, the groups claim that they can’t put their weapons down for their own safety and that it was the government who initially broke the ceasefire. In the end it becomes a game of we said/they said and it’s difficult to truly pinpoint who is telling the truth.

The president has been very vocal about his desire for peace with the CPP-NPA-NDF, but he cannot uphold this desire when the choice is being made for him. As much as he would like to achieve amity, it can’t happen if the street is a one-way street. Should the CPP-NPA-NDF continue to want conflict than I think we need to back the president and the military in giving them what they want.