It’s not all gov’t, but also people

NEW YORK – Luckily, as we always say, relations among nations operate on various levels. When government-to-government liaison proves inadequate, somehow people-to-people interactions come to save the day.

When the communists overran China in 1949, Filipinos welcomed some 30,000 Kuomintang members fleeing the mainland. Much earlier, others escaping the atrocities of the Japanese invaders in 1940 also fled to Manila, where they found a new home and prosperity.

Some of the 6,000 White Russians in Shanghai who escaped in 1949 as the Red Army prepared to lay siege were welcomed in Guiuan, Eastern Samar. After 27 months, many of them relocated to the US, Canada, and Australia.

After the Viet Cong captured Saigon in 1975 and until 1995, the Philippines – with United Nations help – gave halfway haven to some 400,000 Indochinese “boat people” (Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians) in Bataan and Palawan before they were relocated to other countries.

During the Ramos administration in 1996, at the end of the UN refugee programs, some 3,000 Vietnamese were allowed “indefinite stay” in settlements in Palawan and elsewhere, supported by the CBCP’s Center for Assistance to Displaced Persons.

In World War II, while Adolf Hitler was slaughtering millions of Jews in Germany and Austria, thousands escaped. Some 30,000 Jewish families who were turned away by several countries finally found refuge in the Philippines by order of then President Manuel L. Quezon.

During the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939, droves of Spanish Republicans fleeing the fascist Falange Española of General Francisco Franco chose to settle in the Philippines, the former colony that Spaniards hold dear.

(Above data on humanitarian help and resettlement were culled from the Manila Bulletin column last Saturday of former President Fidel “Eddie” Ramos.)

• Find out first what Filipinos think

PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte leaves next week for Beijing – in the name of 101 million Filipinos – for talks that will redefine the triangular relationship of the United States, China and the Philippines.

For a better understanding of the people dynamics involved, an honest survey should be conducted on how Filipinos view extra-lateral relations with China, and the Philippines’ possibly distancing itself from an old friend and ally, the US.

Discussions in Manila seem to assume the possibility that Duterte’s cozying up to China (and also Russia) could lead to a parting with America. There should be an attempt, we think, to look for a middle ground where all three parties could co-exist.

Indeed, why make enemies when one can make friends? The default attitude and policy should be for making friends and keeping them.

• Apo Eddie, what happened to Du30?

AFTER delivering his inaugural speech last June 30 in Malacañang, the brand-new President Duterte walked straight to former President Ramos seated on the first chair in the first row.

“President Fidel Ramos, sir,” Duterte said as he shook hands with the bemedalled general. “Salamat po sa tulong mo making me President.” (Thank you for helping make me President.)

The 88-year-old veteran was among those who went to Davao City before the May elections to convince the then undecided mayor to run for president. Last July, as Duterte’s special envoy, Ramos broke the ice for normalization talks with Beijing.

Now, 100 days later, Ramos reported in his Bulletin column that the country under Duterte has been “losing badly.”

He said: “In the overall assessment by this writer,” he said, “we find our Team Philippines losing in the first 100 days of Du30’s administration – and losing badly. This is a huge disappointment and let-down to many of us.”

Like some of his American friends, Ramos criticized Duterte’s bloody anti-narcotics campaign and his cursing foreign groups (e.g. the United Nations and the European Union) that had raised questions on alleged police violation of human rights.

Ramos deplored Duterte’s getting “stuck in unending controversies about extrajudicial killings of drug suspects” and his “using cuss-words and insults instead of civilized language” that distracted him from such goals as “poverty alleviation and enhancement of national security.”

He called out Duterte for his disparaging remarks on the US and US President Barack Obama whom Duterte told to “go to hell.” He had described US aid as “crumbs,” adding that the Philippines would survive even without foreign assistance.

• Throw away US ties just like that?

RAMOS (West Point ‘50) said: “Equally discombobulating are the mix of ‘off-and-on’ statements by P. Digong on Philippines-US relations, particularly on security and economic matters. (Duterte had called for an end to Phl-US joint military exercises and a review of defense agreements.)

“So, what gives? Are we throwing away decades of military partnership, tactical proficiency, compatible weaponry, predictable logistics, and soldier-to-soldier camaraderie just like that? On P. Du30’s say-so?

“In the case of his recent ‘Hitler quip’ no amount of apology could mollify the long-suffering Jews who have done well for the Philippines.”

Noting, however, that his assessment covered only the first 100 days of a six-year term, he said Duterte still had “enough time to correct the most serious flaws in his leadership.”

Ramos said: “Ours is not to heap more brickbats on P. Du30 – because he has had more than enough already – but to help enable him to transform (through his own efforts) from a mere provincial official to a capable international player at the head of 101,000,000 multi-cultured Filipinos.”

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