Undiplomatic

Take it as a slap on all our faces.

When several foreign governments simultaneously issued travel advisories to their citizens, warning of possible terrorist attacks in the Philippines, the mature response should have been to evaluate the domestic security situation and work frantically to neutralize whatever threats there might be. The only statement that ought to have emanated from the Palace is this: rest assured our security agencies are working hard on the matter.

Responsible governments do not issue travel advisories on a whim. Those advisories are issued to protect their citizens from possible harm. Too, such advisories are entirely the prerogative of the foreign governments that issued them. We can only assume regularity and due diligence in their issuance.

On a matter as sensitive as possible terrorist threats, the worst that any government could do is to discuss intelligence information publicly. Our response to the travel advisories should have been to quietly coordinate information with our counterparts abroad at an agency-to-agency level.

In this case, President Aquino and the tweeting gang that surrounds him did everything wrong.

Instead of quietly working on evaluating the information that formed the basis of the travel advisories, the Palace went on a warpath against the advisories themselves. The President publicly whined about the advisories like he was taking personal offense at their being issued in the first place.

It turns out, the advisories have always been there. The standing travel advisories are revised regularly based on the most recent information available.

To make matters worse, President Aquino ordered the DFA to send out notes verbales to all the foreign governments that issued adverse travel advisories demanding the information on which the those advisories were issued. That borders on scandalous behavior. They offend and demean the foreign governments. It signals that we impute malice to the issuance of those advisories.

Use of the note verbale was entirely unnecessary. As a matter of course, modern governments exchange information on areas of urgent mutual concern, terrorism being at the top of that list.

If the imputation of malice was not evident enough, President Aquino himself went out of his way to needlessly (and baselessly) link the adverse advisories to the renegotiation of the VFA — suggesting the issuance of the advisories was an underhanded tactic to pressure us. That is not just undiplomatic and impolitic; this is downright irresponsible.

It is shocking behavior. No modern and responsible government — let alone the head of state himself — would make such a careless and damaging remark. This sort of irresponsible remark one could only associate with an Ahmadinejad or a Hugo Chavez. It assigns ill will not just to a foreign government that also happens to be our closest ally.

The American response was curt and polite: both our governments mutually agreed to review the agreement in question. So there.

Aquino, however, just keeps going on and on. He threatens to take the matter of the advisories to the APEC summit meeting. Good grief.

Sufficiently fed up with Malacanang’s antics, the foreign governments issuing the advisories replied with a simple statement of fact: the information was conveyed to the Philippine government on November 1, a full day before the advisories emanated.

Specifically, the information underpinning those advisories was shared with the DND, the PNP and the NICA. The implication: Aquino’s ranting about the lack of prior notice and the absence of information about the threat are simply unfounded.

In all likelihood, our own security agencies generated the data that precipitated the advisories. Foreign governments simply acted more promptly on the data. If the info did not float to the top, there is something wrong with our own interagency coordination. If the foreign governments got to the info ahead of our own security personnel, that is unforgivable.

Only two things will explain why the President appears so in the dark about this: either there is complete breakdown in the way his staff functions or he is not at his desk long enough to consider vital matters of state.

There is, at the Palace, if the President had not noticed, a mechanism for consolidating security-related information. It is called the National Anti-terrorism Council and it is headed by the Executive Secretary.

Then there is the much-ballyhooed — and expensively refurbished — Presidential Situation Room. That should be working around-the-clock, making sure everything is under control and the Chief Executive is always fully briefed.

It appears we stumbled onto this diplomatic fiasco and grave national embarrassment by the fact that the Palace is driven principally by an obsession with spin than by a functioning policy-oriented apparatus. The (Mis)Communication Group is overpopulated even as no one seems to be giving the President proper foreign policy advice.

Evidencing the spin-driven response of the Palace: While the President raved and ranted about the advisories, Deputy Spokesperson Abigail Valte claimed tourist arrivals did not seem to be affected by the adverse advisories.

Which is not the point. The more urgent concern here is not tourist arrivals. It is public safety.

We are, of course, in danger of further compounding this embarrassing diplomatic fiasco. Aquino, the other day, again ordered the DFA to conduct an inquiry into Seoul’s deportation of known Filipino militants — forgetting that deportation is an act of state that is not subject to review or negotiation.

Let’s not set ourselves up for more undiplomatic behavior.