To-do list of SONA

SHANGHAI – It has been 25 days since former Davao City mayor Rodrigo Duterte assumed office as the country’s 16th President. Today, he will deliver his maiden speech at the joint opening session of the 17th Congress at the Batasan Pambansa in Quezon City.

The freshly installed President will give Filipinos the unvarnished truth of the situation in our country: thus, it is aptly called the state of the nation address (SONA). 

The SONA is the traditional highlight of the annual joint opening sessions of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Palace drumbeaters earlier announced President Rody intends to present a no-frills, direct-to-the-point and most brief SONA ever delivered. Reportedly, the draft SONA will only take about 30 minutes long, i.e. without interruptions of applause.

President Rody has apparently mastered the art of speaking with the aid of teleprompters. The Chief Executive, however, is expected to digress a bit. For someone given to extemporaneous and long speeches, it would take a lot of effort for President Rody to closely hew to his draft SONA. 

But so far, President Rody has reined in his favorite expletives that punctuated his public remarks before the presidency.

For sure, President Rody would not miss a beat to spice up his speech with his usual down-to-earth remarks or comments that always get his audience fixed on what he would say next. In the most recent speech he delivered at a formal event, President Duterte named five police generals as among the “protectors,” if not coddlers of illegal drug syndicates.

Unfortunately, I would not be able to hear and witness the first ever SONA of President Rody. We flew here over the weekend to China as part of the delegation to witness the signing of sister-province agreement between Palawan and Ningxia. This is a people-to-people, cultural and trade pact being forged by the respective local governments.

It, however, comes two weeks after The Hague ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) ruled in favor of the Philippines that set aside Beijing’s nine-dash-line claim over the entire South China Sea.  

The Palawan-Ningxia “sister” agreement, however, had been long in the works before the PCA ruling and had nothing to do with it. This was categorically clarified by both Palawan Gov. Jose Alvarez and Carlos Chan who was the special envoy to China of former president Benigno “Noy” Aquino III.

The sister province agreement with Ningxia is especially relevant to Palawan, the Philippine province closest to the disputed overlapping maritime territorial claims in South China Sea. The Kalayaan Island Group, or Pag-asa is one of 13 island municipalities of Palawan. The Philippines owns this biggest land area around the disputed islets at the Spratlys claimed not only by China but also by Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

Former ambassador and ex-secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Delia Albert –who is also part of the official Philippine delegation here – underscored the importance of the continued enhancement of people-to-people relations to lessen tension from such irritants between Manila and Beijing. A seasoned diplomat, Albert noted with optimism that the new President of the Philippines has taken the most prudent actions since the PCA issued its verdict.

Two days after the PCA ruling, President Rody announced again in extemporaneous fashion his request to former President Fidel V. Ramos (FVR) to become his “special envoy” to hold talks with leaders in Beijing to settle these matters bilaterally. FVR comes from a family of diplomats. His father was former DFA secretary and later ambassador Narciso Ramos, while elder sister Leticia Ramos-Shahani once served as DFA undersecretary before being elected senator. 

FVR though was still non-committal whether or not he will accept President Rody’s informal request to be special envoy for South China Sea issues. During our Kapihan sa Manila Bay breakfast forum last week, FVR cited his state of health as primary reason.

Apparently reacting to concerns raised by FVR, President Rody disclosed last Thursday on a visit in Maguindanao about his possible tapping the services of former interior secretary Rafael Alunan in case the former president would decline. I am not one to diminish the qualifications and patriotism of Alunan but he would not be a good choice for this mission.

For one, Alunan has been rabidly anti-China. He has, in fact, led protest actions against China’s continuing reclamations in the contested West Philippine Sea. He espoused his anti-China stand when he ran but lost as one of the senatorial candidates endorsed by Duterte in the last May 9 elections. So how do we expect Beijing to respond well to our request for talks on the PCA ruling?

Or is this yet another of the unorthodox methods of President Rody in getting things done the way he wants it done?

Lately, there are reportedly signs that augur FVR’s leading the bilateral dialogue. Amid initial outrage over PCA ruling, some China experts noted a new language coming from Beijing that indicate more flexibility: latest official statement makes apparent reference to provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).  

“China is ready to discuss with countries concerned about provisional arrangements pending final settlement of the dispute,” State Councillor Yang Jiechi was quoted saying last week. Yang is regarded as China’s top diplomat. He, however, did not go into specifics of such “provisional arrangements” except to say it would include joint development for “mutual benefits.”

Under UNCLOS, such “provisional arrangements” set aside issues of sovereignty and promote joint development of resources but it would neither bolster nor undermine claims of each country claimants of atolls, shoals, reefs, rocks and islands in South China Sea. Both the Philippines and China are among 190 country-signatories to the UNCLOS.

Perhaps, as a gesture of goodwill to bring Beijing to the table, President Duterte should carefully choose a senior diplomat as our country’s next ambassador to China. The post remains vacant following the retirement of former ambassador Erlinda Basilio.

In his SONA today, President Rody is thus expected to spell out other than the to-do list, the broad strokes of his administration’s next course of action to make the PCA ruling work for our country’s better future.