Philippines and Russia

Today, the former USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) is known as the Russian Federation. As early as 1986, Russia had been making peace overtures to all the members of the UNESCO Executive Board where I represented the Philippines.

Since 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev had introduced the policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) in an attempt to modernize the country. Prior to its dissolution, the USSR economy was the second largest in the world. During its last years, the economy was afflicted by shortages of goods in grocery stores, huge budget deficits and explosive growth in money supply leading to inflation. In August 1991, an unsuccessful military coup against Gorbachev aimed at preserving the Soviet Union instead led to its collapse. In Russia, Boris Yeltsin came to power and declared the end of socialist rule. The USSR splintered into 15 independent republics and was officially dissolved in December 1991. Boris Yeltsin was elected President of Russia in June 1991, in the first direct presidential election in Russian history.

The Russian Federation

On December 31, 1999 Boris Yeltsin resigned from presidency, handing the post to the recently appointed prime minister, Vladimir Putin, who then won the 2000 election. On March 7, 2008, Dmitry Medvedev was elected President of Russia.

The Russian Federation comprises 83 federal subjects: 46 oblasts (provinces) is the most common type with a federally appointed governor and locally elected legislature; 21 republics is nominally autonomous, each with its own constitution, president, and parliament, as well as their own official language alongside Russian; nine krais (territories) is essentially the same as oblasts; four autonomous okrugs (districts) are originally autonomous entities within oblasts and krais created for ethnic minorities; one autonomous oblast (the Jewish Autonomous Oblast) subordinated to krais; and two federal cities (Moscow and St. Petersburg). 

These federal subjects are grouped into seven federal districts, each administered by an envoy appointed by the President of Russia.

Russia revisited

Below is an article written by José Abeto Zaide, former Chargé d’Affaires in Moscow and former Ambassador to France and the UNESCO Permanent Delegate:

President Arroyo’s trip to Russia is neither a state visit nor an official visit. She was invited as personal guest of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to the 13th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, a regional Davos. (Comparisons are odious, and with their resources at disposal, the organizers and sponsors like the behemoth Gazporom might not take kindly to their forum referred to in a diminutive eponym). 

Political stars with President Arroyo at the June 4-6 forum included former Japanese Prime Minister Koichiro Koizumi, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and the 1999 Nobel prize laureate in economics Columbia professor Robert A. Mundell, among others. As in Davos, the value is not only the plenary but the side meetings with world’s heavyweight CEOs and captains of industry. 

President Arroyo shared the stage with Russian President Medvedev in the morning of June 5, followed by bilateral talks in the afternoon. Earlier, she attended the summit at the ASEAN-Korea Dialogue. Topic was the world financial crisis; and she expounded on ASEAN’s Chiang Mai Initiative of Bilateral Swap Arrangements (BSAs) framework to bridge short-term currency liquidity problems. Hopefully, this interested a still cash-rich Russia.

22 bilateral cooperation agreements with Russia

There are some 2,000 OFWs manning the oil rigs in Sakhalin. The Philippines has inked 22 bilateral cooperation agreements with Russia — the latest are the agreements between the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation in January 2008, and between the Philippine and Russian Senates which was signed by former Senate President Manuel Villar. During her visit, President Arroyo witnessed the signing of a tourism cooperation agreement between the two countries and a cooperation and friendship agreement between the Province of Cebu and the St. Petersburg Region. Russian tourists to the Philippines have doubled from 5,600 in 2007 to 10,519 in 2008. 

Ambassador Vorobiev hopes that the meeting of the two Presidents has “given a new impulse to bilateral relations.” He opined the need for “country-to-country relationship to replace dependence on personalities… more so with the Philippines facing elections. He continued that “with today’s technology, distance is not a problem…and Manila is only four hours away from Vladivostok.” He concluded that there are “more things in common like our Christian heritage (Orthodox and Catholic)” adding that “our bilateral relations today are without political baggage… [so that we find] commonality in language and positions at international fora.”            

Ambassador Vorobiev said the Philippines should prioritize tourism development, “and not compare it with what is locally available, but on how [our] neighbors are upgrading theirs.” Transportation, (“Russia has land and sea airplanes for civilian, coast guard, fire-fighting”), and even defense cooperation have promise. But the larger opportunity could be in energy… “not just in buy-and-sell, but cooperation in technology and development of energy.” 

Russian Ambassador Vorobiev hopes to open ‘Russia World’ in the Philippines

There are about 200 Filipino Russian language speakers in the Philippines; and Ambassador Vorobiev hopes to open “Russia World” next year to promote Russian language and culture in the country. 

The agenda of Ambassador Vorobiev is to build a “mansion of relations” on symbiotic energy and in trade, education, sports, (gymnastics, ice skating, to name a few). Asked where he would find ice skaters, he pointed to SM MegaMall. It was agreed that given the right coaches, the Philippines could have an Asiad medal in gymnastics in four years, and perhaps an Olympic medal in eight.

How the Philippines has related to Russia

When the Soviet Union was disintegrating into Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and independent states in 1992, Ambassador Zaide and Ambassador Rosario G. Manalo participated at the European Union conference in Lisbon to introduce Russia and the emerging CIS countries to the market economy. To them then, it was inconceivable that Russia with its superior academic infrastructure and wealth under the ground could fall behind: in a manner of speaking, Russia then was playing football when the game (market economy) was basketball. 

Their delegation offered scholarships at Philippine institutions like the Asian Institute of Management (AIM), other business graduate schools and schools teaching corporate law. In the mid ’90s, a triangular cooperation was arranged under the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP): Japanese funds + Board of Investments experts = teaching the CIS member state the A, B, C’s of the market economy. 

Counter-trade, long the favored practice of planned economies, was a poor compromise: Country A would push its products which didn’t sell in the international market in exchange for Country B’s products that didn’t sell elsewhere, either. The only celebrated counter-trade was Pepsi-Cola and Stolichnaya, both winners. In time, the nomenklatura and the new commerzant learned the rules and started buying up the place… villas, football team et al.

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