‘…they only serve to make it clear that big power politics has changed dramatically in the world: where, for the longest time, Philippine foreign policy was seen as simply an extension of US policy, it no longer is.’
IS IT true that our Secretary of Foreign Affairs should have been Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose Manuel “Babe” Romualdez, but a great power said “no?”
That’s what I’ve been hearing ever since BBM became PBBM and the names of Cabinet members started coming out in suspenseful trickles.
Betting actually was on Ambassador Romualdez becoming Foreign Affairs secretary, with President Duterte’s Defense Secretary, Delfin Lorenzana, taking the post in Washington, DC. Fairly or unfairly, these two gentlemen had been seen as the staunchest US allies in the Duterte administration, with former Foreign Affairs secretary Teddy Boy Locsin considered the third man in the triumvirate.
But Ambassador Romualdez didn’t get the DFA, and in fact is staying in Washington, DC. Lorenzana, on the other hand, is taking over the Bases Conversion and Development Austerity. The opening in the DFA top post instead became an opportunity to elevate a career diplomat, and this is why we now have exactly one such in the person of Enrique Manalo as secretary. Secretary Manalo has four decades of service under his belt, with his last posting being our ambassador (or Permanent Representative) to the United Nations in New York. His appointment has been widely hailed and is definitely a boost for career diplomats at every level of our foreign service.
Why then did Ambassador Romualdez not get what had widely been accepted to be a post reserved for him?
Naughty wags tell me a big power expressed its strong preference that someone too identified with US interests should not become the country’s top diplomat again. I say again, because during the term of President Benigno Aquino III, we had in Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario another gentleman considered strongly pro-American in leanings. And we know how troubled our relations with a foreign power became under his watch. It seems that the same foreign power didn’t want to have a repeat of that experience, and, the story goes, made it crystal clear that the Philippines may be better off if Ambassador Romualdez may simply stay where he was.
If these conjectures are true, they only serve to make it clear that big power politics has changed dramatically in the world: where, for the longest time, Philippine foreign policy was seen as simply an extension of US policy, it no longer is. And where the US had almost total influence in the region, it no longer does. There’s a new kid on the block, one who has been raring to carve out his own place under the sun. When this happens – as it is happening – realpolitik demands that countries like the Philippines (whoever its leader is) sit up and take notice – especially when the big power flexes its influence to exercise a veto.
