RP should be helped, not punished

Mely Caballero-Anthony The Straits Times Asia News Network Singapore

It has been two weeks since Filipino truck driver Angelo de la Cruz was released by militants in Iraq after the Philippine government bowed to the captors' demands to withdraw its troops from Iraq.

President Gloria Arroyo's decision to recall the troops less than a month earlier than scheduled has been widely criticized, particularly in the United States and Australia, on two counts.

One, the withdrawal meant that the Philippines reneged on its commitment to the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq and, in effect, to the war on terrorism.

Part of the possible fall-out of the Philippines' action is a re-assessment of U.S.-Philippines relations, which had recently been revitalized after a decade-long hiatus following the closure of U.S. military bases in the country in 1991. U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Francis Ricciardoni has returned to Washington for urgent consultations with the "people in Washington (who) will be the ones making decisions, reassessing bilateral relations".

Given this turn of events, a number of concerns arise: Will Washington now reconsider its financial aid for the country's development and cut military support for Manila's battle against domestic insurgencies and terrorism?

The dictum that "all politics is local" bears reiteration here.

For the millions of Filipinos who find themselves trapped in poverty-stricken conditions, it is the responsibility of their elected government to address not only the challenges of economic development, but also to ensure that their security is not compromised in the name of an "abstract" principle of not caving in to terrorists.

The plight of de la Cruz touched every Filipino with a family member forced to work overseas because of unemployment at home. According to official figures, there are some eight million (registered) Filipino contract workers abroad, who remit close to US$9 billion (S$15.6 billion) back home.

The heightened emotions fanned by de la Cruz's possible decapitation could have triggered a cataclysmic backlash by this massive force and brought down Arroyo's administration. If this had happened, it would only have provided fodder to the communists and Muslim insurgents who want to destabilize the government.

The hostage crisis has shown that the Philippines cannot be an effective ally if the government in power is weak, and cannot muster enough domestic support to remain committed to the U.S.- led coalition. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's recent statement that "weakness is provocative" should indeed be heeded -- but for reasons other than the ones he had in mind.

Indeed, it is precisely because a state is weak that it needs to be helped.

Still, the onus is clearly on the Arroyo government to convince Washington that the country remains committed to the global fight against terrorism. This would mean that beyond trying to justify its actions in Iraq, the government should now seriously confront the problem on two fronts.

Firstly, it has to show visible progress in its own local war against terrorism. Arguably, Arroyo could insist that the fight against terrorism begins at home. But the Philippine military, being the major recipient of U.S. military aid and counter- terrorism training assistance, must be able to show its capability to fight terrorism and insurgency.

Meanwhile, having offered crucial assistance to the Philippines, the U.S. cannot now afford to leave the Philippines alone in this battle.

Secondly, the much bigger challenge for the Arroyo government is to address some of the root causes of its people's insecurities -- poverty, corruption and other related issues that insurgents and terrorists can use to challenge and destabilize any regime.

The writer is an assistant professor at the Institute of Defense and Strategic Affairs.