Let's take a second look.pdf

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extracted text: LET'S TAKE A SECOND LOOK Felino- Neri Old habits, they say, die hard. Unlike old soldiers, they do not easily fade away. This is the reason perhaps why I still continue to in dulge in the old habit of closely following the conduct of our foreign relations and developments in the interna tional scene at large long after I had ceased to have any participation in this vi tal government function. It has been more than three years since I left the diplo matic services but I have found it difficult to get rid of my abiding interest in this all-engrossing field. My present detachment from the making and exec ution of our foreign policy has its advantages. It has en abled me to view the think ing behind some of its basic premises in sharper focus and wider perspective. And they have given rise in my mind to certain doubts concerning their continued validity. Our So-Called Asian Policy Let us start with what may be conveniently called our Asian policy. It had its be ginning at a time when the countries around us, coun tries which we are bound by geographic, ethnic and cul tural ties as well as common colonial experience, were en gaged in throwing off the shackles of foreign rule. It was therefore logical that we, who had just then re acquired our sovereignty should express that policy by pledging our support for the aspirations of subject peoples for self-government and independence. After they, too, and others farther away from our common area, became sovereign and inde pendent, after sensing that despite our professions of sympathy and protestations of identity with these na tions we were somehow not counted as one of them, we gave voice to a desire to re OCTOBER 1961 65 establish that identity, to res tore our Asian moorings, so to speak. We went about this task by such traditionally ac cepted methods as extendng diplomatic recognition to these countries in their new status, exchanging diploma tic representatives, conclud ing amity and cultural trea ties, sending goodwill mis sions and occasionally voting with their delegates in the councils of the United Na tions and other international organizations and gatherings, in keeping with our own in terests. But all these have apparent ly not been enough to bring about acceptance of the Phil ippines as part of the group and of the fact that we Fi lipinos share the same Asian roots. We still do not belong. Let us accept the fact that we continue to be suspect in most Asian eyes. Our long Western association, the in fluence of this association on our thinking, outlook, ways, likes and dislikes, our align ment with the West in the current struggle for world power have kept us apart. I believe the time has come for us to stop deluding our selves in this respect and to adopt another approach. Let us stop begging for accept ance at our neighbors’ doors and outgrow the attitude of self-deprecation in pleading for admission to the “Asian club.” Instead, let us first prove to them that we are worth accepting. We can only do otherwise at the ex pense of our dignity and selfrespect. We believe in re gional exchange and coope ration but not in paying for them at so high a price. It cannot be denied that compared with most of the newly-independent countries in Asia, we were better pre pared to take on the respon sibilities of independent na tionhood and have since made appreciable material progress. We are ahead of some of them in political and even economic development although we could have gone farther with more efficient management without official corruption and given a dedi cated, strong and responsive leadership. We are learning how to develop our natural wealth and how to use that wealth in improving the lot of our people. We have been able to forge ahead partly with the help of other friend ly countries, particularly the United States. Let us take, to cite a few examples, the strides we have made in modern farming methods, co operatives, community dev elopment, distribution and 66 Panorama marketing, soil conservation and irrigation, health and sa nitation, anti-Communist sub version, hydroelectric power development, light industries, education and other fields. We have taken these gains for granted and have even spoken depreciatingly of them at times in the heat of partisan political strife. But measured in terms of what some of our neighbors in Asia have achieved, we have, I believe, accomplished more. Our job is to turn their eyes to these accomplish ments, modest as they are./ These are the commodities we should also export. They are the arguments that should “sell” us to our Asian neighbors. Several of these countries have begun to take notice. Sometime ago, an In dian delegation made it a point to pass through Mani la to learn more about com munity development before proceeding to Geneva to at tend a world conference on the subject. Malayans have come to find out the reasons for our success in defeating the Huk movement. Once we have shown that we have employed the West ern ingredients of our nation al upbringing for our own be nefit without giving up what is ours, once we have some thing useful for other Asian countries to emulate or adopt, acceptance may not be difficult. Japan is a case in point. It has never been any thing to other Asian coun tries but Asian and * of Asia regardless of how much the Japanese have learned from and imbibed of the West. Nationalism of Rising Peoples With us Filipinos, the spi rit of nationalism rose'to its zenith at the time of our li bertarian fight against Span ish rule. It continued up to the American regime and spurred us in our subsequent struggle for independence. During all this time, most of our fellow Asian countries were still parts of colonial empires although they alrea dy felt the same stirrings of freedom and made repeated attempts at achieving self emancipation. To us and to them, in that difficult but glorious period, nationalism and patriotism carried the same meaning. This is not meant to imply that these virtues die after the aims which they have in spired have been achieved. But it is a fact that nation alism subsequently acquires some degrees of tempering, breadth and maturity, a kind of seasoning that goes with the sober realization of the October 1961 67 magnitude and complexity of the challenge of nation-build ing. Every young nation goes through this process sooner or later. The Philippines passed through such a transi tion ahead of most of her Asian neighbors. We were al ready hard at work in mak ing our country stand on its feet and our young democ racy succeed while some countries around us were still trying to free themselves from their bondage as subject peoples. We have reached a point of maturity well be yond their reaction to this change which in most cases took on xenophobic under tones. But caught in the tide of nationalistic fever that con sumed these countries, con scious of our isolation from them as a result of our West ern associations, we lately be gan tracing a course for our foreign policy based on the nationalism that we knew and practiced during the re volutionary stage of our history. Thus, our abortive attempt to put a label to this trend by borrowing Japan’s wartime expansionist slogan of “Asia for the Asians” and the advent of what our pre sent policymakers refer to as “respectable independence” and the “Filipino First” poli cyAlbert Camus, that great and late-lamented French philosopher and resistance leader, once said that he “loved his country too much to be a nationalist.” What he meant perhaps was that there is a kind of nationalism which is not synonymous with patriotism because it is harmful to a country’s inter est. If Manuel Luis Quezon were alive today, he would have expressed this thought by saying that his national ism ends where the good of his country begins. The Philippines has been a free and sovereign nations member of the community of these last fifteen years. In her present status she has ac quired responsibilities and obligations that have made it impossible for her to live in a world by and unto her self.. From considerations of national security and econo mic advancement alone, she must accept the concept of a world, one and interdepen dent, as well as its practical realities. There no longer are such things as complete and absolute independence, poli tical or economic. Other As ian countries have since gra duated from this attitude. Hence we find the policies of 68 Panorama India, Burma and Pakistan on foreign investments, for example, more attuned to these realities. We in the Philippines, on the other hand, have failed to adjust ourselves to these facts. On the matter of the participation of foreign capi tal in our economic develop ment, we have only sown con fusion among our own peo ple and the outside world by our inconsistencies and con tradictions. While we ex tend a welcoming hand to foreign investors and solemn ly assure them of our need, for their assistance to en able us to make full use of our natural resources and ad vance the pace of our econo mic growth, we blithely adopt policies that are antagonistic if not outright hostile. During all this time we have also shown a naive and compla cent attitude on the use which international Communism, through its homegrown ad herents and hirelings, have made of nationalism to serve its destructive ends. In asserting our national ism, we must guard against confusing substance with form, the important with the inconsequential. We have been wont to strike nation alistic poses, for example, on such graver issues as our na tional defense, overlooking their far-reaching and vital implications. We forget that, as in the case of foreign mili tary bases in our country, for instance, we had temporarily waived the full exercise oi our sovereignty over these areas in order to more ef fectively insure our security and that this act of voluntary and temporary relinquish ment in the interest of a lar ger common good is of itself an expression of sovereign prerogative. A people devoid of nation alistic spirit is dead. But there is great cause of fear for a nation heading towards nationalism in its narrow and myopic form, especially a nationalism that consents to exploitation and prostitu tion by the ruling powers for their own selfish ends. This may be the moment, there fore, to restore order and im part coherence to our under standing and practice of na tionalism and extend our thinking beyond its present parochial bounds. The Case Against The United Nations We have declared, as one of the basic tenets of our for eign policy, adherence to and support for the aims and principles enunciated in October 1961 69 the Charter of the United Nations. This declaration is an expression of faith in the effectiveness of that world or ganization in keeping world peace. In practical terms it means that as part of that body we look up to it to fur ther safeguard our national security. Through our mem bership, it is true, we have taken our rightful place among other sovereign states and have benefitted from its assistance in the economic, social and cultural fields. But the principal considera tions behind our participation in the UN is related to the problem of our security. The weight of the moral force that the UN is supposed to exert against aggression and other breaches of world peace, the promise of collec tive assistance from fellow members in the regional se curity alliance which we have joined and the more categorical pledge of similar help under our mutual de fense pact with the United States, are the three legs on which the structure of our national security rests. But events have tended to de monstrate how weak the first two supports of this structure are. One has only to recall, with unhappy me mories, the futility that were Korea, Vietnam, Hungary, Suez, Tibet, the Congo, An gola and now Laos, Cuba, Biserte and Berlin. Laos is said to have brought about the recently-formed Association of Southeast Asian States (ASAS) because of the fai lure of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) which came in the wake of the disaster of Dien Bien Phu, to live up to our ex pectations. The organization al structure of the UN itself is under Communist siege with the Soviet demand for a drastic and far-reaching change in the office of the Secretary-General. The record of that world body, in other words, has not served to strengthen our faith in it. That record has given us reason to think twice about the assumptions we have earlier and more hopefully held. That faith has been shaken instead. The late John Foster Dulles, one of the principal architects of the Charter, voiced this hope once by saying that much can be done under the UN that cannot be done by it.” By this he must have anticipated the difficulties which now. beset that organ ization. Time has since proved him right in the sec ond part of this statement. There is not much to show, 70 Panorama however, that he was also right in the first. Writing in the July issue of Fortune magazine, Max Ways advanced the thesis that our hopes and expectations “would be valid only if the UN were capable of recog nizing, promulgating and en forcing rules of international order.” “Some Americans,” he added, “speak of the Unit ed Nations as “above’ the na tions. This is true only in the sense that an attic is at the top of a house; it is where the nations put their interna tional problems. The UN de bates. The UN sometimes de cides, as when it instructs its Secretary-General to isolate the Congo from big-power politics. But the UN never seriously attempts to estab lish the rules that would li mit its member govern ments.” Mr. Ways further advanced the opinion that “no reword ing of the Charter is going to work unless it clearly re cognizes an objective source of international law outside the nations themselves.” Quoting the same author still further, “more and more, the Communists show they they re^gnize the UN as a mag nificent arena for propagan da.” Harry A. Kissinger concise ly described the way in which the new nations use the UN in the following lan guage : “Many of the leaders of the new states want the best of two worlds: of neutrality and of judging all disputes... Playing a role ,on the inter national scene seems more dramatic and simpler than the complex job of domestic construction... Domestical ly, each action has a price. But on the international scene, it is possible to be the center of attention simply by striking a pose. Here ambi tious men can play the dra matic role so often denied to them at home and so con sistent with their image of the role of a national lead er.” It has been said that “a workable foreign policy can never be static. To build a policy on a status quo is an illusion that can lead only to disappointment. For na tions, like human beings are, born, live through a period of adolescence, become ma ture, and die. Stand-still acts as a cancerous disease on a nation’s body.” Let us take heed that the march of world events does not leave us with October 1961 71 NEW DRUG APPEARS EFFECTIVE AGAINST HAY EVER A new drug that has given good results to some 500 patients in combating hay fever created considerable interest among doctors who attended a recent meeting of the American Academy of Al lergy. The drug is called allpyral, a short term for “alum.precipitated pyridine-ragweed complex” In practice, allpyral is used to desensitize pa tients who get hay fever from ragweed pollen be fore the hay fever season arrives. It differs from standard aqueous pollen extracts in that it con tains the pollen oils as well as the proteins. Allpyral is absorbed slowly by the body, and physicians can therefore give much larger doses of it at one time. This means that the number of infections can be reduced. From present indica tions it appears that one injection of allpyral every four to six weeks is sufficient. With the aqueous solutions, one injection a week is usually needed. In the 500 or more patients already studied in the United States, 89 to 93 per cent have shownimprovement. With standard aqueous solutions, about 80 to 85 per cent improve. * * * a foreign policy that is out dated and no longer work able. These then are some of the thoughts that a former diplomat, turned business man and armchair diploma tic analyst, offers to those who are presently in charge of charting and steering our country’s course in the tur bulent sea of world affairs. These views may not find ready concurrence, especially among the uninitiated and uninformed. But in the diffi cult business of providing one’s country with the best possible of such courses and of trying to keep to it, we opn only ignore these realities at great risk. 72 Panorama
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