AS the Philippines has become the “center” of the COVID-19 pandemic in this part of Asia with over 155,000 cases (and more than 2,000 dead) as of this writing, what most people failed to notice is the “good dividend” we are now reaping from Pres. Duterte’s ‘independent foreign policy.’
And we are referring to the offer of both Russia and China to include the Philippines as among the first countries in the world to benefit from the success of their respective effort to create the vaccine for COVID-19.
Both countries are far advanced in their vaccine development efforts, a fact that no amount of the usual Western and American slanders can hide.
Let us admit it. Had it not been for Pres. Duterte’s firm policy that the Philippines should be “a friend to all and an enemy to none,” such generosity by these countries now can only be described as previously “possible yet remote”
“Posible pero, malabo,” as we would have put it in our native tongue.
And why not? Why would they show “sympathy” to a country, which, under the failed regimes of the “Dilawans” for the past thirty years, had been shameless in its puppetry to US Imperialism?
But thankfully to Pres. Duterte’s genuine nationalism as expressed in his foreign policy, we have started to gain the respect and admiration of other countries, particularly the likes of Russia and China.
Both countries’ love for their independence have been at the cost of the blood of the millions of their compatriots due to past foreign interventions and continuing US aggression along their borders.
If there’s one thing other nations would respect is another nation’s pride in defending its sovereignty and in the pursuit of policies to serve its own ends.
These policies may be contrary to their own but still, they would respect it nevertheless, appreciating as they do that such policy—being friends to everybody and rejecting subservience to any foreign power—is the same one they are pursuing to serve their own national interests.
In particular, we should welcome the sincere material and other help being given to us by China even as it continues to struggle to put right its own economy still reeling from the devastation of COVID-19.
Indeed, it can be said that without China standing in solidarity with the Philippines particularly at this moment of crisis, it is hard to imagine how we would be able to cope with the many challenges we are now facing. And more importantly, how we can hope to recover once the COVID-19 crisis is over.
At the other side of the argument of course is, what would have happened had we continued with our subservience to the United States, which is now mired in a social and economic crisis due too to the pandemic?
If we go by the record of our unequal relationship with Uncle Sam the past 100 years and more, for us to expect we would be at the top of its “help-list,” can only be described as “possible but remote.” In short, “posible pero malabo.”
Let us therefore continue supporting Pres. Duterte’s independent foreign policy. For in the near future, we can expect help from other countries to come not only because the world is gripped by pandemic but in other crucial areas as well.