PHL-China projects cap Duterte term (Part 1)

IT IS curtains down for the Duterte administration that started in June 2016 and will end on June 30, 2022. Indeed, June 30 is a moment deserving a bow from President Rodrigo Roa Duterte and a standing ovation from his Philippines and global audience.

The quarter before the final exit of President Duterte, which spanned from January to March, registered a GDP growth of 8.3 percent, reflecting an unexpected vigor and firmness in the economic uptick of the country even as the ravages of the once-in-a-century pandemic brought out by Covid-19 ebbed.

Net Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) also got a major boost; the latest data showed a 46.3 percent increase year-on-year in February 2022, reflecting the confidence in the Philippine economy despite the headwinds of the Ukraine War and the sanctions battle against Russia rattling the global economy.

While many factors come into play when evaluating the overall situation of the Philippines, these positive numbers are all signs that things are looking up. They emanate from government measures over the past six-years to address the numerous crises that sprung up in the course of events.

Let us evaluate specific challenges and the actions taken to overcome them, starting with the most recent significant test posed by the 2-years old Covid-19 crisis.

The virus overran the Philippines starting early in 2020 and rolled towards a nationwide lockdown on March 16 of that year. By the last quarter, there was a desperate scrounge for vaccines.

The Duterte government had earlier mapped out its anti-Covid 19 war plan with massive orders for vaccines from the major producers in the world. However, supply constraints seemed insurmountable as various Western suppliers poised for profit and refused to comply with Department of Health trials protocols.

Chinese vaccines were also facing numerous roadblocks despite early approval by some health authorities even as they faced biased derogatory media campaigns that besmirched their integrity and effectiveness.

President Duterte had to step in to assert that “they are as good as the shorts developed by the Americans and Europeans…”

Under the supervision of President Rodrigo R. Duterte, the Philippines’ Inter-Agency Task Force on Covid-19 had set March 1, 2021 as the start of the mass vaccination drive all over the country.  However, no vaccine delivery was on the horizon as of the last week of February until China delivered on its commitment to President Duterte.

The first batch of 600,000 doses of Sinovac vaccines donated by China finally arrived on February 28, 2021, transported by a Chinese military Y-20 heavy cargo plane and unloaded in Manila at the Villamor Airbase. Spokesperson Harry Roque said at the moment, “There is light at the end of the tunnel” and Duterte rolled out the vaccination campaign in time for the March 1, 2021 target.

What would have been the consequences if China had not delivered on its promise to President Duterte? What if the naysayers opposing Duterte’s faith and reliance on China’s promise had succeeded and the Chinese vaccines had been blocked? One shudders to imagine, but the success of this cooperation stands out as a major factor in our awesome recovery today.

One of the major infrastructures that was inaugurated and launched in April of 2022 just two months before President Rodrigo R. Duterte will transfer the baton to the president-elect Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. is the P 3.4-billion, two-way, four-lane, 680-meter Binondo-Intramuros Bridge that is decongesting the CBD (commercial and business district of the City of Manila. The Binondo-Intramuros bridge was built with the assistance of China.

This followed from the opening of the four-lane Estrella-Pantaleon Bridge in Makati City, also donated by China to the Philippines, which cost P 1.5-billion and now serves 1.3-million vehicles per day and connects the two cities across the Pasig River in one of the most heavily traversed crossings of Metro-Manila. All these very visible projects have also given great lift to the spirit of the nation.

The above two very visible infrastructure projects may, in fact, be considered modest in the long list of China’s giant contribution to President Duterte’s “Build, Build, Build” program that coincided with the first foreign visit of PRRD to a major country outside of ASEAN – China and President Xi Jinping.

It is illuminating to recall those moments in history when the world’s direction turned, and for the great betterment of mankind. On that moment, the Philippines and China engaged once more as it had a thousand years before in the Age of Western Colonialism, and then again when President Ferdinand E. Marcos, Sr. met with Chairman Mao Tsetung in 1975.

That China visit enabled President Duterte to resume the warmest relations after a brief disruption from 2011 to 2016 at the height of the US “Pivot to Asia” and the “arbitration circus.” Pres. Duterte’s visit to China and President Xi Jinping allowed the two leaders to cement their invigorated ties with a $ 25-billion pact of grants, aid, loans and investments (to be continued in our next issue).