BBM has committed to an "independent" foreign policy but in the over one hundred days of his Presidency, it's clear that he's leaning more towards the US.
He has been to the US on a working visit in New York last September. Vice-President Kamala Harris is coming in next week for her own visit. The Philippine Ambassador to the US announced that he's working towards a Marcos visit to Washington to meet again with President Joe Biden.
Marcos described China as a reliable partner during the groundbreaking for the Davao - Samal Island bridge project but no statement has been made about a visit to China, despite it being the first to extend an invitation right after his victory last May.
The principal of the Pandesal Forum, Wilson Lee Flores, is a pro-China advocate. Flores isn't the hardcore and pushy type. As a media man he knows the boundaries of the public when it comes to being for China. There are nuances which need to be observed and at the moment, the DFA under Secretary Enrique Manalo, has been ignoring these when it comes to our diplomatic relations with China.
It's obvious that pro-US hands dominate the Marcos administration. There is Babe Romualdez and Enrique Manalo to begin with. The economic team is also pro-US. The business community is the same. This begs the question, shouldn't we continue with the pragmatic approach adopted by the previous administration?
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the current geopolitical realities would likely have the Philippines right smack in the middle in the event of a US-China conflict over Taiwan. The main issue now is semiconductors. The computer chips which drive most anything and everything nowadays from cars to smartphones.
Marcos is probably thinking that it doesn't pay to bet against the US as his father did before, who paid dearly for not renewing parity rights and cutting short the bases agreement.
The US needs the Philippines for the defense of Taiwan. Any China-US conflict over Taiwan would affect the Philippines. It doesn't look like Marcos is willing to play off one against the other as he hasn't made any moves to visit China.
Xi Jin Ping has consolidated his position as Secretary-General as he's set for another ten year term. Several think-tanks have postulated that China will retake Taiwan sooner rather than later.
Perhaps Marcos should take his lessons from Europe which sided with the US in the Russian-Ukraine conflict. This is a proxy war being fought by the US. Some say that World War III has already begun. It's not your usual world war with actual fighting, but more a hybrid war fought on several fronts, with limited actual battles being fought.
Whatever the case, we are ants in the grass caught in a battle among elephants. We still need to survive even as ants. I just hope that Marcos has the same incisive mind as Duterte when it comes to geopolitical realities.
We should've learned our lessons from our actual experience with the Americans from 1898 up to 2016. Hopefully, Marcos knows something we don't or that he even knows what he's doing. There are more enlightened people now about how Western hegemony is actually responsible for
the ills and issues that we face as a global community.
But more importantly, there are our own ills which we need to address, which only a leader with a broader vision and scope, can begin institutionalizing reforms for the betterment of our country and countrymen. Hopefully, Filipinos won't be proven wrong about the mandate they have given Marcos. This is why F. Sionil Jose was correct in saying that it is not history who will judge the Marcos' but the Filipino people. He foresaw that the Marcos' would gain power back, because those who took it from them in 1986 failed miserably.
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