Infrastructure-oriented think-tank Infrawatch has dared presidential aspirants to review all pending infrastructure projects and spending and to drop bilateral arrangements with superpowers, saying that presidentiables should instead consider multilateral cooperation should they win next year’s presidential elections.
Lawyer Terry Ridon, Infrawatch PH convenor, said those seeking to lead the country should reconsider the Duterte administration’s pivot to Beijing which has been troubled with numerous controversies.
“With Beijing having little to show in its commitment to help the country develop in the last five years, presidential bets should reconsider whether to continue President Rodrigo Duterte’s pivot to China,” said Ridon.
While Infrawatch’s proposal might find support among presidential bets who are not allied with Duterte, at least of them, Senator Christopher “Bong” Go and former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. may not find it acceptable.
Over the weekend, Go withdrew his vice presidential bid to replace PDP-Laban partymate Sen. Ronald “Bato” De la Rosa for president.
On the other hand, Marcos’s Partido Federal ng Pilipinas had declared it will adopt Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte as its vice presidential candidate.
In a virtual forum held oer the weekend, Ridon recalled that various controversies have tainted the implementation of projects linked to China.
Ridon said the Pharmally controversy had resulted from the current government’s over-reliance on the goodwill of Beijing to develop the country as part of warming bilateral relations with Manila.
“But aside from failing to deliver on its funding commitments, Chinese businessmen have managed to control significant portions of the economy, from telecoms to government contracts. The Pharmally affair would not have been possible had the President not pivoted to Beijing.” Ridon said even its large infrastructure projects had been beset by corruption issues.
“The Kaliwa dam bid remains questionable, as no less than the Commission on Audit suspects that no real competitive bid had been undertaken between Chinese bidders who participated in the bidding process. No contractor will ever submit a bid price higher than the approved budget of projects, and this was what had happened in the Kaliwa dam bid.”
“The next President should participate in other regional cooperation organizations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which puts great emphasis on the need for real multilateralism in resolving regional and international disputes,” he said.
Ridon said aside from ASEAN and APEC, the SCO can contribute to resolving regional issues such as terrorism and extremism.
“The SCO has been successful in resolving regional issues related to Afghanistan, with SCO leaders coordinating the Taliban on the formation of an inclusive government involving Tajiks, Uzbeks and Harazas. This is an important development because it shows a consensual mechanism by a regional bloc seeking to influence the high-level policy of one of the SCO’s partners in order to ensure regional stability and inclusivity in governance. This is the kind of mutually beneficial international relations that we need," said Ridon, former chairman of the Presidential Commission on the Urban Poor.
Ridon said the SCO’s multilateral action on Afghanistan is relevant to the Philippines as Manila continues to consider Islamist extremism as a serious national security threat despite the signing of a peace agreement between the national government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
“The country continues to reel from the effects of the Marawi Siege in 2017, in which a ragtag band of Islamic extremists laid to waste the Islamic City of Marawi in the southern island of Mindanao due to five months of intense fighting with government forces. The next President should not allow another Marawi to happen under their administration.”
Ridon said the regional bloc’s experience in with dealing security issues in Afghanistan will be very relevant for Manila’s strategic planning on containing extremism and terrorism in the country and the region, as it can provide valuable access to intelligence information, and prospective military contracts for equipment and weapons.