Aquino hails DFA chief Del Rosario, says no back channel talks with China now

Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario: Best-performing. AP FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—President Aquino on Wednesday said he was “very happy” with Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario’s handling of the Philippines’ territorial dispute with China, and that there were no more back-channel talks going on with Beijing.

Speaking at a foreign correspondents’ forum in Manila, Aquino repeatedly gave assurance that Del Rosario would not be affected in a coming reorganization of his Cabinet, which he described as minor.

“There will be some Cabinet changes; we will announce it at the appropriate time,” he said.

There will be no change at the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), the President said.

“I don’t agree with the dialogue that says it’s the foreign secretary’s fault. This secretary of foreign affairs is one of the hardest-working and best-performing members of any Cabinet that [I can remember],” Aquino said.

“I’m very happy,” he added, referring to Del Rosario’s handling of the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) crisis and the foreign secretary’s overall performance.

Del Rosario appeared to have been sidelined when the President tapped Senator Antonio Trillanes IV for back-channel talks with China to ease tensions that flared up with a standoff between Chinese and Philippine ships at Panatag Shoal (Scarborough Shoal) in the West Philippine Sea in April.

Aquino sighed when asked why he had to go through the back channels, saying, “I’ve answered that question a number of times.”

But told that the question had not been adequately answered, the President explained that a back-channel negotiator was necessary because the foreign secretary handled the issue publicly.

“Currently, there are no back-channel talks,” he said.

Multilateral approach

Aquino corrected misimpression that the government had abandoned a multilateral tack in dealing with the territorial dispute with China by resorting to unofficial negotiations.

“That’s not correct,” he said. “The bilateral can be a component but the multilateral is the approach. The problem is multilateral. In Asean [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] alone, there are four countries of the 10 that are claimants to the Spratlys group. So how can two talk or how can one of four talk with China and bind the other three?”

China claims sovereignty over nearly all of the West Philippine Sea, which is home to sea lanes vital to global commerce, rich fishing grounds where islands, reefs and atolls are believed to be sitting on deposits of oil and gas.

But the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan claim parts of the sea.

It was at the height of tensions at Panatag Shoal that the United States announced a “pivot” to Asia, a new military strategy that will see 60 percent of US warships shifting to the region by the end of the decade.

Aquino assured the United States of Philippine cooperation in carrying out the new strategy, stressing that Manila had been an ally of Washington in the Asia-Pacific region since World War II.

“We are allies; we are treaty allies. We have a mutual defense treaty that has existed for several decades. Again we go back … [we’re] strategic partners. We have the shared background, and shared values. So we will assist our ally,” Aquino said.

No revival of bases

He said there were no talks on reactivating the former US bases at Clark in Pampanga and in Subic in Zambales.

It is believed that China’s military buildup and increasing aggressiveness in asserting its claims in the West Philippine Sea had prompted the US pivot to the region, but Washington said its interest was peace and stability and freedom of navigation in Asian waters.

The territorial dispute would be tackled in Friday’s foreign ministerial conference between the Philippines and China, according to the DFA.

Aquino said there was a “little bettering of the situation” with China.  “But we’re still a long way from really taking it back to where it was” before the standoff at Panatag Shoal.

The President said relations warmed “a little” following Interior Secretary Mar Roxas’ meeting with Chinese leader-in-waiting Vice President Xi Jinping in China in late September.

He added that he hoped relations would get warmer after the once-in-a-decade change in China’s leadership next month, when there would be “more room to negotiate on a more reasonable term and less ultranationalist tones.”

The President ruled out a meeting with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao on the sidelines of the Asia-Europe Summit in Laos next month. But he expressed support for Indonesia’s diplomacy for the forging of a consensus among claimants in the West Philippine Sea.

Aquino declined to say when the Philippines would dispatch ships again to Panatag Shoal so as “not to telegraph intentions,” but pledged to vigorously defend the country’s claims in the West Philippine Sea in international courts.

Going to Itlos

Aquino said legal experts were studying how to advance the country’s claims through the International Tribunal on the Laws of the Sea (Itlos), an independent judicial body set by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to adjudicate disputes over the interpretation and application of the convention.

Aquino, who is visiting Australia next week, said the Philippines was offering the same “strategic partnership” that it has with the United States and Japan to Australia.

“We only have two strategic partnerships—one in the United States of America and [another] with Japan. We’re offering [a] third to Australia and they are presently studying it,” he said.

Both countries share a democratic form of government, and the same values, and these would augur well for such a future partnership, he said. Australia is assisting the Philippines with a coast watch system, he said.

The President also spoke lengthily about a framework agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) that would create a new and autonomous Moro homeland in Mindanao, and in that light, the prospects of the resumption of peace talks with communist insurgents, and the territorial dispute between the Philippines and Malaysia over Sabah state in northern Borneo.

Aquino said he was confident a controversial sin tax reform measure would be passed before next year’s elections even though the Senate committee on ways and means reported out a version that would generate revenues much lower than the administration’s projected collections.

On the controversial cybercrime law, he said he subscribed to the idea of decriminalizing libel, but stressed the need for an “atmosphere that encouraged responsibility.”

Mining

When questions shifted to mining, the President said the grant of environmental compliance certificates to mining companies would have to be balanced with protection of the environment.

“We still stick with our position that there has to be a reformulation of the governing law with regards to the mining industry,” Aquino said. “And we would rather not continue with the situation … until the remedies or the corrections in the mining laws [are done].”

He sounded a bit irritated when pressed about the same issue later.

In response to a reporter’s question, he said: “So again, we have a very old company that is one of the, I guess, pioneers in the mining industry who had the same—who had multiple failures of their tailings’ pond. So would you want me to exercise my stewardship in a reckless manner and grant all of these mining agreements left and right while recognizing the fact that there are inadequacies in our current systems, procedures and rules and regulations and laws?”

Asked about his love life, the bachelor President replied, “Zero.”—With a report from AP