Manila: Former President Fidel Ramos has not turned his back against President Rodrigo Duterte and the latter still needs the expertise of the former leader in resolving the overlapping claims in the South China Sea, a senior official said.
“His (Ramos) stature and expertise are needed now, more than ever, to follow up and ride on what President Duterte accomplished during his recent visit to China,” said Duterte’s Communications Secretary Martin Andanar, adding, “It is not true that the former president can no longer have any role in our engagement with China.”
Ramos jokingly admitted being part of the Duterte administration “whether they like it or not”.
“The moment the President came back from China from a successful state visit, I resigned as special envoy to China because the officials have taken over,” Ramos told GMA, a TV network.
“I’ve done my job to ... break the ice and to help restore the ties of goodwill and friendship (between China and the Philippines),” Ramos said.
But in his column in Manila Bulletin on October 29, Ramos was quite pointed.
He criticised Duterte’s over-focused campaign against illegal drug trade and the shooting of suspected drug pushers and users by cops whose lives were not allegedly endangered.
He criticised Duterte’s call to end in two years the US-Philippines joint war games that began in 2002 — after the signing of the US-Philippines Visiting Forces Agreement in 1998, which was ratified by the Philippine Senate in 1999.
He criticised Duterte for calling United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon a fool — the latter criticised the Philippines’ campaign against illegal drug trade which has killed thousands since July. A veteran of the Korean War, Ramos has a soft spot for South Koreans, a political analyst said.
Ramos claimed that Duterte has neglected solving the country’s poverty problem.
He also criticised Duterte’s decision not to honour the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change, which asked developed and developing countries to commit to lower gas emissions.
After The Hague-based Permanent Court Arbitration ruled last July that China’s claim of the entire South China Sea and its enhancement of shoals and rocks into islands were illegal, Duterte named Ramos a special envoy to China’s Hong Kong to pursue informal bilateral talks between the Philippine and China and peacefully resolve their overlapping claims in the South China Sea.
The PCA also ruled that China must leave the Scarborough Shoal it occupied in 2012 because it is a common fishing ground for all claimants in the South China Sea. Located 230 kilometre west of Zambales Provinces, the shoal is within Philippines’ 200 nautical miles exclusive economic zone, based on the provision of the United Nations Convention on the law of the Sea
After Duterte’s state visit to China, Filipino fishermen were allowed to fish near the shoal despite the presence of Chinese Coast Guard there.
China, Taiwan, and Vietnam claim the whole of the South China Sea. Brunei, Malaysia, and the Philippines claim their respective EEZ in the said sea-lane where $5 trillion worth of cargo passes every year.
