International Studies in the Philippines: Mapping New Frontiers in Theory and Practice 2019056471, 2019056472, 9780367173951, 9780429056512

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International Studies in the Philippines

How can local experiences and the social transformation generated by modernity help to enrich our understanding of the international? What might a version of the much-discussed ‘non-Western international relations (IR)’ look like? What continuities and discontinuities from the Philippine experience in particular can be useful for understanding other post-colonial polities? The Philippines makes a fascinating case study of a medium-sized, developing, post-colonial, multi-ethnic, and multi-cultural state in Southeast Asia. Cruz, Adiong, and their contributors map horizons of non-Western approaches in Philippine experiences of IR, rooted in the Global South and in local customs and practice. Examining both theory and praxis, they explore issues as diverse as pre-colonial history, diplomacy, religion, agrarian reform, and the Philippines’ relationship with key regions in the Global South. The book will appeal to researchers interested in Southeast Asian Studies and alternative perspectives on IR. Frances Antoinette Cruz is Assistant Professor of German at the College of Arts and Letters, University of the Philippines Diliman, and the co-convenor of the Decolonial Studies Program at the Center for Integrative and Development Studies (CIDS) at the same university. Her current research interest revolves around using text analytics to map conceptual changes in international relations scholarship. She is President of the Philippine International Studies Organization and Vice President of the European Studies Association of the Philippines. Nassef Manabilang Adiong is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Islamic Studies, University of the Philippines Diliman, and initiated the creation of the Decolonial Studies Program at the Center of Integrative and Development Studies (CIDS) at the same university. He is the founder of Co-IRIS (International Relations and Islamic Studies Research Cohort) and PHISO (Philippine International Studies Organization). See his full academic profle at https://nassef.info/.

International Relations in Southeast Asia

India’s Strategy in the South China Sea Tridib Chakraborti and Mohor Chakraborty Foreword by Sudhir T. Devare International Studies in the Philippines Mapping New Frontiers in Theory and Practice Edited by Frances Antoinette Cruz and Nassef Manabilang Adiong

For the full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com/ International-Relations-in-Southeast-Asia/book-series/IRSEA

International Studies in the Philippines

Mapping New Frontiers in Theory and Practice Edited by Frances Antoinette Cruz and Nassef Manabilang Adiong

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Frances Antoinette Cruz and Nassef Manabilang Adiong; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Frances Antoinette Cruz and Nassef Manabilang Adiong to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the author for his individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Cruz, Frances Antoinette, editor. | Adiong, Nassef Manabilang, editor. Title: International studies in the Philippines : mapping new frontiers in theory and practice / edited by Frances Antoinette Cruz and Nassef Manabilang Adiong. Description: New York : Routledge, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019056471 (print) | LCCN 2019056472 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367173951 (hardback) | ISBN 9780429056512 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: International relations. | Postcolonialism—Philippines. | Philippines—Foreign relations. | Philippines—Social policy. Classification: LCC JZ1763 .I68 2020 (print) | LCC JZ1763 (ebook) | DDC 327.599—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019056471 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019056472 ISBN: 978-0-367-17395-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-05651-2 (ebk) Typeset in Galliard by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

Acknowledgements List of contributors Preface Introduction

vii viii xi 1

F RAN CES AN TO INET T E CRU Z A ND NA S S EF MANABILANG ADIONG

PART I

Mapping concepts 1 Butuan in the pre-colonial Southeast Asian international system: reconstructing international history from text, memory, and artifacts

13

15

J O H N H ARVE Y D. GA MA S

2 José Rizal attacks imperialism softly: comprehending the depths of psychological conversion and the temptations of violent solutions

34

ALAN C H O N G

3 Constantino revisited: the ‘miseducation’ and diplomacy of the Filipinos

50

ERI CKS O N D . CA L ATA

4 Publishing on the ‘international’ in the Philippines: a lexicometric inquiry

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F RAN CES AN TO INET T E CRU Z

5 Internationalizing pagdamay and palakasan: a Philippine perspective on Duterte foreign policy RI CARD O RO Y A . L O P EZ

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vi

Contents

6 Discursive experiments in vernacularizing international studies in the Philippines

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AD O N I S L . EL U MBRE

PART II

Mapping practices 7 The case of agrarian reforms in Philippine-USA relations: a biopolitical perspective

121 123

ALI YA P EL EO

8 Marginalization of interests: the case of Philippine-Middle East relations

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H E N EL I TO S EVIL L A , JR.

9 Political and economic perspectives on diversifcation in Philippine-South America relations

161

F LO RE N CI A RU BIO L O

10 Religious actors in the international sphere: the case of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines

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J O H N RAY MO ND JIS O N A ND Y VA N Y S MA EL YONAHA

11 Religious expertise, public theology, and Philippine regime compliance

195

BRI AN U . DO CE

12 Securitization of the Global War on Terror and counterterrorism cooperation against the Abu Sayyaf Group

211

PATRI CK D AVE Q . BU GA RIN

13 Sexploitative human traffcking in, out of, and beyond the Philippines: a liquid problem in a cosmopolar international system

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ARC H I L L NIÑA FA L L ER-CA P IS T RA NO

Conclusion: small statism and the non-issue of IR in the Philippines

245

AM AD O R I V P EL EO

Index

264

Acknowledgements

This book would not be possible without the support of scholars, practitioners, teachers, and students who believe in the goals of the Philippine International Studies Organization (PHISO) for the equal recognition of knowledge sources from various origins and positionalities. This is rooted in the position that nonWestern knowledge claims, such as Hindu, Chinese, or Islamic thoughts, ought to be treated with the same seriousness afforded to Western theology, Western philosophy, and Western natural and social sciences. We are grateful to the trustees, members of the steering committee, Filipino advisors, and foreign advisors of PHISO, including the institutional support of the UP-CIDS Decolonial Studies Program, Miriam College’s Department of International Studies, ISA Global South Caucus, and the World International Studies Committee (WISC). We truly dedicate this book to all Global South scholars and for those who share our vision of a decolonial understanding of the world. Frances Antoinette C. Cruz acknowledges the Department of European Languages and the College of Arts and Letters, University of the Philippines Diliman, for supporting conference trips related to the development of this book, the VLIRUOS-funded Dagitab: Palihan sa Digital na Humanidades Workshop (organized by the Phil Periodicals project between UP Diliman and the University of Antwerp) for constructive feedback, and her “Mitstreiter” Naidyl Isis Bautista, Anna Sibayan-Sarmiento, Jillian Melchor, and Kebart Licayan for reading and reviewing previous drafts of the work here. Nassef Manabilang Adiong acknowledges the Offce of the Chancellor of the University of the Philippines Diliman, through the Offce of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Development, for funding support through the PhD Incentive Award.

Contributors

Nassef Manabilang Adiong is an assistant professor at the Institute of Islamic Studies, University of the Philippines Diliman, and initiated the creation of the Decolonial Studies Program at the Center of Integrative and Development Studies (CIDS) at the same university. He is the founder of Co-IRIS (International Relations and Islamic Studies Research Cohort) and PHISO (Philippine International Studies Organization). See his full academic profle at https://nassef.info/. Patrick Dave Q. Bugarin is a PhD candidate at the National Chengchi University. His research interests include securitization theory, transnational organized crime, and law enforcement cooperation. He obtained his master’s degree in international affairs from Ming Chuan University under the Taiwan Scholarship Program and his bachelor’s degree in political science from the Pontifcal and Royal University of Santo Tomas. Patrick is also a professed lay member of the Order of Preachers. Erickson D. Calata was a former assistant professor at the College of Governance and Public Policy at University of Makati, Philippines. At present, he teaches in the political science department at Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) in Manila. At PUP, he handles political theory and methodology, Philippine politics, politics of Southeast Asia, and comparative politics. He has published papers on social policy, resettlement and governance, and social trust and democratic spaces. His recent research interests include the politics of knowledge production in the Global South, nationalism, and the colonization and decolonization of knowledge. Alan Chong is an associate professor and the acting head of the Center for Multilateralism Studies, at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore. He has published widely on the notion of soft power and the role of ideas in constructing Asian international relations in journals such as Contemporary Southeast Asia, Review of International Studies, and the Cambridge Review of International Affairs. Frances Antoinette Cruz is an assistant professor of German at the College of Arts and Letters, University of the Philippines Diliman and the co-convenor

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of the Decolonial Studies Program at the Center for Integrative and Development Studies (CIDS) at the same university. Her current research interest revolves around using text analytics to map conceptual changes in international relations scholarship. She is president of the Philippine International Studies Organization and vice president of the European Studies Association of the Philippines. Brian U. Doce is currently working in the Manila Economic and Cultural Offce, the Philippine de facto embassy in Taiwan, serving as a Project Offcer for bilateral educational cooperation. Aside from his diplomatic work, he is also teaching courses in Political Science and International Relations at De La Salle University. His research interests include global resurgence of religion, everyday politics, international norm socialization, and regime compliance. Adonis Elumbre is an assistant professor and a former chairperson at the Department of History and Philosophy, College of Social Sciences, University of the Philippines (UP) Baguio. He teaches history, social sciences, and development studies. His areas of interest include intellectual histories and international studies. He sits as an editorial board member for the Philippine journals the Cordillera Review and Saliksik. He is also a lifetime member of the Pambansang Samahan sa Sikolohiyang Pilipino (National Association for Filipino Psychology) and Philippine Historical Association. Archill Niña Faller-Capistrano is an assistant professor at the University of the Philippines Cebu and is the Visayas lead representative at the board of trustees of the Philippine International Studies Organization (PHISO). She is also chairperson of the board of trustees of the Children’s Legal Bureau Inc., a longstanding pro-women and pro-children non-governmental organization in Cebu, Philippines. Her research interests include liquid modernity and human traffcking in international relations. She designed the frst AB political science international relations and foreign service course offered by the Department of Political Science, School of Law and Governance of USC, where she previously worked as a faculty member. Archill is also a member of the Philippine Bar and a lifetime member of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, Cebu City Chapter. John Harvey D. Gamas is an assistant professor and currently the chair of the International Studies Department of the Ateneo de Davao University. He is a member of several professional organizations, including the Philippine International Studies Organization (PHISO) and the European Studies Association of the Philippines (ESAP). His research and publication projects focus on regionalism, Mindanao studies, international history, and non-Western international relations. John Raymond Jison is an assistant professor and former head of the Division of Political Science in the Department of Social Sciences, University of the Philippines Los Baños. His research interests include democratization, protest movements, and popular mobilization in nondemocratic settings.

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Contributors

Ricardo Roy A. Lopez is presently an MA candidate in Asian studies, specializing in Southeast Asian Studies at the University of the Philippines Diliman–Asian Center (UPD – AC). His research interests include Southeast Asian studies and international relations. He has been a board member of the Philippine International Studies Organization (PHISO) since 2017. Aliya Peleo earned her PhD from the Institute of China and Asia-Pacifc Studies, National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan. She also studied politics at the Department of the Political Science of the University of the Philippines Diliman. She graduated with her MA in international development from the International University of Japan in 2002. Since 1995, she has worked for development projects with UNESCO Media Resource Center/Kyrgyzstan, Peace Corps/Kazakhstan, USAID, and Asian Development Bank in Central Asia. She also taught economics and management at the KIMEP University, Almaty Management University, and Suleyman Demirel University in Almaty, Kazakhstan. In 2012, she decided to devote her time to the study of Philippine politics, development, and international relations. Her research interests are international development, regionalism, and multilateralism in Asia, as well as the issues of environment, natural resources, food, and sustainability. Amador IV Peleo received his PhD from the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, England. He currently teaches at the Graduate Institute for Marine Affairs (GIMA) of the National Sun Yat-Sen University (NSYSU) in Kaohsiung, Taiwan ROC. Florencia Rubiolo is an associate researcher at the National Scientifc and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Argentina. She holds a PhD in international relations (National University of Rosario). She is the director of the PhD program in international relations and professor of international relations history at Córdoba Catholic University (UCC). Her research interests include Southeast Asian international politics, South America – East Asia relations, South-South relations, foreign policy analysis, and economic diplomacy. Her current project at CONICET and UCC is “Asia-Pacifc in Latin America: Conditions, strategies, and actions of economic diplomacy and foreign policy.” Henelito Sevilla Jr. is an assistant professor at the Asian Center, University of the Philippines Diliman. He holds a PhD in international relations from the University of Tehran and the Shahid Beheshti University, respectively. He has taught courses on Persian Gulf and West Asia studies and the history and development of Philippine foreign policy. Dr. Sevilla has also written extensively on Philippine-Middle East relations, energy security in Asia, and the political economy of the Middle East. Yvan Ysmael Yonaha is an instructor from the Development Studies Program of the Ateneo de Manila University. His research interests include religion, political movements, decentralization, and urbanization.

Preface

The idea for a Global South and decolonial research agenda in international relations (IR) in the Philippines started with the inception of the Philippine International Studies Organization (PHISO) four years ago. PHISO, as a professional organization, promotes IR as a feld of study in the country, as well as the interdisciplinary exchange of research and knowledge through workshops, conferences, and collaborative publication projects aimed at furthering understanding about the concept of the ‘international.’ The mission and vision of PHISO encompasses goals for research and education. Besides providing a venue for the discussion of dominant approaches to IR, such as realism, liberalism, and constructivism, PHISO seeks to develop interest and scholarship in global IR through the study of theories, scholars, and sources of knowledge from the Global South, particularly the Philippines. This may include relational theory, contrapuntal reading, decoloniality, civilizational encounters in a multiplex world, and the incorporation of IR texts that express the realities of one’s culture and experiences. PHISO further endeavors to foster relations and knowledge-sharing with educational institutions, scholars, practitioners, and students in order to strengthen ties between the academe and the public, as well as create a broad base of interest in the feld. The organization thus aims to serve as a platform for critical engagement with the theoretical diversity of IR, from the rich corpus of Euro-American scholarship that has historically characterized the discipline and emerging scholarship critical of the limitations of this legacy. We were able to form the composition of contributors for this book through the following PHISO events and networking: • • • • •

One panel at the International Studies Association (ISA) convention (Honolulu, Hawaii, 25–28 March 2020) Third PHISO International Conference (Cebu Parklane International Hotel, 9–10 November 2019) Third PHISO International Workshop (Cebu Parklane International Hotel, 8 November 2019) Forum on Global IR (Miriam College, 18 September 2019) A roundtable discussion at the ISA Asia Pacifc regional conference (Nanyang Technological University, 4–6 July 2019)

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Participation at the International Conference on Cohesive Societies (Singapore, 19–21 June 2019) One panel at the ISA convention (Toronto, Canada, 27–30 March 2019) Forum: “International Relations in the Philippines” (Miriam College, 25 September 2018) Pre-conference forum: “Praxes Turn in IR: Opening Spaces for Practicesdirected Scholarship in International Relations” (University of San Carlos, Cebu City, 31 May 2018) 2nd PHISO International Conference (Ateneo de Davao University, 23–24 March 2018) 2nd PHISO International Workshop (Ateneo de Davao University, 22 March 2018) One panel at the Southeast Asian Studies in Asia conference (Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, 16–17 December 2017) Forum: “Philippine IR and Security” (Polytechnic University of the Philippines, 7 September 2017) Two panels at the ISA International Conference (University of Hong Kong, 15–18 June 2017) A section on “Exploring Global South Contributions in International Relations” for the Fifth Global International Studies Conference (National Taiwan University, Taipei, 1–3 April 2017) WISC-PHISO exploratory workshop on “Sources of IR Knowledge in the Philippines” for the Fifth Global International Studies Conference (National Taiwan University, Taipei, 31 March 2017) Forum: “The State of International Studies in the Philippines: Trends, Challenges, and Ways Forward” (Ateneo de Davao University, 25 May 2017) First PHISO International Conference (Far Eastern University, 8–10 March 2017) 1st PHISO International Workshop (Far Eastern University, 9–10 March 2017) A roundtable section at the ISA Asia-Pacifc regional conference (City University of Hong Kong, 25–27 June 2016) WISC exploratory workshop on “Alternative Cosmologies and Knowledge Systems in International Relations” (New Delhi, India, 11–13 January 2016)

• • •

• • • • • •

•

•

• • • •

This book is a testament to PHISO’s continuing work of promoting the signifcant value and importance of global south and decolonial scholarship in the feld of International Relations.

Introduction Frances Antoinette Cruz and Nassef Manabilang Adiong

The quest for universality in International Relations (IR) is one that should be seen alongside changes in the role and meaning of ‘theory’ in the broader domain of the social sciences. IRs traditional sources failed to address a global distribution of subjects and homogenize IR’s theoretical questions by marginalizing non-Euro/non-American intellectual roots, traditions, and praxes (Adiong, Mauriello, & Abdelkader, 2018). This has led to a perennial contestation of IR knowledge claims to universality. To the cursory reader, the nomenclature of the ‘international’ – often associated with global and cross-border phenomena, should necessarily be understood in terms of generalized norms and patterns of interaction. After all, most of the world has accepted and adopted the concept of the nation-state and participates in intergovernmental processes at the level of international organizations. To various degrees, dominant IR theories, such as realism, liberalism, and constructivism, have tried to fnd an epistemic space for matters often relegated to the margins in the search for parsimonious explanations, such as the role of culture and sub-systemic patterns of action – partially resulting in the plethora of prefxes that now accompany them and borrowings from established social sciences, such as political science, sociology, history, and economics, among others. It is through this accommodation that the mainstream of the discipline has typically managed the demand for more inclusivity and sensitivity toward epistemic and geographic terrains that are otherwise considered outliers in the search for global theory. In light of the preceding, it seems only ftting that at the beginning of the journey toward creating this book, we were asked questions about what made the Philippines ‘unique’ for the purposes of understanding the ‘international’ and in what form we would engage with the extant canon of international relations scholarship. The frst question thus deserves some scrutiny and deep refection. It is somewhat true that IR origins were dominated by European- and American-based institutions, journals, and foundations, often state-funded or created by independent institutions to study global events. The prominent and enduring role of the US and the EU as areas of interest in IR is matched by rising waves of regional expertise that are dependent on the ebbs and fows of Western concern. In the wake of 9/11, scores of journal articles, books, and political commentaries were dedicated to Islam and the Middle East, while rising powers, such as

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China, have received signifcant scholarly attention in the current decade (Rozman, 2015). In contrast, the Philippines – at least from the perspective of the nation-state – has not fostered a similar sense of international crisis, as it appears marginal in changing the dynamics and status quo of the existing international system, mainly receiving international attention because of major natural disasters and calamities, terrorism, or poverty. Once situated in an entrepot trading network that connected it to the diverse societies and religions across Southeast Asia, the islands that now constitute the Philippines were marked by well-established Hindu and Buddhist philosophies and multi-civilizational cultures mixed with Islamic socio-political expressions. A prime example of pre-colonial Southeast Asian IR is the political relations between the Sulu Sultanate and the Yuan Dynasty in the 13th century. However, a large part of the area that would later come to be known as the Philippines was claimed for the Spanish crown in 1521. Centuries of Spanish colonial rule as well as American and Japanese periods of occupation followed before the country became an independent nation-state in 1946. The experience of colonialism left several legacies with various consequences for social, economic, and political order that provide rich material for the study of accommodations of Western modernity amidst independent statehood – continuities, for instance, in terms of the powerful role of elite families that may frustrate institutional power (McCoy, 1994), the adoption of Christianity as a yardstick for moral and cultural development, colonial-era prejudices that have informed subjectivities in the country, colonial statecraft, an American-style compartmentalized educational system, and cultural affnities that tend to lean toward countries in Latin America (Inglehart et al., 2014), have shaped what a few have frivolously called the ‘maverick’ reputation of the Philippines in the region. It is in this context of appropriating Western modernity that academic disciplines are likewise accommodated – in a special issue of the journal International Relations of the Asia-Pacifc, Chong and Hamilton-Hart (2009) highlight the importance of the ‘socializing role of pedagogy’ for determining processes of knowledge production and dissemination across societies. The manner in which the discipline of IR is viewed, structured, and imparted is inevitably the result of a negotiation accompanying its introduction into a specifc context and the discipline’s subsequent modes of articulation (Chatterjee, 1995), or as Hamati-Ataya (2012) elaborates, in areas such as Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and parts of Asia, academic marginalisation is more problematic, as it results from a combined cultural and institutional dependence that is often the product of enduring colonial structures clashing with local concerns and aspirations. (p. 635) The mismatch between local cultural knowledge and an American-based education have led the statist Philippines to marginalize attempts at critical innovation, in that the country has continued to imitate the Western privileging of

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positivist-based knowledge claims and industry-oriented pedagogy. The ensuing pedagogy of IR as a result of this transformative process informs the transmission of national historical memory, the framing of national foreign policy, and the selection of relevant schools of thought (Chong & Hamilton-Hart, 2009). The formative years of teaching international relations in the Philippines are documented in Agpalo’s (1998) appraisal of the state of political science in the country and demonstrate the shared general frustrations of academics working in Global South conditions, with increased workload, little funding or few opportunities to travel, and a general disinterest in research, which have often been cited as contributing to the lack of visible participation of non-Western academics in knowledge production in IR (see also Acharya & Buzan, 2010). Nevertheless, despite challenging conditions, there are a number of publication avenues for research on IR. Local journals such as Kasarinlan, Asia-Pacifc Social Science Review, Philippine Political Science Journal, Public Policy, and Asian Studies (see Cruz, this volume) allow for the dissemination of knowledge and academic discussion on topics concerning the ‘international,’ while an estimated 28 undergraduate and eight graduate programs are offered in international studies, international relations, diplomacy, foreign service, and global studies, among other related program titles, across the country. However, most of these programs continue and reinforce Western narratives of mainstream theoretical dramas. Critical space for ‘thinking outside the box,’ for multi-perspective exploration, and for consideration of lived-experiences and of local philosophies or schools of thought are not institutionalized components of IS curricula and are only disparately introduced through possibilities created by area studies or an IR professor’s own initiative. In recent years, the Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) survey has unveiled trends in IR teaching and faculty research interests across the world. One of its unsurprising results is the that Global South IR scholars do not generally value theory from the Global South or non-Western IR scholars (WemheuerVogelaar, Bell, Morales & Tierney, p. 13), and a majority continue to believe that IR is a Western/American-dominated discipline (p. 6, see also Dabashi’s Can Non-Europeans Think?). The Philippine leg of the survey, with data taken from 2017 (TRIP Data Dashboard, forthcoming) (n=43), showed that paradigmatic approaches revealed a preference for liberalism and constructivism, followed by realism, with little to no interest in refexive and critical paradigms. Thematically, the survey results demonstrated that the two most popular themes are Philippine foreign policy followed by the international relations of a particular region or country, human security, and international or global security. Secondary research interests, however, revealed greater support for theory, which emerged as the most popular secondary research interest alongside Philippine foreign policy. The interest in theory as well as a strong predilection for developing context-specifc theories are both indicated by the results in the teaching section of the survey yet contrast with textbooks and iconic works that are largely Western in origin. This suggests that a desire for the development of Philippine IR does not necessarily translate into including local scholarship at the undergraduate level. Since most, if not all, the works, programs, and educational trainings are Western dominated,

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it is rather a challenge to map and locate ‘Philippine IR.’ This critically poses a practical, pedagogical challenge as to how expectations of curricula designed in a Western or US framework are to be combined with the desire to incorporate local experiences when teaching the ‘international.’ Tracing the development of IR as an epistemic space that is at the intersection of pedagogy, practice, policy, and research thereby has the potential to reveal not only discontinuities and continuities from hegemonic and textbook narratives of IR’s development as a feld but also to discover lines of local and regional alignments of thought. A diachronic perspective supports the view that the Philippines is rife grounds for research on co-existence, difference, interaction, combination, and dialectical change (see Rosenberg, 2016, p. 139), which characterize the condition of the international and the creation of multiple modernities (Eisenstadt, 2000). Multiple modernities argues that the world manifests complex co-existing forms of modernity rather than a linear, unfurling geographic expansion of a singular Western modernity, which can serve as a broad framework for understanding a number of the chapters in this book. This stands in contrast to a general understanding that modernity refers to a theoretical deduction of facile tools which improves an individual’s socio-political and rational life by placing importance to secular and material attributes. Modernity in the sense of a process and system of the social world speaking for such universalistic claims of rationality, modernization, secularization, capitalism, bureaucratization of the socio-political lifeworld, and increasing materialism of human values. (Adiong, 2019, p. 268) The adoption of multiple modernities as a perspective, as seemingly timebound, can be further undergirded by a view of positionality that argues for the ‘the unique position determined by a specifc register and confuence of time and space, which provides the intellectual and unique possibility to create a space for one’s own thinking, to understand the world and produce knowledge in one’s own terms’ (De Joya, 2019, p. 66), which guides the historical perspective in the frst section of this book, weaving between the ‘pre-modern’ and colonial, Western ‘modernity’ and its contestations. The continuous adaptations undertaken in pursuit of modernity have proven to be of interest in studies on Philippine participation in global and regional networks, as well the various attempts domestically to unite otherwise disparate regional and linguistic groups. Both temporal and spatial dimensions of practice and conceptualization are variously drawn upon by the chapters in the book. The second question has to do with accommodating canon – and it is a question that has been asked of a rising group of scholars who have sought to create a place for non-Western thought and practice in IR theory and research – Amitav Acharya, Arlene Tickner, LHM Ling, Robbie Shilliam, Alan Chong and many others have pushed the boundaries for an engagement of the epistemicgeographic periphery and the ‘core.’ Inevitably, the search for diverse and novel

Introduction

5

meanings of the international leads to frontiers that go beyond what is accepted by canon. International relations is often cast as ‘a three- (or four-) act drama of “great debates” on teleologies, epistemologies, ontologies, and methods[,]” (Aalberts, 2018, p. 311). Its canon “parochially celebrate[s] and defend[s] or promote[s] the West as the proactive subject of, and as the highest or ideal normative referent in, world politics” (Hobson, 2012, p. 1), comprising geo-spatial and cultural frontiers that mark the epistemic boundaries of the international. The ‘core-periphery’ explanatory power, however, delimits our imaginative frontiers of unrepresented voices and diverse experiential realities across time and space. Spatiality, epistemology, and ontology are concerns that characterize this book’s place in the ‘perilous terrain that is the non-West’ (Shilliam, 2011, p. 12). It is thus no coincidence that the title of this volume is International Studies in the Philippines: Mapping New Frontiers in Theory and Practice. The idea of mapping, as a form of intellectual practice, involves the traversing of intersections between known disciplines and methods, as well as the metaphorical geo-spatial decentering of the construction of knowledge in IR. Mapping, in the sense of intellectual navigation and exploration, involves the locating of old/new voices and perspectives infused with meta-philosophical and cultural understandings that have settled in various Philippine regions over thousands of years. The imagery of mapping further serves as a potent transcultural metaphor for navigation, one that evokes the maritime history of Southeast Asia while being comprehensible to many other cultural imaginaries, albeit in different forms. The somewhat cynical reader would perhaps suggest that the interest in the non-West cannot be seen as an independent development from the power relations that exist alongside emergent scholarship. Unsurprisingly, the charge of Eurocentrism in IR shares at least two features with critiques of area studies, in that the latter has similarly been framed as a product of colonial histories (Mielke & Hornridge, 2014, p. 4) and US strategic interests during the Cold War (Harootunian, 2012). At this juncture, it is worth noting on the one hand that the centuries-old colonial harnessing and honing of colonized peoples to think and act according to colonial standards of what and how modern man ought to be, resulted in the relegation of area studies’ knowledge sources such as Hindu, Chinese or Islamic thought to mere cultural subjectivities that are incompatible with modern thinking. On the other hand, Curaming (2017) argues that even progressive social theories with critical and emancipatory aims that arose in opposition to Euro- and West-centrism in their various forms have been proffered through elites who claim to speak for the oppressed or subaltern without engaging with the targets of their research or addressing more practical concerns (p. 84), partially because of a lack of refection about the academe’s own role in the networks of power and infuence within the region and beyond. It is admittedly diffcult to ignore some of the deceivingly innocuous attempts at ‘inclusivity’ of the non-West in the IR discipline, which in practice can often be seen in the contingent roles of non-Western academics as ‘native informants’ or ‘quasi-offcials’ (Kristensen, 2015), and simplifed elite discourses on peripheral states

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and societies. In treating such contingencies that thwart the pursuit of ‘real’ inclusivity and representation as yet another manifestation of academic and global power dynamics, it is equally critical not to fall into a trap of recreating exclusivist practices and hegemonies. For instance, the potent ‘inclusivity explanandum’ promoted in the Global South IR scholarship is now being challenged by the hegemonic mirror-image of China and its advocates as, ironically, the dominant representation of the non-West. However, the more emancipatory and potentially novel dimensions of non-Western thought have a long tradition in IR, often dovetailing with critical, constructivist and refexivist scholarship. A broad agenda to uncover interdisciplinary and non-Western theoretical potentials for the discipline through area studies was further articulated in 2014, when general outlines for the promotion of pluralism in international relations were articulated in an agenda called Global IR (Acharya, 2014). Acharya (2014) thus looked to the synergy between area studies and disciplinary approaches to go ‘beyond Eurocentric models’ and investigate mutual learnings and norm diffusion through civilizational encounters (p. 647). Global IR is a call and an invitation to Global South IR scholars to produce more work that challenges and broadens knowledge centers in the West by integrating other sources equally valuable to Euro-American IR knowledge sources. The plea for the inclusion of area studies in IR approaches thus necessitates an examination of some of the debates of the nature and purpose of the same, which has been variously characterized as lacking a coherent purpose in light of its original colonial and imperial functions (Harootunian, 2012, p. 9). Contra such claims, Jackson (2019) makes the case that situating the evolution of the feld in a non-Western context belies charges made against its apparent vacuity in North America, or the United States in particular. As a feld that has become a productive site for multidisciplinary regional and transregional studies in non-Western academes, three achievements of area studies are worth noting in the context of Global IR’s agenda, namely, 1) Area studies faculties and institutes have often played a transformative and counterhegemonic role in their respective academes and vis-à-vis Western knowledge claims (Jackson, 2019, p. 53); 2) Area studies acts as a platform for translation not only between disciplines but between concepts and therefore has the potential to contribute to an understanding of complex themes that span multiple disciplines (p. 59–60), for example, the degree of ‘inter-lingual’ relations through the degree of ‘conceptual entanglements’ – or the mutual comprehensibility of ideas of international value (see Wigen, 2014). Furthermore, in a different context, the incorporation of non-Western language classes as a requirement for area studies (p. 12) has little to do with ‘orientalist’ aims or producing academic government elites trained in the languages and cultures of countries of strategic interest to hegemonic powers but rather has the potential to foster networks of solidarity that may go beyond the historical and strategic framing that has shaped regions such as Southeast Asia; and,

Introduction

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3) By housing research on transnational and regional movements, identities, and norms, area studies share an interest with IR in investigating relations between and within particular ‘areas’ and societies that may have mutual theoretical repercussions. The question of whether or not the non-West can generate theory (Acharya & Buzan, 2010) thus appears to lie not only in the ability to create new frontiers for theory and practice in IR but to be refective of the global academe’s own role in the power structures in the construction of knowledge and whom this ultimately benefts. Moreover, certain conditions were placed by Acharya and Buzan (2007, p. 292) by which non-Western theorizing can be considered as IR theory, and these are ‘extensive acknowledgment as a theory by IR scholars, identifcation as IR theory by its creator regardless of non-recognition by mainstream academic IR community, or a systematic attempt to theorize IR which provides possible starting points.’ As tentative as initial attempts at mapping are wont to be in this work, the undertaking of a task to map frontiers is not one that purports to be answered by a single volume but rather through knowledge gained from multiple sources. As a maritime metaphor, Mrazek (2019) suggests that in the sea, approaching a destination can be achieved only in consideration of multiple angles of approach and a constant awareness of the ever-changing waters. This maritime image serves as a mirror to the intersections of many geo-spatial and, in this case, epistemic and temporal boundaries of knowledge. This book is just one of the many approaches to understanding the temporal and epistemic limits of meaning in IR. It must be noted that an agenda that promotes theory generation from the non-West may not necessarily refect general trends in the Southeast Asian region, where IR research and teaching remains largely paradigmatic, with interest in theory remaining low globally (Wemheuer-Vogelaar, Bell, Morales, & Tierney, 2016). An article raising the question of whether it is the ‘end’ of IR theory (Dunne, Hansen, & Wight, 2013) ruminated over the possibilities of midrange theories as a method of bringing the discipline forward (a tendency observed in Acharya and Buzan (2017)), yet the dust is yet to settle upon which subject matters and other theories have been leveraged as a result. Whyte’s text mining of IR articles in 2019, for instance, describes how IR topics that fell within the dominant paradigms received more citations but did not necessarily expand the horizons of the discipline. Innovation in IR that expounded IR’s boundaries by bridging the knowledge fows between IR and other disciplines did not, therefore, emerge from paradigmatic research but through research that clearly fell outside of the dominant paradigms. In light of this, this book consciously adapts the agenda of Global IR in the framework of multiple modernities and context- and time-bound positionality to explore emerging frontiers in research on the international, while being cognizant of the continuing discussions and critical refections on the limitations of the role that the academe plays in lending a voice to the ‘voiceless.’ Furthermore, it envisions itself as one route out of many in an ever-dynamic sea of ideas, mapping from its particular perspective yet meeting others along the way.

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While this book does not forward a specifc theory of ‘Philippine IR’ (see Amador Peleo, this volume), it aims to remain cognizant of the diverse ways in which the positionality of the Philippines informs the exercise and contestation of agency and knowledge production in the realm of the international. The volume comprises two parts, which represent a collection of essays on potential sources of knowledge production and emerging practices derived from the situating of the Philippines in the ‘international.’ It reveals various theoretical positions that intersect with dominant paradigms in IR, without eschewing the same. Many are eclectic, representing interdisciplinary scholarship that draws heavily from historical sources, textual references, archaeological fndings, and local concepts, values, and interests that are implicitly incorporated into practices or appropriated by civil and political actors. Gamas’s chapter challenges the scope of research methods typically employed in IR that concern themselves with numerical and textual data through the extrapolation of a sub-state system from a triangulation of archaeological and textual data. The chapter serves as a critique of the extant privileging of the textual medium that has traditionally separated history from pre-history, seen from a perspective of a discipline that continues to champion textual records of historical wars and political order. The chronological structure of the section then examines two eras of anti-colonial thought: Chong presents arguments for an alternative ethos toward imperialism derived from the writings and social commentary of ilustrado and polymath Jose Rizal, who lived under Spanish rule, that poses a moral dilemma for those who wish to imagine ‘the human condition that comes after a revolution,’ while Calata then draws from the works of nationalist scholar Renato Constantino’s critiques of diplomacy during the American colonial era. The next two chapters in this section focus on contemporary examples of potential IR frontiers in the Philippines by examining the meanings and practices attributed to the ‘international,’ on one hand, and the uses of local concepts in studying the rhetoric and practices of Filipino statespeople with relevance to foreign policy on the other. Cruz examines a corpus of multidisciplinary journals to extract themes in local scholarship that revolve around the study of cross-border relations and the framing of the international, while Lopez investigates the uses of pagdamay and palakasan in the exercise of foreign policy in the Duterte presidency, revealing potential directions for research on conceptual entanglements in IR. In the last chapter, Elumbre articulates an alternative approach to international studies framed by Philippine experiences called Araling Kabanwahan. The section on practice is perhaps best approached through the idea of multiple modernities in its account of the various experiences and hybridities resulting from the global appropriation of Western modernity. The section begins with Aliya Peleo’s discussion of Philippine agrarian reforms in the context of the Cold War using a biopolitical frame that focuses on the management of people rather than territory, with both the Soviet Union and the United States vying for hegemony through paradigms of agricultural management. The next two chapters then draw attention to the relations of the Philippines with two regions that have had major historical links with the country, the Middle East (Sevilla) and Latin

Introduction

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America (Rubiolo), which the authors argue have not yet been utilized to their fullest social, political, and economic potential. The role of non-state actors and the various facets of non-traditional security issues have often characterized the concerns of developing countries, and both chapters focus on envisioning a future for strengthening the Philippines’ ties with regions that, save for a small number of issues, often fall out of scholarly and government purview (Cruz, this volume). At this juncture, Yonaha and Jison refect on the international implications of social and political transformations resulting from the presence of political institution-building that characterized the modernizing ethos of the American colonial period, on one hand, and the lingering infuences of religion in public and political life in the Philippines despite secularization, on the other, presenting a case study on the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) that explores the roles of religiously oriented non-state actors in foreign policy, which represents research in IR on the often neglected role of domestic actors that are linked in transnational networks that may exert signifcant social infuence. Doce then examines, in his chapter on norm diffusion, the role of religious actors in norm contestation revolving around the implementation of the RH bill, connecting the norms that are forwarded on the level of the ‘global’ with local negotiations and perceptions of values and traditional beliefs. Further drawing on the fuid nature of transnational issues in the region and their connection to political drives on a global level, Capistrano and Bugarin draw attention to non-traditional security issues, such as sex traffcking and Philippine participation in the Global War on Terror, which further emphasize the various dimensions of the international that warrant Philippine participation and agency. The concluding chapter by Amador Peleo IV is a caveat on the uses of ‘Philippine IR’ to maintain status quo politics in ASEAN and amongst Filipino elites that pose signifcant challenges to the articulation of emancipatory politics in the language of anti-imperialism and regionalist claims. The warning is particularly astute. As we try to navigate the Eurocentric frontiers of the IR discipline – beyond the ever-changing macro- and microcosms of oppressed and oppressor – what will it take to imagine things differently?

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International Relations Theory: Perspectives on and beyond Asia (pp. 1–25). London: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203861431 Acharya, A., & Buzan, B. (2017). Why Is There No Non-Western International Relations Theory? Ten Years On. International Relations of the Asia-Pacifc, 17(3), 341–370. doi:10.1093/irap/lcx006 Adiong, N. M. (2019). Review of the Book Questioning Modernity in Indonesia and Malaysia, by W. Mee and J. S. Kahn. Insight Turkey, 21(4), 268–270. Adiong, N. M., Mauriello, R., & Abdelkader, D. (Eds.). (2018). Islam in International Relations: Politics and Paradigms. London, UK: Routledge. Agpalo, R. E. (1979). Political Science for Knowledge and Civilization. Philippine Political Science Journal, 7(10), 59–75. Agpalo, R. E. (1998). Political Science in the Philippines 1880–1998: A History of the Discipline for the Centenary of the of the First Philippine Republic. Philippine Social Sciences Review, 55(1–4), 1–72. Behera, N. C. (2010). Reimagining IR in India. In A. Acharya & B. Buzan (Eds.), Non-Western International Relations Theory: Perspectives on and beyond Asia (pp. 92–116). London: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203861431 Bhambra, G. K. (2014). Postcolonial and Decolonial Dialogues. Postcolonial Studies, 17(2), 115–121. doi:10.1080/13688790.2014.966414 Chatterjee, P. (1995). The Disciplines in Colonial Bengal. In P. Chatterjee (Ed.), Texts of Power: Emerging Disciplines in Colonial Bengal (pp. 1–29). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Chong, A., & Hamilton-Hart, N. (2009). Teaching International Relations in Southeast Asia: Historical Memory, Academic Context, and Politics: An Introduction. International Relations of the Asia-Pacifc, 9(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1093/ irap/lcn024 Curaming, R. (2017). Beyond Knowledge Decolonization: Rethinking the Internalist Perspectives and “Progressive” Scholarship in/on Southeast Asia. Situations, 10(2), 65–90. Dabashi, H. (2015). Can Non-Europeans Think? London, UK: Zed Books. De Joya, P. R. (2019). Exploring Southeast Asian Studies beyond Anglo-America: Refections on the Idea of Positionality in Filipino Thought. Suvannabhumi: MultiDisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 11(1), 41–70. Dunne, T., Hansen, L., & Wight, C. (2013). The End of International Relations Theory? European Journal of International Relations, 19(3), 405–425. doi:10.1177/1354066113495485 Eisenstadt, S. N. (2000). Multiple Modernities. Daedalus, 129, 1–29. Hagmann, J., & Biersteker, T. (2018). Counter-Mapping the Discipline: The Archipelago of Western International Relations Teaching. In A. Gofas, I. Hamati-Ataya, & N. Onuf (Eds.), History, Philosophy and Sociology of International Relations (pp. 428–445). London: Sage Publications. doi:10.4135/9781526402066.n30 Hamati-Ataya, I. (2012). IR Theory as International Practice/Agency: A ClinicalCynical Bourdieusian Perspective. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 40(3), 625–646. doi:10.1177/0305829812442234 Harootunian, H. (2012). “Memories of Underdevelopment” after Area Studies. Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique, 20(1), 7–35. Hobson, J. M. (2012). The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics: Western International Theory: 1760–2010. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/ CBO9781139096829

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Houben, V. (2013). The New Area Studies and Southeast Asian History. DORISEA Working Paper, 4, 2–10. Inglehart, R., Haerpfer, C., Moreno, A., Welzel, C., Kizilova, K., Diez-Medrano, J., Puranen, B., et al. (Eds.). (2014). World Values Survey: Round Six-CountryPooled Datafle Version. Madrid: JD Systems Institute. Retrieved from www.worldvalues survey.org/WVSDocumentationWV6.jsp Jackson, P. (2019). Southeast Asian Area Studies beyond Anglo-America: Geopolitical Transitions, the Neoliberal Academy and Spatialized Regimes of Knowledge. Southeast Asia Research, 27(1), 49–73. doi:10.1080/0967828X.2019.1587930 Kristensen, P. M. (2015). How Can Emerging Powers Speak? On Theorists, Native Informants and Quasi-Offcials in International Relations Discourse. Third World Quarterly, 36(4), 637–653. doi:10.1080/01436597.2015.1023288 McCoy, A. (1994). “An Anarchy of Families”: The Historiography of State and Family in the Philippines. In A. McCoy (Ed.), An Anarchy of Families: State and Family in the Philippines (pp. 1–32). Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press. Mielke, K., & Hornridge, A. (2014). Crossroads Studies: From Spatial Containers to Interactions in Differentiated Spatialities: “Area Studies” Discussion Paper of the Research Network: Crossroads Asia. Bonn: Crossroads Asia Working Paper Series No. 15. Retrieved from www.zef.de/fleadmin/webfles/downloads/projects/crossroads/ publications/Xroads_Working_Paper_15_Mielke_Hornidge_Crossroads_ Studi.pdf Mrazek, J. (2019). The Prison and the Sea. Suvannabhumi, 11(1), 7–40. Rosenberg, J. (2016). International Relations in the Prison of Political Science. International Relations, 30(2), 127–153. doi:10.1177/0047117816644662 Rozman, G. (2015). The 2000s: China’s Rise, Responses to It, and IR Theory. In G. Rozman (Ed.), Misunderstanding Asia: International Relations Theory and Asian Studies over Half a Century (pp. 143–162). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/9781137506726 Shilliam, R. (2011). The Perilous But Unavoidable Terrain of the Non-West. In R. Shilliam (Ed.), International Relations and Non-Western Thought: Imperialism, Colonialism, and Investigations of Global Modernity (pp. 12–26). London: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203842126 Teehankee, J. (2014). The Study of Politics in Southeast Asia: The Philippines in Southeast Asia. Philippine Political Science Journal, 35(1), 1–18. doi:10.1080/01 154451.2014.903555 TRIP Data Dashboard. (forthcoming). Retrieved from https://trip.wm.edu/charts/ Vasilaki, R. (2012). Provincialising IR? Deadlocks and Prospects in Post-Western IR Theory. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 41(3), 3–22. doi:10.1177/ 0305829812451720 Wemheuer-Vogelaar, W., Bell, N. J., Morales, M. N., & Tierney, M. J. (2016). The IR of the Beholder: Examining Global IR Using the 2014 TRIP Survey. International Studies Review, 18, 16–32. doi:10.1093/isr/viv032 Wigen, E. (2014). Two-Level Language Games: International Relations as InterLingual Relations. European Journal of International Relations, 21(2), 427–450. doi:10.1177/1354066114541878

Part I

Mapping concepts

1

Butuan in the pre-colonial Southeast Asian international system Reconstructing international history from text, memory, and artifacts John Harvey D. Gamas

The problem in IR historiography The historiography of mainstream international relations (IR) is framed along the lines of nation-state system development. Standard IR genealogy traces itself back to the Greek poleis, the Italian city-states, the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, the Concert of Europe, the 20th-century World Wars, and the Cold War. This orthodoxy has anachronistically privileged the state as the prime actor in the international political system and the West as the center of global turning points. As a consequence, Western history is deeply entrenched in IR theorizing (Buzan, 2016, p. 156). Non-Western ‘voices, experiences, knowledge-claims, and contributions’ are thus neglected or peripheralized in the discipline (Acharya, 2014, p. 647). Southeast Asia is one of the world’s regions left on the sidelines of IR. To make IR more inclusive of non-Western regions and particularly of Southeast Asia, Alan Chong (2007, pp. 417–420) advised, among others, to utilize historians’ insights in developing an ‘indigenous model’ of international relations. Consequently, Chong (2012) attempted to engage in non-Western theorizing through an analysis of the Sejarah Melayu – the annals of the Sultanate of Malacca. Other places in Southeast Asia could also provide sources for non-Western IR theorizing. In the Philippines, a potential source could come from an exploration of the enigmatic pre-Hispanic polity of Butuan. However, one must be wary of the pervasive nationalist historiography in Southeast Asia that seeks to legitimize and naturalize nation-states. Nationalist historiography being a by-product of Western experience situates ancient polities along a teleological trajectory of national development. The narratives and material vestige of old kingdoms have been the locus of nationalist myth-making (Reynolds, 1995, pp. 420–421). In the hope of establishing a long historical pedigree modeled upon the Western ontology of progress, modern nation-states in Southeast Asia have appropriated ancient political units as predecessor sovereign entities contextualized in a Westphalian anarchic system. The

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primordialism, essentialism, and exceptionalism of this narrative have disconnected ancient polities from their historical context. Furthermore, the pervading West-centrism in the academe has reifed this narrative while eschewing other alternative paradigms and overemphasizing the validity of written texts as sources of history. The dominant nationalist paradigm of history in the region thus hampers the call for non-Western theorizing from Southeast Asia as an antidote to the Eurocentrism and state-centrism of IR. The pitfall of nationalist historiography is the re-nationalization of IR, even as they try to uncover non-Western voices (Hellmann & Valbjørn, 2017, p. 281). To a certain extent, pre-colonial Butuan has been understood through the lens of nationalism. Greg Hontiveros (2004), in Butuan of a Thousand Years, regarded Butuan’s pre-colonial past as a source of “tremendous pride” (p. xiv). He argued that local history should stretch far back in time, even before the First Philippine Revolution, and focus on other locales in order ‘to understand, in a much more comprehensive manner, our history, and . . . ourselves as a people’ (Hontiveros, 2004, pp. xiv–xv). Similarly, despite the efforts of the editors and contributors of Philippines Ancestral Gold (Capistrano-Baker, 2011) to avoid nationalist primordialism and exceptionalism even as they dedicate a particular chapter on Butuan, the book title nevertheless hints at the nationalistic purpose of those who commissioned the book. In the foreword, Jaime Zobel de Ayala, the chair of the Ayala Foundation, appropriates ancient gold craft as the ‘apt metaphors for where we have been and what we can achieve as a people, and a nation’ (Capistrano-Baker, 2011, p. 12). This problem necessitates a new approach by which to understand history. If we are to make better use of Southeast Asian pre-colonial history in enriching IR historiography, there is a need for a framework that contextualizes local experience rather than a superimposition of an exogenous and universalized interpretation of historical development. I, therefore, propose O. W. Wolters’s mandala polity as an analytic framework to better understand pre-colonial regional polities like that of Butuan. Moreover, there must be a willingness to utilize various sources for reconstructing history. The overreliance on primary textual sources, which has often been the case in IR, disadvantages pre-literate communities and those communities that are literate yet left only a few records or whose purpose of writing was not the mere recording of events. Indigenous evidence of writing discovered in Butuan come from two gold strips which was probably an amulet (Orlina, 2012). Other written accounts on Butuan were from an outsider’s point of view – relying on them would not provide a complete picture of Butuanon agency. Therefore, I also propound the use of non-textual sources in addition to historical sources. In the following pages, I frst discuss the essential elements of Wolters’s mandala polity. Second, with the use of textual and non-textual sources, I then use the mandala to reconstruct pre-colonial Butuan history. Finally, I highlight the methodological and theoretical lessons that international relations could take from the Butuan mandala polity and its historical reconstruction.

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Wolters’s mandala polity: personal hegemony and competition

Alan Chong (2007) frst suggested utilizing the insights of O. W. Wolters, one of Southeast Asia’s most prominent historians. In describing the unique characteristics of pre-colonial Southeast Asian states, Wolters (1982, 1999) borrowed the Sanskrit term mandala, or ‘circle of kings’ from the Arthasastra. A mandala was a political unit where one king or overlord claimed ‘divine and “universal” authority’ and ‘personal hegemony over the other rulers in his mandala who in theory were his obedient allies and vassal’ (Wolters, 1999, p. 27). As such, the mandala was non-territorial but personal, being personally identifed with its overlord. The overlord in typical ‘big-man’ fashion must demonstrate virtue usually through ritual investiture, possession of sacral objects, or monumental constructions. These visible manifestations of virtue sought to elicit awe at the virtue or prowess of the overlord and consequently attract alliances from chieftains or the loyalty of ordinary people (Wolters, 1999, pp. 18–19). In a sparsely populated Southeast Asia, humans were the most valuable resource. The land was abundant; hence, conquest was made to capture people rather than expand territory. The territorial delimitations of a mandala were at best amorphous, as it was situated in ‘a vaguely defnable geographical area without fxed boundaries’ (Wolters, 1999, p. 28). The mandala was multicentric – with various smaller or less powerful centers dominated by the overlord as the paramount chief. Nevertheless, this was a highly unstable and fuid political setup. Alliances and status of centers could shift expediently; thus, mandalas ‘would expand and contract in concertina like fashion’ (Wolters, 1999, p. 28). If the chance presented itself, tributary chiefs could abrogate their inferior status, compete with other centers, and establish themselves as mandalas. This competitive situation made it necessary for a mandala to have two skills in governance. The frst of this was the gathering of updated information on events ‘happening on the fringes’ (Wolters, 1999, p. 28). The second skill was diplomacy. The mandala overlord had to deprive rivals of their claims but also bring them under his infuence through accommodation and investiture. Though the overlord had the exclusive right to receive tribute from envoys and send offcials to represent his higher status, he “was not an autocrat” but an accessible “mediator” who was able to unite different groups (Wolters, 1999, pp. 28–29). Despite the overlord’s prominence, he was, therefore, not an emperor or a dictator. The hierarchy entailed by kingdoms, states, and empires does not come close to the reality of the mandala. In contrast to a European-style kingdom, a mandala does not automatically entail a ruling dynasty with regular and precise succession mechanisms. This characteristic was due to the equal importance of both paternal and maternal ancestry, as well as the status of charismatic or “big-man” leadership in Southeast Asia (Wolters, 1999, p. 18). Unlike a state, a mandala has no fxed boundaries and bureaucracy under a functionally differentiated regime. The titles granted to chieftains through investiture were merely honorary and meant to

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Figure 1.1 A mandala network of alliances

maintain the loyalty of a tributary chieftain (Wolter, 1999, p. 29). There was no functional differentiation between the overlord and his tributary chiefs. The latter continued to be the unquestioned lord of his immediate subjects and locale. A closer description of a mandala is that of an alliance network of minor and major tributary chiefs around a central node – the overlord. Figure 1.1 provides a conceptual map of the interconnections within a mandala polity. The personal identifcation of the mandala with the overlord also makes it incomparable to that of the nation-state. Accordingly, it cannot be taken as a precursor to modern nation-states, given that a mandala cannot be neatly situated in the band-tribe-chiefdom-state continuum. A mandala did not constitute greater socio-political integration. Because of the competition, there was a constant oscillation between coalescence and disintegration. It manifests attributes of the state and tribe but is neither. It was hierarchic but also anarchic in the sense that tributaries remain independent despite recognizing the superior status of the overlord. This state of affairs then makes a mandala hierarchy not as cohesive and durable as that of an empire. As such, the mandala polity challenges mainstream IR’s standard binary of hierarchy and anarchy in describing a system.

II

Reconstructing history from textual and non-textual sources

IR theorizing on history has always proceeded from written sources. But bringing non-Western experiences into the discipline would inevitably entail an openness to various data sources, especially since Southeast Asian mandalas did not leave much literature. By weaving both textual and non-textual sources, a clear history

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of Butuan and its role in the mandalic structure could emerge. Aside from flling the gaps, non-textual sources could also triangulate textual data, given that they come from an outsider’s vantage point. Though the history that we may reconstruct out of them might be incomplete and even speculative, it could still give us valuable insights for IR pre-theorizing.

The relevance of Butuan’s tribute missions to China from text, artifacts, and memory The primary textual source on pre-Hispanic Butuan comes from the 1345 compilation of Song Dynasty imperial annals, the Song hui-yao ji-gao, or simply Songshi. William Henry Scott (1989) frst brought to our attention a portion of Volume 197 of the Songshi, which detailed the series of tribute missions sent by the Butuan rajas to the celestial court in the frst part of the 11th century. What happened next to Butuan in subsequent centuries is still shrouded in mystery. Relying solely on these written sources could produce this convenient interpretation: that the trade missions were manifestations of the apex of Butuan’s power while the subsequent years were a decline characterized by subservience to other more powerful entities. But bringing in archaeological fndings would make this interpretation simplistic if not erroneous. Laura Junker (2000, p. 99) pointed out a disjuncture between the abundance of historical reference on Butuan in the 11th century and copious archaeological proof for political expansion in the 12th to 13th centuries. Indeed, the Butuan trade missions recorded in the Songshi were sent during the Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127), while the amount of archaeological evidence on settlement and foreign trade goods mostly came from the period of the Southern Song Dynasty (1127–1279). Junker argued that Butuan succeeded in monopolizing the trade against its rivals, hence rendering it unnecessary to continue sending expensive tribute missions to China. Carrying a mission to China required a signifcant investment, and unless there were compelling reasons, a polity would not send one. In the light of Wolters’s mandala polity, Butuan’s participation in the Chinese tribute system was a function of the dynamics of mandala competition. Furthermore, the mandala framework situates Butuan in the greater regional context at the turn of the second millennium CE (Figure 1.2). The Songshi records that Butuan (Pinyin: Puduan) did not have ‘much communication with China’ but that it ‘has had mutual relations with Champa’ and that ‘it was beneath Champa’ (Scott, 1989, p. 27). From here, we can glean that Butuan was a tributary of the Cham mandala. The conduct of trade with China was via this mandala overlord. The disturbance in Champa caused by the southward Vietnamese expansion in the late tenth century was Butuan’s golden opportunity to assert itself (Coedes, 1968; Wade, 2005). Direct trading links with China were economically rewarding and, above all, prestige enhancing – something that was necessary for an aspiring mandala. However, gaining access to the China trade was highly regulated, and only those who were considered as deserving by the imperial court were allowed to trade.

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Figure 1.2 The location of Butuan and powerful polities in the tenth to 13th centuries

Southeast Asian polities sent tribute missions to China to gain favor and present a particular request. Butuan’s tribute missions to China were mainly sent to gain direct trading access and also obtain status-enhancing ritual objects. Once the mission reached the court, they had to make ritual obeisance to the Chinese emperor. To Chinese eyes, this was an acknowledgment of the emperor’s predominance and the attractiveness of their superior civilization. China’s culture may have attracted Southeast Asian polities, but their outward acceptance of the emperor’s primacy was a necessary expedient, which in reality did not amount to anything in practice (Wolters, 1970, p. 37). Butuan’s frst recorded mission paid tribute in October of 1003 during the reign of Emperor Zhenzong (997–1022). This mission was sent by a certain ‘king’ whose name was transliterated to ‘Qi Ling’ (Scott, 1989, p. 27). The return gift was monetary and given to the envoys during the 1004 lunar new year. The mission seems to have caused a stir since a Chinese offcial complained to the court of the envoys’ trading activities with Chinese merchants in violation of the prohibition to directly trade in the market (Scott, 1989, p. 27). In the light of a mandala’s quest for prestige-enhancing objects, the envoys must have been

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dissatisfed with the monetary reward and opted to augment it from what they could get from the Chinese market. The same Butuan raja sent another mission, which arrived in July/August of 1007. This time, his envoys were given an escort, perhaps to regulate their commercial dealings as a result of the previous visit’s recommendation. Apparently, in a bid to impress the emperor, more sumptuous tribute gifts like sea turtle shells, camphor, and cloves were offered. Camphor was outsourced from Sumatra while cloves came from the Moluccas – attesting to the extent of Butuan’s trade network. Accompanying these gifts was an audacious request from the raja of Butuan: to be accorded the same status as the kingdom of Champa. The request was rejected on the pretext that Butuan was ‘beneath Champa’ (Scott, 1989, p. 27). This phrase entailed the peripheral status of Butuan in China’s tribute hierarchy. China must have understood the relationship that Butuan had with Champa since they were given fve small fags as a face-saving alternative. These banners could still serve Butuan’s purpose to gain the loyalty of its neighboring chieftains (Scott, 1989, p. 27). The Butuan ruler’s request for banners from the imperial court was also an attempt to repudiate his inferior status and gain parity with Champa. This interpretation conforms to what Wolters (1999, p. 28) described as the changeability and contestability of status in the mandala system. Four years later, in March 1011, another Butuan raja bearing an Indianized name, Sri Bata Shaja or Śrī Paduka Haji, sent a delegation led by Li Yuxie to present the imperial court with an engraved gold memorial tablet, cloves, and camphor, among other things (Scott, 1989, pp. 27–28). The adoption of a foreign name was status-enhancing and signifed greater pretensions to power. The overall value of the tribute goods was an indication of rising prosperity resulting in greater political confdence. To further impress the Chinese emperor, the Butuan envoys offered a slave. Since humans were the most valuable resource in Southeast Asia, this was indeed an expensive gift. Interestingly, Sri Bata Shaja’s 1011 embassy was not the only tribute mission to have appeared in the Chinese imperial court. The emissaries of Qulan of Sanmalan, Wuhuang of Wuxun, and Mawuhele of Pu-po-luo also paid tribute (Scott, 1989, p. 28). It appears that these simultaneous missions came from around northeastern Mindanao and Southeastern Visayas. Scott’s translation has a discrepancy as Pu-po-luo is not found in the original Chinese text of the Songshi. Mawuhele was mysteriously referred to as “Butuan King.” There are two possible implications of the tribute of these rajas to Butuan that are consistent with Wolters’s understanding of the fuidity of status and alliances in a mandala polity. First, it might be that they were simply part of the expanded entourage of Sri Bata Shaja, being their mandala overlord. But it might also mean that the three rajas were rivals of Sri Bata Shaja’s overlordship and Mawuhele was the leading contender hence the title “Butuan King.” In subsequent months, all of the envoys were given honorary titles. Apparent though was the precedence given by the Chinese court to Li Yuxie, the envoy of Sri Bata Shaja, being the only one mentioned in the last entry. The 1011 mission seems to have ended successfully with the granting of the requested fags – so successfully that Butuan no longer sent succeeding missions.

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However, how the Butuanons viewed China can only be inferred from oral sources. From the mandalic reading of the Songshi, it can be assumed that the tribute system of China was a locus from which to prove the superior virtue of a mandala overlord. China was a source of status-enhancing prestige goods. Besides, a journey to China was deemed to be a virtuous quest because of the considerable distance and cost. An oral tradition could affrm this interpretation. In the Visayan epic of Datu Sumanga and Bugbung Humansanun, Alcina (as cited in Scott, 1994, p. 102) recounted the ffth task demanded by the latter to the former to prove his love and prowess to her. After conducting numerous raids in Mindanao and the Visayas, Bugbung Humansanun challenged Datu Sumanga to attack China. The latter immediately set sail for China’s southern littoral. The raiding gathered shiploads of goods and captives, which he sent to the princess as an attestation. From this epic tale, we can glean how the Visayan worldview valued the demonstration of prowess and how China served that purpose. Based on linguistic affnity, the Butuanon people were Visayans possessing shared maritime skills and mindsets. The mandalic interpretation of the Butuan mission to China in the early decades of the 11th century avoided the pitfall of merely seeing it as a manifestation of economic and political ascendancy. The scant archeological data coinciding with the period of the historically recorded missions was replaced subsequently by the abundance of artifacts and yet the silence of textual sources. Butuan, therefore, must not have declined after the missions. This divergence between the historical record and archaeological data was reconciled with the idea that the missions were essentially a function of mandala competition for supremacy. Moreover, the mandala framework mitigated the danger of privileging the Chinese point of view of the Songshi. The framework has brought to light the intentions behind the tribute senders. Still, the shortage, if not the general silence of textual sources after the 1011 mission, leaves a gaping lacuna in Butuan history from the period of its ascendancy to its eventual decline. The next Chinese textual reference on Butuan in the Yongle Encyclopedia of the early 15th century was brief. By then, it seemed that Butuan, together with other places in the Philippines, was already a tributary of Brunei (Scott, 1989, pp. 6 & 21). Despite this predicament, it is still possible to reconstruct Butuan’s history through the use of both archaeology and oral tradition. The epic of Datu Sumanga and Bugbung Humansanun already illustrated how oral tradition could enrich our understanding of the culture and worldviews of pre-colonial peoples. Moreover, there are also other textual sources not explicitly mentioning Butuan, that could be used as a cross-reference to give us snippets of its history.

The political economy of the Butuan mandala from artifacts and memory The abundant material remains of earlier human activity in northeastern Mindanao hints at the extent of the political-economy of Butuan. Mostly centered in and around Barangay Libertad are the archaeological excavations in present-day

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Butuan City. These excavations, which often follow the trail of pot-hunters, have revealed settlements characterized by houses on stilts located along river banks or on top of swamps and usually adjacent to burial sites (Burton, 1977; Bolunia, 2014). Barangay Libertad and its surrounding barangays were also trading zones. Aside from the remains of seagoing vessels and a large number of artifacts, old Butuanon place names still in use like ‘Doongan,’ for a docking place, and ‘Ambangan’ for a place where people bring and exchange goods, are clues to the area’s past purpose as a trading center (Bolunia, 2014, p. 47). These toponyms are what remain in the oral tradition of the ancient trading activities and the land’s closeness to the sea. At present, Barangay Libertad is approximately fve kilometers from the coast of Butuan Bay. A geo-archaeological study on the Masao-Butuan plain conducted in 2001 showed the drastic alteration of the landscape through time (Javelosa, Gatdula, & Ronquillo, 2002 as cited in Bolunia, 2014, p. 40). From the tenth to the 13th centuries, the environs of Barangay Libertad were nearer to the seacoast and strategically connected to the Agusan River. Butuan then was not yet a single landmass, as it was a swamp interspersed with numerous waterways. The settlements characteristic of Butuan were ‘semi-aquatic’ and were comparable to those of Srivijaya, Brunei, and Banjarmasin (Bronson & Wisseman, 1978, p. 236). Ibn Sa’id, a 13th-century Arab traveler, described Srivijaya as ‘a city built on wooden piles at the edge of a large tidal river” (Tibbet as cited in Hall, 2011, p. 129). This settlement on piles made of perishable materials, as well as the absence of enduring monumental architecture in Srivijaya’s Palembang capital, was analogous to the urbanscape of Butuan with a trading center and human habitation clusters dispersed around the delta’s mangroves and waterways. This image was a far cry from the typical model of a centralizing city-state replete with permanent protective wall enclosures. The traces of a palisade excavated in Butuan (Bolunia, 2014, p. 54) do not suggest a large enclosure of human settlements. Rather than securely safeguard a center, what was more important for the Butuan polity was access to its upstream and downstream network. The settlement pattern of Butuan was a function of its being a riverine system polity. Like Srivijaya and other maritime Southeast Asian ports, the location of Butuan at the juncture of coast and river gave it access to international trade and control over hinterland produce. The Agusan River and its numerous tributaries were the primary transportation avenue of forest products gathered by upstream tribes. From the dense jungles of Mindanao came beeswax, civet musk oil, and various aromatic products – for example, Mindanao cinnamon, resin, and camphor (Hontiveros, 2013, pp. 103–105). From the adjacent sea came pearls, tortoise shells, mother of pearls, salt, and fsh. Gold, Butuan’s most prized commodity, was easily panned from rivers. The amount of crucible and other tools for metalworking found in Butuan proves the existence of an industry that produced a considerable amount of metalcraft (Ronquillo, 1989). These goods were then traded for imported products, like ceramics and silk from China. The political-economy of Butuan was dependent on its ability to control the upstream and downstream networks of its riverine system. Bronson (1977) has

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provided a model for this spatial organization. This model has been called the ‘dendritic system.’ From Srivijayan experience, it can be deduced that the maintenance of this upstream network depends mostly upon the ability of the port ruler to attract the loyalty of upstream chiefs (Hall, 2011, pp. 114–115). This capacity stemmed from the mandala overlord’s prestige and was expressed through ritual displays of power, victory over rivals, and international trade in his ports. These demonstrations of virtue guarantee spiritual and material benefts to anyone who chooses to follow the overlord. Wolters (1999) designated the latter as a ‘man of prowess’ whose leadership rested on other people’s recognition of his spiritual superiority (pp. 18–19). The Butuan raja must have demonstrated virtue enough to draw people to his service. Archeological discoveries, mostly of prestige goods, allude to Butuan’s involvement in a wide-ranging international trade network (Figure 1.3). Ceramics and stoneware dating from the tenth to the 13th centuries reveal trading links with China, mainland Southeast Asia, and even as far as Persia (Brown, 1989, pp. 71 & 79; Bolunia, 2014, p. 52; Hontiveros, 2013, p. 106). Coinciding with the time of the Butuan tribute missions to China is the presence of Song Dynasty ceramics. Most of these ceramics, however, come after the end of the missions, from the Southern Song period. There were also ceramic artifacts from the earlier Tang and Five Dynasties. Without direct trade access to China during these older dynasties, Champa must have served as the intermediary port for these trade goods. White

Figure 1.3 Imported ceramics and stoneware found in Butuan; on the left is a Vietnamese ceramic plate, and on the right are sherds of Persian stoneware and Thai earthenware Source: Photo courtesy of the Researcher, taken from the National Museum, Butuan City

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clay ceramics points to a Southern Thailand provenance (Bolunia, 2014, p. 53). Musical instruments similar to those found elsewhere in Southeast Asia like an embossed gong, a cymbal, and bells were also excavated in Butuan (Nicolas, 2009, p. 68). These objects connect Butuan to Java. Another signifcant link to Java is a silver paleograph, engraved with a writing system similar to the Javanese script used from the 12th to the 15th centuries (Peralta, 1979; Hontiveros, 2013, p. 102). Still, the most spectacular archeological artifacts are the gold ornaments and implements unearthed in Butuan and other locations around northern Mindanao. The distribution of these various archeological fnds suggests the geographic extent of the Butuan polity’s infuence in northern Mindanao. The gold craft manifests both indigenous- and Hindu-Buddhist-inspired motifs like the Garuda and Kinnari. Though executed distinctively, these gold artifacts also show Javanese, Cham, and other Southeast Asian infuences. The most celebrated of all artifacts is the Agusan Image, popularly known as the Golden Tara. A Manobo woman accidentally discovered the image along the Wawa River in Esperanza, Agusan del Sur, in 1917 (Capistrano-Baker, 2011, p. 262). This river is another tributary of the Agusan River. The wealthiest gold fnd was discovered in Sitio Magroyong, San Miguel, Surigao Del Sur (Capistrano-Baker, 2011, p. 205). The gold could be telltale evidence of the connection between Butuan and the eastern parts of Surigao Del Sur. A textual source from the dawn of Spanish colonization provides a clue. Pigafetta’s account of Magellan’s voyage to the Philippines relates to their warm welcome by a handsomely dressed ‘king’ sporting gold ornaments and tattoos (Blair & Robertson, 1906, vol. 33, p. 122). This king’s name was Colambu, and his island ‘was called Butuan and Calagan.’ Calagan refers to the eastern coast of Mindanao, probably around Tandag and Tago, Surigao Del Sur. In my interview with the discoverer of the San Miguel gold horde and with the Manobos living in the area, a shady oral tradition emerged. Magroyong (or Magruyong), the specifc area where the gold artifacts were found, was allegedly the name of a fabulously wealthy Datu who lived there in ancient times. The Manobos contend that the original pronunciation of the name was Magrujong or Magjudong. Could this be the mysterious Mawuhele of the Songshi who also sent a tribute mission in 1011? The Manobos confrmed that they originated from the Agusan River, the body of water that fows to the sea via Butuan. The capacity of the Butuanons to directly involve themselves in the maritime trade network would have been placed in doubt had remains of large oceangoing ships not been found. So far, there are a total of nine ocean sailing ships recovered in Barangay Libertad in Butuan City. These ships, often called balangay (Figure 1.4), were radiocarbon dated from as early as 320 CE to 1250 CE, (Clark, Green, Vosmer, & Santiago, 1993, p. 143), while some were as late as 1270–1410 CE (Manguin, 1993, p. 257). Most plausibly, their purpose was to carry trade goods. The presence and number of ships that docked in a port enhanced the prestige of a mandala overlord presiding therein. Moreover, the brisk trading brought about by these ships accrues a considerable amount of wealth that allows

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Figure 1.4 Remains of a balangay boat with its stone anchor Source: Photo courtesy of the research taken from the Balangay Shrine, Butuan City

the overlord to continuously redistribute largesse to tributary chiefs and thus keep their loyalty. Artifacts from ceramics down to the gold were essential prestige goods that enabled the overlord to faunt his superior virtue. Largesse was not the only means by which to maintain the mandala. Another essential element in the political-economy of trading entrepôts in Southeast Asia was the alliance with seafaring peoples. They kept the sea lanes open but attacked enemy ships and raided coastal communities. The Chams, who were seafaring themselves, raided rival ports (Hall, 2011). Srivijaya utilized the orang laut to guard the vital sea lanes (Wolters, 1970). The Sultanates of Maguindanao and

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Sulu followed this pattern during colonial times (Warren, 1981; Hayase, 2007). It is therefore not far-fetched to believe that Butuan must have also relied on the mercenary services of maritime peoples. Scott (1989) suggested that the Sanmalan of Songshi referred to the Samals, a traditionally seafaring people. Until now, the Samals, otherwise known as the Sama-Bajau, have an enduring boat-building tradition that they claim was handed down to them by their forefathers (Bolunia, 2014). Interestingly, there is a common oral tradition in northern Mindanao that tells of a mysterious group of raiders that they called Ikugan. During the American occupation, John M. Garvan (1931) recorded the story of the Ikugan, who devastated the Agusan Valley, from Butuan to the town of Veruela in the interior. Ikugan means ‘tailed men’ on account of their dagger or adze-like tail. Because of the ferocity of the Ikugan and the devastation they caused, the Manobos fed the Agusan Valley for the Pacifc coast towards Surigao. As mysterious as their entry, the Ikugan left the region without a trace. It is diffcult to ascertain what specifc historical event inspired this tale. Linda Burton (personal communication, February 3, 2018) confrmed that there are numerous tales of the Ikugan not only in Agusan but even in Bukidnon. These tales she said were referring to the Moro raiders of the 18th and 19th centuries. The long swords they carried made them resemble tailed men, hence Ikugan. But I hazard that the inspiration for the Ikugan came from an earlier group of invaders. Evidence comes from a Chinese account. From 1174 to 1190, a strange group of pirates raided the Fujian seaboards. Zhao Rugua called them ‘Pi-sheye.’ Scott (1989, p. 5) argued that these were probably Visayans. Isorena (2004) furthered this argument and identifed their origin in eastern and northern Samar. Before the slave-raiding Moros of Mindanao came to the Visayas, the Visayans went to raid Mindanao (Moriz, 1882 as cited in Isorena, 2004, pp. 76–77). As seen earlier, the Visayan epic tale of Datung Sumanga and Bugbung Humasanun recounted how the former, in order to prove his worthiness to the latter’s love, conducted several raids in the northern and eastern coasts of Mindanao, the Sulu Archipelago, and of course China (Alcina in Scott, 1994, pp. 101–103). This tale shows that piratical raiding was another demonstration of superior prowess. The Pi-she-ye must have initially been Butuan’s allies who raided coastal communities as a demonstration of the overlord’s prowess. They must have eventually turned against the overlord – an ever-present reality in a mandala polity. But what makes them the Ikugan? Zhao Rugua describes the Pi-she-ye’s javelin-like iron weapon attached to a rope for easy retrieval. This javelin might have come down in legend as tails – thus, the name Ikugan (Isorena, 2004, p. 73). Despite the political uncertainty brought about by its fuidity, mandalas do not necessarily come to an end with dramatic violence. Butuan must have also undergone such a decline or, more precisely, a fading out. The causes of the decline could be a change in the political-economic conditions of the trading port or maybe the rise of a more attractive rival mandala center. At the time of Magellan’s arrival, Butuan had long lost its preponderance. The Butuanons recommended Magellan to proceed to Cebu (Zubu), as it was the most crucial port with the

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most trade (Blair & Robertson, 1906, vol. 33, p. 129). We may infer that Cebu was a successor of Butuan and the residence of an emerging mandala overlord. Other Spanish sources speak of a different mandala successor. According to Francisco Combes, S. J. Butuan, which he regarded as a mere ‘village,’ was the provenance of ‘the rulers and nobility of all the islands of Jolo and Basilan’ (Blair & Robertson, 1906, vol. 40, p. 126). It was also affrmed by Juan Francisco de San Antonio in his Cronicas when he wrote that ‘the King of Jolo even confessed that he was a Butuan’ (Blair & Robertson, 1906, vol. 40, p. 312). Further attesting these accounts is the close linguistic affnity between the Tausug and Butuanon languages. The movement of people from Butuan to Sulu might have been induced economically. The decline of the Butuan mandala coincides with the development of Sulu as a strategically located alternative port of call at about the time of the Ming Dynasty. Not only that, it was nearer to the wealthier trading centers of the western half of Southeast Asia, but the Sulu archipelago was also a leading source of high-quality pearls and other marine products of interest to the Chinese market. In contrast to the Pacifc Ocean spice trade route of Butuan, the Sulu-bound maritime route was safer and thus preferred. The Sulu connection might also explain why Butuan was drawn in the 15th century to the Bruneian mandala. Out of both textual and non-textual sources, I have attempted to reconstruct Butuan’s pre-colonial history using the mandala polity as a framework. Piecing together different data sources like Chinese records, archaeological and ethnographic studies, and oral tradition provides a better and more dynamic picture of history. This picture highlights local agency, as the mandala polity was an active participant of a broader political-economic system. Butuan’s career as a mandala, therefore, is best seen through the unbounded view of international history rather than the more parochial vision of nationalists to appropriate the past to the nationbuilding project.

III

Lessons for international relations

What lessons can international relations draw as a discipline from this reconstruction of Butuan history? On the level of methodology, IR should venture more into the use of various data sources in the study of the past. On the level of theory, the history of non-Western regions could infuse IR’s static picture of history with dynamism and nuance. No other example proves IR’s overreliance on textual sources more than its frequent reference to the work of Thucydides (Morgenthau, Thompson, & Clinton, 2006; Lowell, 2000). His account of the Peloponnesian War is the foundation of the fundamental concepts of realpolitik. But constructivists like Lebow (2008) also used Thucydides and by extension Greek philosophy to develop a cultural theory of international relations. Inevitably, the universalization of the experience and lessons of the Peloponnesian War reifes the Western-centric metanarrative of IR. Additionally, the emphasis on textual sources implicitly discourages the study of pre-literate societies. Part of addressing IR’s Western-centrism, therefore, is the utilization of non-textual sources in the study of international history.

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Textual sources do not provide the whole picture. A signifcant source is archaeological data. IR specialists do not need to go to the feld to conduct the digging themselves. It is already suffcient to rely on the work of archaeologists. This source, in itself, will enrich the multidisciplinarity of IR research. Archaeological studies primarily serve as a check on certain assumptions that might emanate from a mere reading of primary sources. As illustrated earlier, the initial interpretation that Butuan’s tribute missions to China represent political and economic ascendancy was deemed anomalous in the face of an increase in the number of ceramic artifacts after the tribute missions. It drove to the limelight a historical reality – the sending of tribute missions to China by Southeast Asian polities was mandalic competition by other means. The multitude of artifacts discovered in Butuan underwent many archaeological studies. Piecing them together cements Butuan’s place in an international history characterized by a broad network of interactions and sources of infuence. Butuan cannot thus be considered as remote, but accessible and active. Another critical data source is oral history. The utilization of oral history is not new to the writing of history. However, compared to written primary sources, orality remains largely unexplored by IR historians. Oral history here would mean any unwritten local account of past events and cultural practices orally transmitted from one generation to another. Some of them eventually were recorded and translated. Of course, these sources will not give us a factual retelling of the past. Pre-modern societies were not after the mere recording of events as they exactly unfolded. Oral history is nevertheless a repository of indigenous worldviews containing some actual historical occurrences preserved in the form of various literary genres, such as myths, epics, and legends. In using legends, like the famous mainland Southeast Asian story of Kaundinya, Kenneth Hall (2011) advised that they must not ‘be taken too literally, but as symbolic if not metaphoric references’ (p. 49). Their purpose is to ‘provide meaning relative to a specifc local space, in references to mountains, water, and sky’ (Hall, 2011, p. 49). In contrast to textual sources written from external standpoints, oral history highlights local agency, culture, and worldviews. My reconstruction of Butuan history made some use of oral history. The story of Datu Sumanga and Bugbung Humansanun illustrated that epics are repositories of indigenous worldviews and values like the importance of prowess. This epic also showed that China was a target of Visayan raiding. From the oral account of Datu Magroyong, I gathered a possible link with the Mawuhele of the Songshi. Pending further research, I can initially infer from this legend the probable geographic extent of the Butuan mandala. The examination of the Ikugan tale produced a stimulating list of possibilities, which essentially revealed the role of maritime peoples in demonstrating the prowess of a mandala overlord. In terms of theory, this chapter has shown the greater diversity and dynamism in the nature of political units. The mandala was a political unit that challenged the static notions of the sovereign and territorial nation-state. The mandala polity exhibits a hierarchical system of alliances under an overlord. But mandalas were also anarchical since the overlord merely exercised hegemony and not imperial authority. The tributary chiefs could shift their allegiance to another overlord or

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revoke their inferior status and vie for overlordship themselves. On a larger scale, the Southeast Asian international system in an anarchic fashion constituted rival mandalas. But every mandala was also anarchic despite the hierarchical organization of status among rulers. The mandala overlord only had hegemony over tributary chiefs. This complexity and dynamism are in stark contrast to realist IR’s universalism of the Westphalian model of anarchy (Buzan, 2016, p. 156). Neorealists like Kenneth Waltz argued that hierarchy and anarchy are the only ways by which to organize the system. The former can only occur when a supranational or world government exists. Hierarchy cannot exist simultaneously with anarchy. Anarchy for Waltz meant that each of the states in a system claimed sovereignty hence fulflling the same function of deciding for itself ‘how it will cope with internal and external problems’ (Waltz, 1979, p. 96). Units in an anarchic system are therefore functionally undifferentiated, claiming the same functions of government. Waltz did not leave room for the diversity of political units in a system. An alternative to this is a framework that allows for both anarchy and hierarchy to simultaneously coexist. Jørgensen (2017, p. 283) has recently pointed out that the contemporary international states system exists in parallel with other world orders like empire and civilization. He proposed a conceptual triptych of state, empire, and civilization that allows for the inclusion of non-Western IR experiences. Nevertheless, these categories still reek of Western constructs. This diversity could further be nuanced using the mandala polity. The mandala polity framework puts heavy emphasis on the ideational underpinnings of international, or, more precisely, inter-societal interactions. We have seen how demonstrations of prowess and prestige were necessary for a mandala’s existence. Reputation was of the essence. This reputation was achieved via a clever mix of creative display of economic wealth, ritual investiture on tributaries, strategic alliance with seafaring peoples, participation in international trade networks, and the sending of tribute missions to China. Though the tribute missions to the Middle Kingdom might imply a Sinocentric international system, the mandala polities of Southeast Asia were using China as a means to an end. Once that end had been achieved, the mandala polity ceased to send tributes. The objective had nothing to do with a right to self-determination but everything to do with the reputation of the mandala overlord. Participation in the China trade and Chinese-manufactured goods were status-enhancing symbols made to attract people. People in a mandala did not imagine a nation-state but saw the person of the overlord – a sacral fgure. Using the mandala polity as a framework has denaturalized the nation-state, especially when it removes the presumed inevitable march towards nationhood.

Conclusion International history is far more complicated than the universalized historiography of IR based on Western experiences. A viable starting point for genuinely globalizing IR and diversifying the mainstream metanarrative is the historical study of regions outside the West. However, a pitfall in this solution is the fragmentation

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of the discipline into multiple national or regional schools of thought. To avoid this fragmentation, one must be on the lookout for underlying historiographic frameworks, in particular, nationalism. I have proposed O. W. Wolter’s mandala polity as an alternative framework. This framework has shed more insight into the interpretation of both textual and non-textual sources on pre-colonial Butuan. Moreover, the reconstruction of Butuan history via multiple data sources encourages the diversifcation of sources, as it enriches prospective IR studies on history. IR still needs a further widening and deepening of its inquiry and understanding of history. Essentially, the future of IR as a discipline is in the past and let that past be global.

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Garvan, J. M. (1931). The Manobos of Mindanao Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (Vol. 23). Washington: United States Government Printing Offce. Hall, K. (2011). A History of Early Southeast Asia: Maritime Trade and Societal Development. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefeld Publishers, Inc. Hayase, S. (2007). Mindanao Ethnohistory beyond Nations: Maguindanao, Sangir, and Bagobo Societies in East Maritime Southeast Asia. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press. Hellmann, G., & Valbjørn, M. (2017, June). Problematizing Global Challenges: Recalibrating the “Inter” in IR-Theory. International Studies Review, 19(2), 279–282. doi:10.1093/isr/vix009 Hontiveros, G. (2004). Butuan of a Thousand Years. Butuan City: Butuan City Historical and Cultural Foundation Inc. Hontiveros, G. (2013). The Ancient Trading Port of Butuan. In J. N. Miksic & G. G. Yian (Eds.), Ancient Harbours in Southeast Asia: The Archaeology of Early Harbours and Evidence of Inter-Regional Trade (pp. 99–114). Bangkok, Thailand: SEAMEO SPAFA. Isorena, E. B. (2004, June). The Visayan Raiders of the China Coast, 117–1190 AD. Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society, 32(2), 73–95. Jørgensen, K. E. (2017, June). Inter Alia: On Global Orders, Practices, and Theory. International Studies Review, 19(2), 283–287. doi:10.1093/isr/vix009 Junker, L. L. (2000). Raiding, Trading and Feasting: The Political Economy of Philippine Chiefdoms. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press. Lebow, R. N. (2008). A Cultural Theory of International Relations. New York: Cambridge University Press. Lowell, G. (Ed.). (2000). Thucydides’ Theory of International Relations: A Lasting Possession. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press. Manguin, P. (1993). Trading Ships on the South China Sea: Shipbuilding Techniques and Their Role in the History of the Development of Asian Trade Networks. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 36(3), 253–280. Morgenthau, H. J., Thompson, K. W., & Clinton, D. (2006). Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace. New York: McGraw Hill Higher Education. Nicolas, A. (2009). Gongs, Bells, and Cymbals: The Archaeological Record in Maritime Asia from the Ninth to the Seventeenth Centuries. Yearbook for Traditional Music, 41, 62–93. Orlina, R. (2012). Epigraphical Evidence for the Cult of the Mahapratisara in the Philippines. Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, 35(1–2), 159–169. Peralta, J. T. (1979). The Butuan Paleograph: Ethnographic Implication of an Ancient Script. Archipelago, 6, 31–33. Reynolds, C. J. (1995). A New Look at Old Southeast Asia. The Journal of Asian Studies, 54(2), 419–446. Ronquillo, W. P. (1989). The Butuan Archeological Finds: Profound Implications for Philippine and Southeast Asian Prehistory. In R. M. Brown (Ed.), Guandong Ceramics from Butuan and Other Philippine Sites (pp. 61–70). Singapore: Oxford University Press. Scott, W. H. (1989). Filipinos in China before 1500. Manila: China Studies Program, De La Salle University. Scott, W. H. (1994). Barangay: Sixteenth-Century Philippine Culture and Society. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press.

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Wade, G. (2005, December). Champa in the Song hui-yao: A Draft Translation. Asia Research Institute Working Paper Series, No. 53. Singapore: Asian Research Institute, National University of Singapore. Waltz, K. N. (1979). Theory of International Politics. New York: Random House. Warren, J. F. (1981). The Sulu Zone 1768–1898. Singapore: Singapore University Press. Wolters, O. W. (1970). The Fall of Srivijaya in Malay History. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Wolters, O. W. (1982). History, Culture and Region in Southeast Asian Perspectives. Singapore: The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Singapore. Wolters, O. W. (1999). History, Culture and Region in Southeast Asian Perspectives (Revised ed.). Singapore: The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Singapore.

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José Rizal attacks imperialism softly Comprehending the depths of psychological conversion and the temptations of violent solutions Alan Chong

Introduction: the diffculty of revolution against imperialism It is axiomatic that imperialism in Asia is always associated with the imposition of Western power from the 1500s. This is especially true of the Philippines as well. Western infuence introduced the mentality of building defned borders, scientifc rationality, and the incorporation of Asian colonies into a global economy centered exclusively in Europe. As even the writings of the Philippine nationalist José Rizal recognized, Europe became the metropole to Asia either by force or by cultural emasculation (Rizal, Noli, 1996; Anderson, 2006). Most Asian states came to acquire and experience statehood because they were forcibly made into colonies by the Portuguese, Dutch, Spaniards, British, French, and Americans. Colonies, as understood from the Asian experience, were part and parcel of a grand scheme of political, social, and economic exploitation designed to beneft the metropole. Broadly speaking, this forcible creation of colonies by the Western powers can be termed ‘imperialism.’ It is imperial since colonies are the bases of generating and sustaining empire. Another chief characteristic of the imperial act of colonization is the resort to violence in acquiring those colonies. This violence may not be always physical. It is more likely psychological and defnitely structural. The latter means of imperialism involve the deliberate cultivation of local mentalities towards subservience to the Europeans and the normalization of social and economic inequalities. All this is done in the name of tutoring the locals for the advent of modernity (Aljunied, 2009; Shilliam, 2011). To place the locals under colonial tutelage is to institutionalize antipathy towards the traditional and so-called ‘irrational’ ways of the pre-colonial era (Said, 1993, p. 241; Anderson, 2006, pp. 14–25). There are signifcant lasting effects to such psychological strategies in colonization. This is where one might employ the term ‘structural violence’ to describe these forms of enduring effects. Violence is structural in the sense that the colonized become acclimatized to the idea that they are inferior in educational attainment, social habits, and their place in relation to history. One can easily extend structural violence to the economic and political spheres as well. Imperial rhetoric denies the

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colonized automatic rights to govern themselves, and socializes them to accept their economic lot as indefnitely immutable. This appreciation of the continuing structural violence of imperialism is justifcation enough for one to center the study of the writings of José Rizal as a critique of imperialism. Elsewhere, I have suggested that Rizal was already warning of the persistence of the ‘empire of the mind’ (Chong, Empire of the Mind, 2017). Rizal deserves to be read in this day and age particularly since he was warning about the monumental tasks ahead for Asian nationalisms that are truly post-colonial in their aspirations. Asia’s continuing divisions between and within its supposedly sovereign nation-states stem from deep misunderstandings of the persistence of colonial legacies. Amidst the hyper-politicized territorial and economic disputes among them, the Asian nationalisms of the 21st century often neglect the wider normative and intellectual solidarities that defne them as fraternal parties. China’s vision of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) should in fact be re-appraised as a vision transcending large-scale infrastructural connectivity. The BRI should equally be regarded as an opportunity to reconnect intra-Asian exchanges of political philosophy as many have recently suggested (Chong & Ling, The Silk Roads, 2018). This is an idealistic proposition I am making here, considering that there is little evidence that Rizal in his time addressed fellow Asian nationalisms apart from transiting through restive colonial territories, such as Hong Kong (San Juan, 1997, pp. 32–33). Nonetheless, an excess of political realism in the analysis of both the domestic politics and the international relations of Asia is also a third reason for studying José Rizal’s writings. Asian states do not have to reprise the collisions marked out by the European experience with sovereign nationality and statehood between 1648 and 1945. An appreciation of the cultures of persistent ‘empires of the mind’ is a possible way forward for a more fexible and accommodating form of Asian international politics (Ling, 2014; Chong, Civilizations and Harm, 2017). The chapter will now pan out as follows. A quick summary of the context of Rizal’s writings is in order to illuminate for the reader the inspirations behind Rizal’s nationalism. This will in turn set the stage for contemplating Rizal’s call for psychological conversion to roll back imperialism’s strategies of subjugating local populations through appeals to status and power. The fnal theme we shall scrutinize is Rizal’s call to carefully ponder the dilemmas of employing violence in the name of forging revolution. It will become apparent that Rizal is addressing both domestic and international politics simultaneously through the frame of political thought. He draws no distinctions in relation to legal technical notions of sovereignty. Asia’s modernizers need to urgently think through his warnings, particularly since he is positing generic warnings about the hidden dangers of progressive politics. In this regard, this chapter proposes to read more heavily from Rizal’s two magisterial nationalist novels, Noli Me Tangere [literally translating from Latin into English as ‘Touch Me Not’] and El Filibusterismo [literally ‘The Act of Filibuster’], since they are often underappreciated in the study of Asian and global politics. Through the fctitious characters of these novels,

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Rizal’s thought is more richly articulated than across his isolated letters and propaganda pamphlets.1 For scholars of Philippine foreign relations, this chapter may turn out to be particularly informative given the relentless quests since the false nationalist dawn in 1896–8, and especially after formal independence in 1946, for a truly Filipino and people’s foreign policy. It was a supreme moment of irony that in 1900, an American scholar had already assailed his own government for not recognizing that Filipinos would aspire to dignity through crafting their own independent foreign policy as part of sovereign nationhood, hopefully sired by benign American policy (Welsh, 1900). As it has been gleaned from a centennial publication sanctioned by the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs, the search for dignity and self-determination has been a mainstay of the republic’s foreign relations ever since independence (Baviera & Yu-Jose, 1998; Solidum, 1998; Wadi, 1998; Jose, 1998). Even today, in the face of perceived conventional military threats from China, coastal piracy, humanitarian disasters, and civilian maritime incidents, the search for Philippine self-respect continues to be emphasized in its foreign policy. (De Castro, 2013; Ishimori, 2016; Grønning, 2017)

Spanish Philippines: José Rizal’s life and times2 Spanish rule in the Philippines entrenched itself for nearly 370 years through a dual political system: church and state. Both were designed to treat the native Filipinos, whether mestizo or Indio, as objects of exploitation. In the words of a historian, Native life under the colonial regime acquired a complexity not heretofore known. Each colonized Filipino was expected to live in a pueblo [village or urban district] for purposes of civil government; be part of a doctrina [religious district or diocese], for religious instruction; and of an encomienda [apportioned land granted to the original Spanish soldiers and settlers as rewards for their service] for the exaction of tribute, produce, and labour. (Francia, 2014, p. 69) This was not merely a spatial and bureaucratic instrument of subjection. It also correlated with an ideological tyranny expressed through ecclesiastical despotism. As Nicholas Cushner puts it, the Spaniard represented a ‘centralizing force’ that swept aside the pre-Hispanic ways of small village kinship-based communities (barangays) led by autonomous datus who came together only in the face of a common enemy (Cushner (S. J.), 1971, p. 5). Spanish administration tactically reframed the barangays into pueblos, encomiendas, and townships, often administered by a resident friar in the name of the doctrina. Every one of these residential and municipal jurisdictions exacted taxes and labour from the Indios, especially in the vast rural areas. These institutions induced a culture of passivity or ‘indolence’ amongst the native population – a popular target of Rizal’s writings (Rizal, The Religiosity of the Filipino People, 1992).

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Church and state also jointly managed the colonial enterprise via the patronato real (royal patronage). The papacy in Rome conceded this right to spread Catholicism throughout heathen lands to the kings of Portugal and Spain since the 1400s. In the Philippines, the Spanish crown pledged to support the church fnancially while the latter granted the crown the privilege of presenting clergy and bishops for appointment to the dioceses and churches across the colony. In practice, however, a number of pre-sanctioned powers granted by the papacy to the various Catholic orders, such as the Franciscans, Augustinians, and Jesuits, allowed each to preach without fear or favor and perform absolutions from social transgressions (Cushner (S. J.), 1971, pp. 74–79). In areas remote from the capital in Manila, friars reigned as substitutes for the Spanish crown and its agents. The patronato real extended a moral basis for friars to demand fees for hearing confessions, solemnizing marriages, and maintaining local parishes (Rizal, The Religiosity of the Filipino People, 1992, pp. 102–104). Wielding the threat of providential punishment and excommunication, the friar could demand from his local ‘fock’ voluntary labour for assorted construction projects for his own beneft as well as the common interest in towns under his ‘charge.’ ‘God’s calling,’ Francia writes, became ‘the cover under which Mammon could be served eagerly and faithfully. The early years of hardship and asceticism gave way to pampered living’ (Francia, 2014, p. 71). And despite intra-religious rivalries, the various Catholic orders united in their imperial educational mission: to teach the Indios only so much so they could be baptized. José Rizal was born into this milieu of mixed Indio and Chinese parentage. His family were fortunate to be landowners despite their mestizo origins. Rizal grew up appreciating the hardships of the agrarian lives of the Indios. His Chinese lineage probably enabled him to understand how the enterprising Chinese served as entrepreneurs leasing land from encomiendas and profting as middlemen selling imported foodstuffs to Indios and others. As the stalwarts of a comprador economy, the Chinese were tolerated by the Spaniards and accorded improved social status often above that of the Indios. Like most Chinese families who made their business in the Philippines, Rizal was baptized a Catholic. But his privileged upbringing allowed him to travel to Europe for higher education in the 1880s. This was a prospect affordable only to a select few mestizos, let alone Indios. But studying abroad also gifted him the privilege of objectivity through distance. He could compare conditions in Europe to those of the colonial peripheries. He also supped at the altar of European Enlightenment and corresponded with like-minded intellectuals in Spain and Germany. While abroad, he and other like-minded Filipino expatriates served as the nucleus of a nascent revolutionary movement based on books, letters, and journals printed in Europe and circulated by mail back to the Philippines if they were not intercepted upon arrival at Manila. Rizal was prolifc in his output with the two novels the Noli and the Filibusterismo being signature achievements during this sojourn in the metropole. During these late formative years, Rizal was also deeply infuriated by the injustice meted out to three liberal-leaning Spanish priests on charges of inciting a rebellion in 1872 like so many Filipinos in his nationalist circles. This followed

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from the Spanish Revolution of 1868 that afforded a brief political ‘spring’ that precipitated the incident (Francia, 2014, p. 110). During three years of an enlightened revolutionary government in Madrid, the liberal-leaning Carlos Maria de la Torre was appointed governor general of the Philippines. He lifted numerous bans on reformist currents on the ground and encouraged mestizos and Indios to embrace legal guarantees of a more liberal political and social climate. The end of forced labour and other exactions in the countryside appeared in sight. But reactionaries amongst the old order rescinded any possibility of reform. On January 20, 1872, the Indio employees of the Cavite Arsenal rebelled against the reinstitution of forced labour and murdered seven Spanish offcers over two days of violence. The three Spanish priests were accused of fanning the fames of Filipinization. Reactionary friars persuaded the new right-wing governor to sentence these priests to death for sedition. Overnight, the three enlightened Spanish clergymen became martyrs for Filipino nationalism.

Psychological conversion: discerning the conscience and vanity of power and status In both novels, Rizal warned against getting too comfortable with the privileges accorded to the narrow elite favored by colonial power. In every colonial enterprise across Asia, the Western masters practiced divide and rule strategies, enriching and indulging in the welfare of a small mestizo or indigenous elite. This renders the artifcial indigenous elite dependent on the colonial masters, loyal to them for the most part, and disdainful of the majority of the less educated. It is no surprise that his take-down of colonialism begins with the depiction of the life of the social elite in a relaxed setting. In the Noli’s opening chapter, for instance, narrative commentary is paid equally to the furnishing of homes and religious artefacts as to the social pretensions of the Indios in relation to demonstrating graciousness and conformity in the company of the handful of Spanish colonial personalities and renowned friars. The latter are deliberately depicted as vain and presumptuous, hiding behind false alternating appearances of stoicism and refnement. The more interesting description of the state of socio-political affairs is given by this thick description of the material trappings of colonial succor in the home of an elevated mestizo, hosting a party for the colonial high society in Manila in tandem with the conformity of what passes for social etiquette: The furniture is elegant, but somewhat uncomfortable and unhealthy: the owner of the house is more concerned with the luxury of his household than with any hygienic consideration for the well-being of his guests. It is as if he were telling them: ‘Dysentery is such a terrible thing, but you are seated on chairs imported from Europe. It is not every day that one can sit on a chair like this.’ The living room is almost full of people: the men separated from the women, as they are in Roman Catholic Churches and Jewish synagogues. The ladies, a few young Filipinas and Spaniards, open their mouths to suppress

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yawns, but cover their faces instantly with their fans, scarcely making a sound. Whatever attempts at conversation [that] are ventured dwindle into monosyllables, like the sounds one hears at night, caused by rats and lizards. Is it, perhaps, the different images of Our Lady hanging from the wall between the mirrors, which makes them silent and assume a religious composure; or are the women here an exception? (Rizal, Noli, 1996, p. 4) Note the juxtapositioning of the sacred and the profane, the false refnement and the ugliness of the actual human condition in the partying of the colonial ‘high society.’ Rizal deliberately chooses such stark imagery for biting social commentary about how the Spaniards had tranquilized through pretentious social elevation any Filipino nationalism that might conceivably be led by the educated elite. The rest of the Noli pans out as the story of the return of a certain Juan Crisostomo Ibarra, the scion of a late esteemed mestizo landowner, who traces his father’s footsteps and acquaintances only to discover the decay in Spanish colonial sway in the Philippines. Along this journey of rediscovery, Ibarra encounters the folk wisdom and bitter resentment towards colonialism among the Indios living at barely subsistence levels in the countryside that his father had generously rented out to his charges. Much like Rizal himself in real life, Ibarra used his own family wealth to construct schools to uplift the plight of the Indios and to debunk the Spanish presumption that the Indios were born lackadaisical in everything they did. Through the conversations and polarized views of the multifarious characters of the Noli, Ibarra decides to cast his lot with the embryonic anti-colonial insurgents. In this act of decisive rebellion, Ibarra symbolizes the rending of the script of petitionary nationalism that many members of the educated mestizos and Indios entertained in regard to a self-reforming Spanish motherland (Fisher, 1956, pp. 263–264). According to most accounts of Rizal’s life, the Noli failed to spark revolutionary thought amongst the Filipinos of all social strata, leading the author to compose its more fery sequel, El Filibusterismo. The latter drew even starker sketches of the perversity of Spanish divide-and-rule strategies in stymieing Filipino nationalism. References to biblical themes such as false appearances, meditations on untrammelled violence, and persecution of the earnest self-improvement aspirations of the Filipinos populated the plot. At the close of the Noli, Ibarra disappears into the waters during a boat chase by the Spanish Guardia Civil in the Pasig River that runs through Manila. While the Spanish authorities could not locate Ibarra, he fnds refuge in the countryside with the Indios. The Filibusterismo sees Ibarra now taking on an undercover persona, the wealthy, enigmatic, and supposedly Jewish-American jeweller Simoun. The latter’s occupation is deliberately metaphorical of the state of colonial rule: beneath the glitter of all that appears immoveable, currents of resistance are stirring towards armed rebellion. Instead of referring to the false civility and cultured ways of colonial high society, the Filibusterismo begins by tearing down brutally the illusion of equality between the colonizer and the educated Filipinos. Sample for instance this cruel ‘stripping’ of

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the wealthy socialite Doña Victorina in the narrative of the opening scene, where elevated mestizos travel with colonial high society upon the steamer Tabo: And Doña Victorina, the only woman seated among the European group, is able to say if the Tabo is idle, disobedient and wayward. Doña Victorina, always high-strung, hurls invectives against ships, bancas, coconut rafts, boats, Indios who travel, and even against laundresses and bathers who upset her with their merriment and din. Yes, the Tabo would go very well if there were no Indios in the river, Indios in the country, yes, and if there were not a single Indio in the world, not noticing that the helmsmen were Indios; the crewmen, Indios; the engineers, Indios; ninety-nine percent of the passengers, Indios; and, she herself, Indio, if her makeup were scraped off and her showy gown shed. (Rizal, Filibusterismo, 1996, p. 5) In all objectivity, this tone of commentary is comparable to the attitudes behind Victor Hugo’s fctitious treatment of the polarized condition of Parisian society circa 1870–1 in his famous novel Les Miserables, now turned Broadway and Hollywood musical. In short, colonial social arrangements cannot be defended if the human condition is deeply polarized through the perpetuation of false consciousness amongst a co-opted indigenous elite. The best solution for liberating the empire of the mind is to educate it towards a cosmopolitan horizon. For Rizal, this presupposes that education is a formidable feld for entrenching imperialism indefnitely, or sowing the seeds of its downfall. False consciousness, ignorance, and Spain’s repeated depiction of the indolence of the Indios are all the result of a calculated deception committed through education policies. In Rizal’s time, science, mathematics, and philosophy were hardly taught in colonial school curricula. Instead, instruction in practising unthinking Catholic rites ruled the day (San Juan, 1997, pp. 121–122). Moreover, the language of the metropole, Spanish, was not taught to the majority of the Indios. In a speech addressed to the Freemasons in Madrid in 1889, Rizal celebrated a vision of religion empowering mankind to undertake equally commerce, industry, and charity in an obvious jab at Spanish education policy in the colony. Education should not envision a penned-up effort at national liberation; it ought to inspire fraternity amongst all peoples as a universal route towards genuine freedom: The duty of modern man to my way of thinking is to work for the redemption of humanity, because once man is dignifed there would be less unfortunate and more happy men [than] is possible in this life. Humanity cannot be redeemed so long as there are oppressed peoples, so long as there are some men who live on the tears of many, so long as there are emasculated minds and blinded eyes that enable others to live like Sultans who alone may enjoy beauty. Humanity cannot be redeemed when reason is not free, while faith would want to impose itself on facts, while whims are laws, and while there are nations who subjugate others . . . Thus Masonry preaches and practises the sacred principles of liberty,

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equality and fraternity among all men and they compose the Masonic virtues, the only virtues whose practice would banish among men wars and abuses and bring about that state of which all great reformers dream. (Rizal, Masonry, 1992, p. 128, emphasis mine) Rizal’s embrace of a recycled version of the ideas of the European Enlightenment is clear. What is relevant to not only the Philippines but to the rest of Asia and the Global South today is the call to end the emasculation of minds. Attaining democratic fraternity through emancipatory education will mark the true end of the empire of the mind generated by centuries of colonialism from afar.

Violence in the name of revolution? Some dilemmatic considerations In articulating liberation from imperialism through a revision of educational priorities, Rizal ostensibly shuns the path of violent revolution, as advocated by so many of his fellow Asian nationalists at the transition between the 19th and 20th centuries. Perhaps, this is also why Rizal’s attack on imperialism has become mired in two ways. Firstly, in the Philippines, his attack on the colonial manipulation of Catholic-inspired schooling has been complicated by latterday Philippine politicians accusing Rizal of being anti-Catholic contrary to the ardent beliefs of the majority of his countrymen (Ileto, 2017). Secondly, when one contemplates revolution across Asia and the rest of the Global South, revolution takes on either extreme right or extreme left colours. For the latter, violence represents the fre of political cleansing that is necessary to completely uproot vestiges of the exploitative old order. From Ho Chi Minh to Chin Peng to Soekarno, signifcant degrees of violence are needed to attain freedom from imperialism (Nien, 2004; Chin Peng, 2007; Chong, Asian Contributions on Democratic Dignity, 2008). Rizal’s prognostication on political violence comes across instead as tormented, confused, and outright dilemmatic. This complicates the efforts of teachers at all levels who wish to teach Rizal’s political thought (Fisher, 1956). Moreover, historian David Steinberg has argued that the Philippine struggle for national self-determination has always been frustrated at its attempts to employ violence in the service of overthrowing the most immediate enemy. The armed insurrection in quick succession against the Spaniards and thence against the fighty Americans between 1896 and 1900 revealed the limits of the unity of Filipinos and, correspondingly, their continued dependence upon outside events to produce the desired momentum towards some kind of ‘gifted’ political autonomy under Washington’s auspices (Steinberg, 1972, pp. 168–170). Steinberg argued that it was also the case with the Japanese occupying forces during World War II. The presidency of Manuel Quezon stayed with the Americans, while the presidency of Jose Laurel sided ‘reluctantly’ with the erstwhile Japanese occupiers on the basis that, at least in propaganda, Japan was pledging to grant the Philippines independent statehood under the Greater East Asia

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Co-Prosperity Sphere. Japan also recognized the Philippine ‘state’ as an equal to the other governments that collaborated with Japanese war aims. This symbolic act stimulated the spirit of Filipino nationalism, where the US merely implemented self-government for the country with a proviso to confer independence after some period of tutelage. Japan dignifed the Philippines by pronouncing the relationship as one between fraternal Oriental nations (Steinberg, 1972, pp. 178–183). Rizal in fact presciently recognizes in his writings that the path towards national self-determination had to recognize the civilizing impact of Spanish colonialism on Filipinos. The religion of Catholicism, for all its faults in the practice of implementing the earlier mentioned doctrina and encomiendas in controlling the indigenous population, instilled reverence for authority, a universal Providence, and weaned the Indios off superstition and other tendentious beliefs (Rizal, The Religiosity of the Filipino People, 1992). Political and intellectual ferment in Spain, and writ large in Europe, showed Rizal and his fellow nationalists the power of liberal principle. Rizal himself admired the middle class in Madrid as ‘amiable, distinguished, educated, frank, dignifed, hospitable, and chivalrous’ (Rizal, Rizal’s Impressions of Madrid, 1992, p. 255). In the Noli, Rizal articulated his residual approval of good Spanish intentions through the personality of the ‘departing’ Capitan General, who confesses, We the ruling government, are not wanting in goodwill, but we are obliged to make use of outside eyes and arms, which generally we do not know, and which perhaps, instead of serving the country, are serving only their own interests. This is not our fault; it is due to circumstances. The friars are a big help in meeting the problems, but they do not yet suffce . . . You inspire me with interest and a desire that the imperfections of our actual governmental system would not prejudice you in any way. I cannot be vigilant for everyone; neither can everyone reach me. Can I be of use to you, is there something you wish to ask of me? (Rizal, Noli, 1996, p. 251) What follows immediately after this utterance is revealing of Rizal’s dilemmatic way of thought: [The main protagonist à la the conscience of the nationalist, Crisostomo] Ibarra refected. “Sir,” he answered, “my greatest desire is for the happiness of my country, happiness which I would like to come from the Mother Country and from the efforts of my fellow countrymen, united to each other by eternal bonds of common perspective and interests. What I ask only the government can give after many years of continuous endeavour and suitable reforms.” His Excellency looked at Ibarra with a look that Ibarra met quite naturally. “You are the frst real man I have spoken to in this country,” he exclaimed, shaking Ibarra’s hand.

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“Your Excellency saw only the opportunists within the city [of Manila]; you have not visited the miserable hovels of our towns. Your Excellency would have seen real men – if to be a man it is enough to have a generous heart and simple habits.” (Rizal, Noli, 1996, pp. 251–252) This passage nicely captures Rizal’s bittersweet attachment to the Spanish legacies while resenting their cruelties in implementation. In other words, Rizal wished to condemn imperialist excesses in governance without undoing the civilizing effects. This leads into Rizal’s second dilemmatic view of violent revolution: questioning the viability and benefcial consequences of violence itself. In a fragment of a story, not unlike perhaps a parable, Rizal wrote of how a group of young brothers had lived under the austere sway of a ‘domineering aunt’ who scolded and punished her foster children whenever they dared to ask for generosity and leniency. One day, one of the brothers could take it no more and ventured this opinion with Rizal offering a reply: “The answer to force is force, when justice is deaf. Will my blood relations help me should I decide to save ourselves? Until now, if one of us shall dare or dares to answer, he is alone, because the others do not help. But it seems they are changing. If we should dare again to use all our strength and act all together, will the others help? The road to be traversed is very dangerous, but the proft is tremendous: the capital is large, greater than life, because it involves the lives of others. Can they promise that they will respond and they will not stop, inasmuch as the failure or the weakness of one will endanger all?” This is the question, but I do not know the reply of the others. (Rizal, A Tendentious Story, 1992) Although this fragment of Rizal’s writings is undated, it accurately captures the back-and-forth of debates in the Filibusterismo, where Simoun seems tremendously eager to resort to bloody methods of insurrection behind his innocuous disguise. This is a far cry from the Hamlet-like philosophical indecision of Crisostomo Ibarra in the Noli. In one exchange between Elias, the Indio who feels driven to the wall by the unjust policies in the countryside, and Ibarra, the philosopher and philanthropist, the former argues that criminal acts are not mindless and purely psychotic; it is because ‘their peace has been broken . . . they have been wounded in their most cherished affections’ (Rizal, Noli, 1996, p. 327). Elias goes on to hector Ibarra that wanton criminality in the Philippine countryside derives from a popular resentment that many families’ circumstances induce them to harbor towards the policing methods of the dreaded Guardia Civil. Going forward, the impatience to foment revolutionary change in the Filibusterismo leads its characters to contemplate the sharp implications of life and death under tyrannical government. Rizal now gives voice to the cynical mentality behind colonialism in discussing the yearlong imprisonment of a medical

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student, Basilio, for subversion. The new Capitan General now justifes punishment that is more salutary and exemplary in that it will infuse more terror! To govern is to work that way, Señor; often one must sacrifce the good of one for the good of many . . . But I am doing more: from the good of one man I derive the good of all, I preserve the principle of authority so threatened, its prestige is respected and maintained. With this act of mine I correct our own errors and those of the others. (Rizal, Filibusterismo, 1996, p. 261) From the rural peripheries, the circumstances of a dispossessed farmer, Cabesang Tales, mirror the Capitan General’s extreme embrace of violence. Cabesang Tales was dispossessed of his farm on the account of failing to render adequate rent to the friar in his district. Prior to the dispossession, he was forced to pay up fnes for simply owing rent after losing a legal challenge to the friar. With hardly any savings to draw on after having paid lawyers and court clerks, Tales and his wife proposed to pawn whatever valuables they possessed, and even the house they lived in at the edge of the town. As if this level of misery was not suffcient, the town and its people were harassed by bandits who also played at extortion in return for leaving the townsfolk unmolested. Cabesang Tales took to patrolling his farm against any potential invaders with frst a shotgun, and when that was confscated on the orders of the Capitan General at the urging of the frightened friar, Tales continued with a long stick. The day of reckoning came soon enough when Tales and his wife and father had to contemplate leaving their home for a makeshift living in the tropical forest. In the meantime, his daughter had to be offered as an indentured maid to one of the richer townsfolk in exchange for some form of irregular income for the household. At that point, Tales was kidnapped by the bandits, leaving his father and wife to fend for themselves (Rizal, Filibusterismo, 1996, pp. 26–34). Tales was released mysteriously by the bandits and returned in time for the formal seizure of his home, his felds having been taken over by equally desperate landless farmers under the friar’s auspices. This dire depiction of structural violence against the poor rural Indios was typical of Rizal’s time, but at this point, the author adds a twist. By sheer chance, Simoun the Jeweller visits the town and hearing of Cabesang Tales’s plight, offers to buy a sentimental jewel locket for a substantial amount of money. A quick friendship blossoms between the two despite the general melancholy of Tales’s situation. Simoun is invited to stay the night at Tales’s soon-to-be surrendered house. But Cabesang Tales steals Simoun’s pistol while the latter is asleep, signalling noble intentions in doing so by not relieving Simoun of his hoard of jewellery. By then, it had become clear that Cabesang Tales had become one of the bandits, wanting the pistol to terrorize the friar and his agents of oppression. Indeed, that very night three bloody assassinations had been carried out by the bandits with the offending friar and the new tenant on Tales’s land having been killed, their heads blown up and mouths flled with sand. Simoun murmured to himself with

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satisfaction that the seed of revolt had now begun germinating. In concluding Simoun/Ibarra’s moment of elation, Rizal inserted what today’s readership might call a ‘V for Vendetta’ moment in the plot – a clarion call for popular revolt – which deserves a long excerpt to graphically signal the adrenaline rush of uninhibited righteous violence: Do not be alarmed, peaceful citizens of Calamba. Not one of you is called Tales, not one of you has committed the crime. You are called Luis Habaña, Matias Belarmino, Nicasio Eigasani, Cayetano de Jesus, Mateo Elejorde, Leandro Lopez, Antonino Lopez, Silvestre Ubaldo, Manuel Hidalgo, Paciano Mercado – you are called the whole town of Calamba! You have cleared your own felds, you have spent on them the labour of a lifetime, savings, sleepless nights, privations, and you have been deprived of them, expelled from your own homes and they have forbidden the rest to give you hospitality. They were not content with violating justice; they stepped on the sacred traditions of your country . . . You have served Spain and the King and when in their names you asked for justice and you were exiled without due process of law, you were snatched away from the arms of your spouses, from the kisses of your children . . . Any one of you has suffered more than Cabesang Tales and nevertheless no one, not one has had justice . . . Spain, generous Spain watches over you and sooner or later you shall obtain justice! (Rizal, Filibusterismo, 1996, p. 75) Rizal, through the voices of Simoun and the bandits, dubbed tulisanes, unleashes the full torrent of popular anger. He even argues that world history tends to take their side when the fnal assessment is rendered by historians. Whenever revolutions and other armed struggles break out, few outsiders will intervene or truly care to shape the outcome. The outcome lies in being determined by the hands of those who dare to usurp unjust authority. This is how empires rise or fall (Rizal, Filibusterismo, 1996, p. 276). In fnally throwing in his lot with the tulisanes, Simoun plots to have a nitroglycerine bomb installed within a pomegranate-shaped lamp at a wedding banquet the Capitan General and Manila high society are to attend. Once the explosion kills those present, the sound and light of it severe enough to be heard and seen across the city and the nearby countryside, the tulisanes would march upon the city aided by spontaneous uprisings throughout Manila by those who have only known injustice. In near apocalyptic terms, Simoun utters aloud, What is death? Nothingness, or a dream? Can its nightmares be compared to the reality of the agonies of a whole miserable generation? It is imperative to destroy the evil, to kill the dragon, and for the people to bathe in its blood in order to make them strong and invulnerable! (Rizal, Filibusterismo, 1996, p. 275) Unfortunately for Simoun’s plans, one of his accomplices suffers from pangs of conscience just moments before setting off the lamp bomb. He thought of the young

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couple and the many innocents present to celebrate their joy and weighed their lives and happiness against the political guilt of the Capitan General and the Padres from Manila and the countryside in whose names unspeakable injustice had been carried out. In this regard, Basilio the medical student, full of life and expectation, developed an instinct to save the innocents to the collateral beneft of the politically guilty. Basilio stole the lamp from its central position and dumped it into the nearby river before it could detonate. As a result, the plot for revolution collapsed with its entire vanguard scattering far and wide. The long arms of Spain grew even longer with the Guardia Civil sending out squads to arrest the plotters on mere suspicion. The terror of counter-insurrection piled further misery upon the poor Indios in the countryside. Simoun himself, wounded mortally, seeks refuge in the house of a fairly sympathetic priest who hears his confession as Juan Crisostomo Ibarra. The startling truth is revealed: Ibarra plotted the ultimate vengeance utilizing the bulk of his family’s wealth, which he augmented while living abroad as a merchant in exile following the failure of the frst attempt to reform Spanish rule in the Philippines. He got to know the current Capitan General, who had served in Cuba and supplied him with discreet loans, grants, and other monetary inducements. While in disguise, Ibarra goaded him to intensify the persecution of the Filipinos to the point where revolution would break out spontaneously and end Spain’s sway over the islands. Ironically, Ibarra was returning to his original idealistic assumptions that violence is ambiguous in its outcome even if injustice served as its reliable fuel. Padre Florentino listens patiently to a confession of a fallen ‘hero’ but chides him for having violated the noble cry against injustice by the Indios by using violence – both structural and physical – to beget more violence. Is this not Rizal’s version of warning that the French Revolution of 1789 metaphorically cannibalized its own children and visited even greater horrors upon the liberated masses by correcting its own excesses through serial recourses to popular dictatorship for nearly 50 years thereafter? Rizal’s fnal warning to revolutionaries at home and elsewhere comes unexpectedly through Padre Florentino’s words in the mode of a stern Catholic-style absolution: The glory of saving a country is not for him who has contributed to cause its ruin . . . No, if our Country is to be free one day it would not be through vice and crime; it will not be by corrupting its sons, deceiving some, buying others, no! Redemption implies virtue, virtue, sacrifce and sacrifce, love!. . . The just and the deserving must suffer so that their ideas may be known and spread out! (Rizal, Filibusterismo, 1996, pp. 311–312)

Conclusion José Rizal’s attacks on imperialism take on a soft tone in contrast to his contemporaries, such as Sun Yat-sen, Soekarno, Ho Chi Minh, or Mao Zedong. His anger at imperialism is meditative instead of an action-oriented, ideological call to arms. He locates the thrust of his intellectualization of imperialism in uncovering its

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plague on the mind. He asks his readers to think of the future beyond immediate freedom from the physical chains of alien control. Principally, in a self-governing phase, do the inheritors of a revolution recognize that they have to be better human beings as citizens deserving to be a dignifed nation? Do these citizens have a conscience that is brighter and cleaner than the imperialists they wish to depose? The dilemmatic treatment of political violence links into these moral questions. Violence can be justifed as a moral response to extreme, unyielding, structural injustices. But, as Floro Quibuyen sharply points out, Rizal also imposes on his readers the moral burden of asking if they can handle the consequences of that violence? (Quibuyen, 1999, pp. 1–10). In the fnal analysis, Rizal asks if the victim of oppression can rise above his or her tormentors’ methods in overcoming oppression. Therefore, in pondering the long history of Asia’s modernization, it is unlikely that Rizal’s attacks on imperialism make for easy reading. Therein lies its Rizalesque genius: fghting imperialism requires soul searching on the human condition that comes after a revolution.

Notes 1 In this regard, this chapter differs from the detached scepticism of some Philippine scholars who believe that the novels were a mere playground for Rizal’s authentic beliefs about the nature of colonialism. Nonetheless, there is signifcant scholarly consensus that Rizal’s two novels symbolized his political awakening and attempt to philosophize about politics. (Africa, 1961; Anderson, 2006). 2 This section draws heavily on my earlier piece on Rizal’s nationalist writings in (Chong, Empire of the Mind, 2017, pp. 162–164).

References Africa, B. (1961). The Political Views of Rizal. In Rizal in Retrospect: The Centennial Anniversary Number of the Philippine Historical Association (pp. 230–297). Manila: The Philippine Historical Association. Aljunied, S. M. (2009). Colonialism, Violence and Muslims in Southeast Asia: The Maria Hertogh Controversy and Its Aftermath. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Anderson, B. (2006). Under Three Flags: Anarchism and the Anti-Colonial Imagination (Philippine ed.). Pasig City, Philippines: Anvil Publishing under License from Verso, New Left Books. Baviera, A. S., & Yu-Jose, L. N. (1998). Introduction. In A. S. Baviera & L. N. YuJose (Eds.), Philippine External Relations: A Centennial Vista (pp. 1–13). Manila, Philippines: Foreign Service Institute. Chin Peng. (2007). Alias Chin Peng: My Side of History (I. Ward & N. Mirafor, Trans.). Singapore: Media Masters. Chong, A. (2008). Asian Contributions on Democratic Dignity and Responsibility: Rizal, Sukarno and Lee on Guided Democracy. East Asia, 25(3), 243–266. Chong, A. (2017). Civilisations and Harm: The Politics of Civilising Processes between the West and the Non-West. Review of International Studies, 43(4), 637–653. Chong, A. (2017). Empire of the Mind: José Rizal and Proto-Nationalism in the Philippines. In L. H. Ling & P. Bilgin (Eds.), Asia in International Relations: Unlearning Imperial Power Relations (pp. 160–171). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

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Chong, A., & Ling, L. (2018). The Silk Roads: Globalization before Neoliberalization: Introduction to the Special Issue. Asian Journal of Comparative Politics, 3(3), 189–193. Cushner (S. J.), N. P. (1971). Spain in the Philippines: From Conquest to Revolution. Quezon City, Manila, Philippines, and Rutland, Vermont: Institute of Philippine Culture-Ateneo de Manila University and Charles E. Tuttle Company. De Castro, R. C. (2013). China and Japan in Maritime Southeast Asia: Extending Their Geo-Strategic Rivalry by Competing for Friends. Philippine Political Science Journal, 34(2), 150–169. Fisher, M. J. (1956). Jose Rizal: Asian Apostle of Racial Equalitarianism. The Journal of Modern History, 28(3), 259–265. Francia, L. H. (2014). A History of the Philippines: From Indios Bravos to Filipinos. New York, USA: Overlook Press. Grønning, B. E. (2017). Japan’s Security Cooperation with the Philippines and Vietnam. The Pacifc Review, 1–21. doi:10.1080/09512748.2017.1397730 Ileto, R. C. (2017). Knowledge and Pacifcation: On the U.S. Conquest and the Writing of Philippine History. Manila, Philippines: Ateneo de Manila University Press. Ishimori, K. (2016). FY2015 Ex-Post Evaluation of Technical Cooperation Project: “The Project on Philippine Coast Guard Human Resource Development (Phase I)” and “the Philippine Coast Guard Education and Human Resource Management System Development Project (Phase II)”. Tokyo, Japan: JICA and Value Frontier Company Limited. Retrieved November 29, 2018, from https://www2.jica.go.jp/en/evaluation/ pdf/2015_0703219_4.pdf Jose, R. T. (1998). One Hundred Years of Philippine-United States Relations: An Outline History. In A. S. Baviera & L. N. Yu-Jose (Eds.), Philippine External Relations: A Centennial Vista (pp. 363–454). Manila, Philippines: Foreign Service Institute. Ling, L. H. (2014). The Dao of World Politics: Towards a Post-Westphalian, Worldist International Relations. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Nien, N. D. (2004). Ho Chi Minh Thought on Diplomacy. Hanoi: The Gioi Publishers. Quibuyen, F. C. (1999). A Nation Aborted: Rizal, American Hegemony and Philippine Nationalism. Quezon City and Manila, Philippines: Ateneo de Manila University Press. Rizal, J. (1992). Masonry. In Miscellaneous Writings of Dr José Rizal (pp. 123–129). Manila, Philippines: National Historical Institute. Rizal, J. (1992). The Religiosity of the Filipino People. In Miscellaneous Writings of Dr José Rizal (E. Alzona, Trans., pp. 92–106). Manila, Philippines: National Historical Institute. Rizal, J. (1992). Rizal’s Impressions of Madrid: Letter to Dr. F. Blumentritt. In Miscellaneous Writings of Dr José Rizal (W. Retana, Trans., pp. 254–256). Manila, Philippines: National Historical Institute. Rizal, J. (1992). A Tendentious Story. In Miscellaneous Writings of Dr José Rizal (E. Alzona, Trans., p. 253). Manila, Philippines: National Historical Institute. Rizal, J. (1996). El Filibusterismo: Subversion: A Sequel to Noli Me Tangere (R. L. Locsin, Ed., & M. S. Lacson-Locsin, Trans.). Makati City and Manila, Philippines: Bookmark Inc. Rizal, J. (1996). Noli Me Tangere (R. L. Locsin, Ed., & M. S. Lacson-Locsin, Trans.). Makati City and Manila, Philippines: Bookmark Inc. Said, E. W. (1993). Culture and Imperialism. London, UK: Chatto and Windus.

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San Juan, E. (1997). Rizal in Our Time. Pasig City, Philippines: Anvil Publishing Incorporated. Shilliam, R. (Ed.). (2011). International Relations and Non-Western Thought: Imperialism, Colonialism, and Investigations of Global Modernity. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Solidum, E. D. (1998). Philippine External Relations with Southeast Asia. In A. S. Baviera & L. N. Yu-Jose (Eds.), Philippine External Relations: A Centennial Vista (pp. 91–200). Manila, Philippines: Foreign Service Institute. Steinberg, D. J. (1972). Years at War in the Philippines. Pacifc Affairs, 45(2), 165–190. Wadi, J. M. (1998). The Philippines and the Islamic World. In A. S. Baviera & L. N. Yu-Jose (Eds.), Philippine External Relations: A Centennial Vista (pp. 15–90). Manila, Philippines: Foreign Service Institute. Welsh, H. (1900). The Ethics of Our Philippine Policy. International Journal of Ethics, 10(3), 307–317.

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Constantino revisited The ‘miseducation’ and diplomacy of the Filipinos Erickson D. Calata

Introduction Perhaps one of the most controversial ideas thought up by humans was forming categories based on differentiation. Lauren (1988) argued that humans’ innate ability to differentiate according to physical differences had its beginnings in antiquity. Categorizing races became one of the salient manifestations of this concept in modernity. At frst, human racial categories came to be based on visible characteristics, such as skin color, facial features, hair texture, and the like. Polygenesis, which is a hypothesis that different races come from different origins, once formed part of scientifc truth until debunked by the ‘out of Africa theory.’ In the mid-1800s, physical anthropologists have tried to differentiate Africans from Caucasians by studying the size of their lips, brains, and noses and their hair textures (Gutherie, 1998). Invoking polygenesis in 1846, Louis Agassiz and Samuel Morton argued, after studying a collection of skulls from different races, that the white race occupied the top in the hierarchy of races. The Africans, particularly Ethiopians, were relegated to the bottom of this hierarchy because they were reported to possess a ‘smaller brain size’ (Gould, 1981). This difference in terms of the size of the African brain as opposed to the bigger brain size of their European counterparts, became one of the bases for justifying the continued colonization of the Africans and other so-called ‘uncivilized’ peoples of the world. For Gould (1981), however, the brain size classifcation was unempirical because it was adduced based on colonizers’ hegemony over incontestable scientifc truth claims and social-historical constructions. The hierarchy of races based on brain sizes backed the discourse of the ‘Crazy African,’ portrayed as ‘colonial psyche’ (McCulloch, 1995). For Fanon (1967), the colonial psyche is politicized within a colonial environment. The colonial psyche is the result of how white European colonizers championed fashioning a psychological explanation of alienation (Fanon, 1967). The white colonizers justifed alienation by perpetuating the idea of ‘whiteness’ in relation to black individuals. In effect, black psyche is then constructed by deconstructing ‘whiteness’ in contrast to black people (Wyrick, 1998). Fanon (1967) used the term ‘sociogeny’ to emphasize the origins of pathology in the socio-political context, and it is understood through elucidating the psychological from social, political,

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and cultural contexts. Sociogeny therefore explains the causes and effects of man’s understanding based on the socio-politico-cultural dimensions of his society. W. E. B. DuBois (1903) pointed out that the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line, which is embodied between the relation of the darker and lighter races in most parts of the world. And this preference for lighter skin extends to international relations and world events in the 20th century. However, other than just the mere difference in skin color, the more serious problem regarding race differences is racialization. Fassin (2011) defnes racialization as the social construction of ‘race’ used as a social and political tool. Hence, racialization coupled with polygenism facilitated the conceptualization of the ‘other’ and sought to justify and legitimate colonialism which began as early as the 15th century. Many scholars in the past have begun searching for the meaning of the ‘other’ simply by understanding the ‘evils’ brought about by colonialism. However, I believe that it is equally important to understand the reasons behind the Western and European colonization of the East and what ‘image’ they had in mind before launching their feets and armadas. What really drove Europeans to launch their journey to the Americas, Asia, Oceania, and Africa? Was it really because of their duty to civilize the ‘other’? In explaining how colonialism and imperialism perpetuate the ‘other,’ Said (1993) uses ‘Orientalism’ to elucidate the dichotomy that perpetuates the notions of ‘the Native’ regarded as ‘other’ by the West and Europeans. Colonialism is a Western concept that originated in the 15th century. It involves the implanting of settlements on foreign and underdeveloped territory previously settled by a native population to exploit its resources (Said, 1993). The European colonizers not only subjugated the indigenous communities but also destroyed the cultures in the colonized. They instilled fear in communities but also promised eternal salvation among the natives through the use of church teachings. The control of the new territories’ wealth was essential for European colonizers as they rivalled for trade, slaves, commerce, and power. Loomba (2015) argued that colonialism is intertwined with capitalism, as the former’s goal is aimed at the expansion of economic activities outside the colony through mass production. At the onset of colonial powers, agriculture became the blood vessels of Western empires. Europeans used military conquest to dominate the colonized people on the social production of wealth, particularly as to what and how to produce and how to distribute it. Raw materials and agricultural products were used by colonizers to sustain trade with other territories like what Spain did in her Manila-Acapulco galleon trade. Bulhan (2015) pointed out further that the economic and political motives of the colonizers were more obvious at the onset of colonial projects, while the cultural and psychological motives manifested later. Mignolo (2007) argued that colonialism is inseparable from European modernity. The Enlightenment period, meanwhile, resulted in the boisterous movement of progress in most European societies. It also led to the development of economics, the invention of machines for new industry, and the birth of new technologies because of emerging scientifc thinking that fueled Europeans in their insatiable

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quest for new routes and territories to conquer. The advent of the Industrial Revolution increased the need for colonial powers since agricultural produce was vital raw material for the fourishing industrial trade. As a result of European competition to search for new routes, Loomba (2015) argued that colonialism evolved in several forms with the discovery of newfound territories. The Europeans altered history through colonialism (Settles, 1996) in exchange for fulflling the economic aims of colonialism. Indigenous people were cruelly displaced from their communities, and some were even subjected to genocide. Colonialism carries with it what is termed as ‘cultural imperialism.’

American colonization in the Philippines The Treaty of Paris ended the Spanish-American War in 1898, and having sensed an imminent defeat from the Filipino revolutionaries, the Spaniards sold the Philippines to the Americans for $20 million. The treaty was the Spaniards’ wisest scapegoat, as it was nobler to surrender to fellow masters, the Americans, than to the ‘Indios,’ their former slaves. President William McKinley’s campaign eventually resulted in the PhilippineAmerican War, which claimed the lives of more than 4,000 American soldiers; some 16,000 Philippine soldiers; and about 200,000 civilians (McFerson, 2001). San Juan (2015) pointed out that according to some authors, about 1.4 million had been reported as either collateral damage or victims of the insurrection. The different authors may be quite unsure of the number of deaths, but it is generally undisputed that this loathsome killing spree in the realization of benevolent assimilation was largely overlooked in US history textbooks. The bloody war was ended by William Howard Taft’s ‘policy of attraction’ or collaboration with wealthy and highly educated Filipinos (Cullinane, 2014). The Americans presented themselves to the native Filipinos as ‘better’ than the Spaniards. They came on the mission of benevolent assimilation, that is, not as enemies and conquerors, but as friends or ‘the imperialism of suasion’ (Stanley, 1974). Unlike the dethroned masters, they were more reforming, scientifc, and progressive (Stanley, 1974; Owen, 1971). This ploy was easily accepted by Ilustrado, or the educated middle class, who once rebelled against the Spaniards. The corroboration by tamed Ilustrado with the Americans resulted in their selfindulgence while manning the colonial project. The Americans saw the need for reforms and designed changes to address areas of discontent and criticism during the Spanish regime. Such reforms were directed in such a way that Filipinos could stay away from their nationalist demand for independence (Lim, 1993). Yet, Filipino patriots continued their struggle against their new colonizers during the Filipino-American War. The attitudes of the Filipinos towards the Americans became less hostile in the next four decades because of the latter’s increasing control of the former’s government. The Americans’ contributions in education, health, and rural development (Lande, 2007) became the main features of the early discourses of benevolent assimilation. The ‘benevolence’ of the Americans had offset the murders they

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committed during the Filipino-American War, regardless of the gravity and heinousness of the atrocities committed. The onset of revolutions and the rise of nationalism began with calling for independence from colonialism. The American Revolution started lighting the spark of independence from colonialism in 1776, and the Haitians set themselves free from the French in 1791. With the call for independence, other countries clamored to stand against colonization until the 1950s. However, the independence gained by different countries was seen by many as a substitution of colonialism with neo-colonialism.1 What independent movements and nationalisms did to colonialism was just to end the colonizers’ physical presence in the peripheries. However, the effects of colonialism continue in different realms of life of the former colonized people. The psychological effects of colonization remain even after independence from colonialism. Klose (2014) describes decolonization as the processual dissolution of political, economic, cultural, and social dimensions of colonial rule in both the periphery and in the metropole. Unfortunately, the psychological effects of colonization remain even after independence. The colonial mentality and its associated practices linger on as the remnants of colonial education and colonial language norms remain imprinted in the minds of the formerly colonized people. Decolonization is a politically, epistemologically, and economically liberating venture aimed at battling the continuing dominance and legacies of colonialism (MaldonadoTorres, 2007). Since the effects of colonialism in different realms continue, decolonization remains an unfnished business. Latin American scholars like Dussel (1985), Mignolo (2000), and Quijano (2000) have introduced the concepts of coloniality and decoloniality. They theorize colonialism is not just about political and economic consequences but also Eurocentric dominance in terms of epistemology, ontology, and ideology. Mignolo (2007) considers coloniality as the darker side of modernity. The coloniality of power propagates the superiority of the Global North within global imperial enterprises and warrants the Global South’s position as perpetually subaltern in the colonial matrices of power. As a result, MaldonadoTorres (2007) maintains that even in the fnale of direct colonialism, coloniality serves as the imperceptible power structure that ensures colonial relations of exploitation and supremacy of the Global North. The Global North’s dominance originates, strengthens, and permits a Eurocentric monopoly of power. Hence, the colonized subsists from perverted existence via Eurocentric hegemonic knowledge and distorted truth (Bulhan, 1985). The Philippines, which has been colonized by the Spaniards and the Americans for more than four centuries, has been victimized by the effects of colonialism. There seems to be a variety of literature that tackles the socio-political effects of colonialism in the country. However, there are few studies that dwell on the psycho-political effects of colonialism among Filipinos. One of the more relevant studies on this topic was Constantino’s essay titled ‘The Miseducation of the Filipino’ (1966). Renato Constantino (1966) argues ‘the most effective means of subjugating a people is to capture their minds.’ He further argued that the

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most detrimental consequence of this ‘miseducation’ among the Filipinos was the neglect of indigenous culture, nationalism, and local knowledge.

The history, historiography, and diplomacy of Renato Constantino Historiography is the knowledge and skill that is used to write down history (Martinez-Santos, 1999). It deals with conceptions of the past and the changing elucidations of historical events as written by historians. While traditional historical writing does all these basics and since colonialism is considered to be the culprit of altering history (Settles, 1996), writing in times of colonialism dwells on other issues such as who writes, under whose perspective history was written, and under which discourses and themes historical colonial writing thrives. Most of the books published during the early years of the colonial era were written by colonial offcials. These writings, according to Gealogo (1999), were generally focused on the colonial activities of the military and civil government of the colonial regime, justifcation for colonial domination and the issue of independence; social engineering measures and the political elite leadership, legal questions on Philippine-American relations, and colonial trade and social structure. American authors and colonial historians wrote their histories under the guise of explaining and justifying American colonial rule. Most historians during the period were foreign outsiders who had limited knowledge of the country, but their position as colonial offcials allowed them access to colonial documents. Most of their works were generally written for the American public and were signifcant in refecting American colonial perspectives and experiences in the Philippines. Gealogo (1999) further pointed out that such an effort was an attempt to establish ideological hegemony. The boom of historical writing in the Philippines took place after the Second World War. Unlike themes that were deemed important by the colonial masters, this period instilled the clamor for a nationalist (Martinez-Santos, 1999) and indigenous-insider perspective in historical writing. A clamor thus arose within the academe for historical writings. Keeping in mind that those who wield power write history and that there are always at least two versions of history, Renato Constantino (March 10, 1919–September 15, 1999) emerged as a nationalist historian and professor from the University of the Philippines. His seminal works in history, co-authored with his wife, Letizia, A Past Revisited (1975) and The Continuing Past (1978), provided the demarcation line between the history truly experienced by the people and the history perpetuated by the colonizers. Constantino served as executive secretary of the Philippine Mission to the United Nations from 1946 to 1949. And as a historian, a large part of his notion of diplomacy was rooted in history. He used both his writings and his role as a professional diplomat to articulate self-determination for the Philippines (Simbulan, 2009). Constantino was one of the important cadres of nationalism and nationalist history during the American regime. As such, he opposed the version of Philippine history proposed either by the colonial powers or by Filipino historians under

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the infuence of colonial ideas. He proposed the re-examination of the historical records and sought the unifying thread that gave meaning to the national evolution of the Filipino people (Schumacher, 1975; Gripaldo, 2013). The reexamination as viewed by Schumacher is limited only to history made by outsiders and insiders but using the Western framework. This is why Schumacher (1975) fnds it ironic for Constantino to look at Philippine history through Filipino eyes and to use a Western framework. But Martinez-Santos (1999) suggested that when foreign historians, who barely understood the culture of the people, dominated historical writings, Filipino historians found themselves having to utilize collective history to fnd alternatives. In other words, colonial historical writings should be re-examined through collective memory and history as perceived by the Filipino own people. The people have nothing left with them except this collective memory and history. Gripaldo (2013) averred that although Constantino was a nationalist, he was more likely a socialist than a communist. Although he came from a middle-class family, Constantino was committed to giving up his being a petty-bourgeois so his nationalism is identifed as one with the majority of the people. But like Marx, his version of history was rooted in the participation of the masses in its writing. With such, the point of view of the Filipino should be given more credit because for Constantino, history is the collective actions and struggles of the people to be free. One of the most intriguing works of Constantino is the Miseducation of the Filipino People. It is the very core of his discourses on colonialism, neo-colonialism, imperialism, nationalism, diplomacy, national independence, and the like. Historical facts were distorted by the colonizers, and what was left for the Filipino was a manipulated consciousness in the form of miseducation. Through miseducation, colonial mentality and culture were effective instruments of colonization and neo-colonialism. And for Constantino, cultural decolonization was imperative to counter the continuing dominance of neo-colonial consciousness and myths and distortions of history through national liberation (Simbulan, 2009).

(Mis)Education of the little brown ‘others’ The Americans were aware that Filipinos would abhor them should they (Americans) fall into a similar design of using religion in waging their colonial project. The Americans subsequently expanded the education system they inherited from the Spaniards through mass education open to all Filipinos (Caniesco-Doronilla, 1997). The Americans used mass education as the ‘treatment’ for their colonial experiment and as reinforcement to cure the bondage of ignorance brought about by a three-centuries-long denial of such right. This noble cause became the discourse used by the Americans to exonerate themselves in colonizing the Philippines. Americans came to the Philippines looking for better opportunities overseas but upon arrival found that they had considerable diffculties in the exercise of their professions (Torres, 2010). The colonizers brought in 600 soldiers to the colony as frst teachers in public schools, called ‘Thomasites,’ under the Philippine

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Commission Act No. 74. The act also installed a highly centralized public school system in 1901, provided the foundation of the Philippine Normal School in the same year, and mandated the English language as the language of instruction. To institutionalize mass education in the country, they built classrooms and schools. And from the periphery, the Americans chose from among the Filipino the intellectuals and those who were capable to be trained as bureaucrats, schooled them in the US, and branded them as the ‘pensionados.’ There was a difference between Spanish and American pedagogies. The Spaniards used memorization and corporal punishments to discipline and push students to study. The Americans used a free, liberal, and democratic classroom setting through participation and discussion, which also promoted an avenue for gender equality among men and women. With the Americans, women were no longer classifed as second-class citizens in contrast with the status that had been maintained by the previous masters (Torres, 2010). Yet, pedagogies were designed under the guise of liberalism and democracy; the role of the American soldiers would underscore the use of education to pacify the subjects. The education system in the Philippines is widely thought of as having reached a previously unseen peak during American occupation by the opening of technical and vocational schools and tertiary education to the public during their frst decade of power. The goal of mass education was not just to bring students into the school but also for intensifying the deletion of the collective memory of the Filipinos in terms of culture and history. The knowledge of indigenous writing, which was obliterated by the Spaniards, was further annihilated by the Americans by assimilating the Filipinos with the use of the Greek alphabet and the English language as the colonial language. In 1904, the Americans founded the Manila Business School (now the Polytechnic University of the Philippines), which served as the training school for technical and vocational courses. The foundation of the Manila Business School stemmed from the need for technical and vocational workers of the Nestlé Corporation, the frst American corporation in the Philippines. Then the need for training and grooming of future bureaucrats was met with the University of the Philippines (UP) in 1908. Since the American era, UP had become the cornerstone of liberal education in the country and had been producing top bureaucrats and offcials of the government, including Philippine presidents and lawmakers. For Constantino, the uses of education to a country under the tutelage of colonial masters are two-fold, as he argued, ‘Education serves as a vital weapon in wars of colonial conquest’ and ‘Education is a vital weapon of the people striving for economic emancipation, political independence and cultural renaissance’ (1970). What was America’s goal in instituting a colonialized mass education in the country? For Constantino, the goal of the Americans was to mis-educate the Filipinos. He pointed out further that ‘The American imposition of education was designed for the Filipinos to be Americanized in their outlook; and this was greatly attained by the use of English as the medium of instruction.’ Constantino further argued that Americans educating the Filipinos through the English language, reading textbooks and writings by American colonial writers, facilitated the

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erasure of indigenous knowledge and culture. Moreover, the American-instituted educational system is geared towards subjugating the minds of Filipinos for colonial mentality while promoting passivity to bar the latter from contesting American hegemony in the Philippines. Language is an essential medium and tool in knowledge creation. Fanon (2014) notes that language itself serves as a tool of constructing power between the master and slave, colonizers and colonized. The Spaniards’ keenness and monopoly of the colonial language made them in command of who could create knowledge within their colony. Using the colonial language implies dominance, so those who are sagacious using it get to control the discourse and, eventually, knowledge creation. While the Americans let the Filipinos learn, utilize, and master the English language, the former ensured that they monopolized the writing, that is, historical writing and knowledge creation, and the ruled were just mere ‘readers,’ ‘users,’ and ‘absorbers’ of ‘knowledge.’ The dominance in language and education was the very foundation of Constantino’s historiography. For Constantino and a generation of scholars afterward, it was argued that for Filipinos to have their true history, they must frst establish a nationalist system of education and promote the Filipino language as the main tool in history writing and knowledge creation. Knowledge and knowledge production support the Western-centric idea of their former masters, instituted and maintained through colonial imprints in the social sciences. History and knowledge creation during colonialism were directed and manipulated by the colonizers. They determined who should be allowed to write. Migge and Léglise (2008) argue that one of colonialism’s main battlegrounds is the educational system, founded during the colonial period, which continues to use colonial linguistic and cultural policies perpetuating colonial discourses. Both the Spanish and American colonizers were mindful of this. They used the power of language to perpetuate power. The Spaniards used their language in segregating the powerful and the weak while the Americans used the English language in embedding colonial mentality among their subjects. During Spanish colonization, the Spanish language was not taught to Filipinos, not until the Moret Decree of 1863. The acquisition of the Spanish language of the Filipinos marked the birth of the social class, the ‘ilustrados,’ who were mestizos, criollos, and sons of wealthy Filipino families who could afford an education in and out of the country (Ileto, 1979). The learning of the ‘Ilustrados’ of the colonial language made them acquire the relative power which they used in expressing the inequalities suffered by their countrymen and in contesting the colonial power. This new social class became increasingly committed to nationalism, science, anticlericalism, and political reforms (Schumacher, 1973). During the American period, the English language was set as the medium of instruction in schools through the Philippine Commission Act No. 74. The Filipino language was barred from the classrooms, making it illegal for teachers to use it during instruction. By compelling the Filipinos to use the English language in and outside the school, the Americans could easily understand the discourses and the sentiments of the Filipinos.

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Critiquing Constantino Constantino should be credited for his way of understanding the present and the future – that is, through understanding the past. Thus explains his very nationalistic view of history, which considered the Filipino resistance during the Spanish colonization and its successors as part of a continuing tradition of nationalism and independence. Like Constantino, Tamburro (2013) utilizes ‘remembering’ the past as a means to disclose the manifestations of colonial power, such as othering and hegemony. The past has a dialectical connection with the present and the future, since oppression and resistance are intertwined. Bhabha (1994) notes that ‘remembering’ not only encourages relinking to past historical events but for racialized peoples reinstating their indigenous languages and cultures. Although the works of Constantino became the cornerstone in understanding the effects of colonialism in the Philippines, many of his arguments, especially on the connection between colonialism and psychological effects, were not fully elucidated. Constantino’s historiography inadequately elaborates how the American-instituted educational system culminated colonial mentality. The fact is the mere learning and use of the English language does not necessarily lead to a colonial mentality; instead, the latter may have indeed facilitated the erasure of Filipinos’ indigenous knowledge and culture. Constantino was right when he averred that the American-centric educational system embeds among the Filipino children succumbing to American culture. But how? While a connection between the educational system and cultural appropriation seems apparent, the link cannot just be mediated by the American institution of a colonized system of education and using English as its medium of instruction. Pennycook (1998), for instance, argues that during the actual process of subjugation, the colonizers impregnated many of those amongst the colonized, which in effect resulted in different people being divided into races. Mindful of this race division strategy, the Americans used ‘the little brown brothers’ as a discourse to segregate themselves from the Filipinos. Correspondingly, the way Americans presented themselves as a so-called benevolent race further reinforced their claim as a superior race. And that fact didn’t surprise the Filipinos because part of the ‘benevolence’ of the Americans was to educate the former. When the Americans instituted the educational system in the Philippines and served as teachers of Filipino children, the colonized identifed themselves as subordinates. Therefore, as Pennycook (1998) posits, the colonized viewed themselves as inferior to their masters in terms of various mental and physical characteristics, and this resulted in the acceptance by the brown-skinned shorter children that their masters (who also acted as their teachers) indeed had higher mental faculties. Without hesitation, the colonized gradually came to accept that ‘light-skinned and tall’ persons belonged to a superior race. It can thus be said that the colonizers were largely successful in embedding a colonial psyche amongst the Filipinos. This colonial psyche pervades many social spheres, including education and language, while also enabling a colonial

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linguistic hierarchy, causing the language and concepts of the colonizer and the colonized to confict on various levels, such as those of dominance, control, and obedience; of cultural authority and prestige; and, most important, of cultural identity (Pennycook, 1998).

Conceptualizing miseducated diplomacy After 1946, the Philippines did not become independent in the sense that this period marks the beginnings of a neocolonial state under the tutelage of the Americans. Neocolonialism is expressed through the continuing guidance of colonial masters through the use of agreements and dictated foreign policies. Caffn (2010) argues that neocolonial relations were built by means of the all-encompassing economic participation of developing countries. For developing countries to conform with neocolonial conditions, hegemonic states offered fnancial ‘aid’ or assistance for funds and investments. Grainger (2017) notes that in exchange for these monetary benefts from the hegemonic states, the underdeveloped states were expected to sell their resources at very low rates, entrapping them in both economic and political forms of marginalization. The norms left by the colonizer were thus internalized to such a degree in the colonies that they became widely and almost unquestionably diffused across the newly independent nation-states. Even after 1946, Americans were indirectly able to maintain their hegemony and power through the institution of a colonialized mass education and the dominance of English as medium of instruction. Colonial education and language were tools to imprint colonial mentality, which deprived Filipinos of a clear sense of an identity that could be distinguished from the Americans and a common vision of nationhood and independence. Diplomacy was seen by the Americans as the bridge in maintaining their hegemony and power during their absence under conditions of post-independence neo-colonial relations. The Americans induced patronage politics by creating Filipino politicians who were well-educated about liberal democracy and well-versed in the English language. These conditions contributed to American colonialism running smoothly for a few decades. Fanon (1967) argues that the colonially induced social inferiority complex is reproduced in colonized people through their adherence to a set of colonial values. This is how Fanon (1967) illustrates the perpetuation of what he calls ‘white mask psychology.’ Wa Thiong’o (1981), writing on the effects of colonialism in Africa, further argues that cultural imperialism annihilates a people’s belief in their names, their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves. It makes them want to identify with that which is furthest removed from themselves: for instance with other people’s languages rather than their own. (p. 3)

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What Constantino called ‘miseducation’ led to the creation of a cadre of Filipino elites who adhere to American colonial values. Some of these intellectuals who were antagonistic of Spanish colonization became ‘retentionists’ and defenders of American colonization. As early as 1899, the Americans established the precedent of appointing Filipinos to high-level positions that had previously been closed to them during the Spanish period (Cullinane, 2014). Most of these appointees were those who had never considered independence from colonial rule, whether from the Spanish or the Americans. They were those who had higher educational qualifcations than the rest and could speak not only English and Spanish but also the local dialects. Miseducation, therefore, facilitated not only the making of passive subjects but also the breeding, from among the passive subjects, of an ‘intellectual’ class who could be utilized for governance by the time the Americans granted the country’s independence. They wielded power and wealth in exchange for their loyalty to the Americans so that alternative forms of national imaginaries and calls for independence dwindled. Through a politicized colonial psyche, continued elite collaboration with Americans through diplomatic processes infuenced the substance and goals of foreign policies because of a combination of elite self-interest (preserving chances of a future political career, for instance) and an identity and consciousness rooted in mastering the symbolic capital necessary for American affrmation. The role of the infuential and intelligent ‘retentionists’ who pushed to keep American sovereignty over the Philippines was also a contributing factor to the dominance of the Americans. The elite’s connivance, for instance, helped in determining viable and substantive policies they believed ought to be adopted by Americans (Salamanca, 1968). Although the elite publicly called for immediate independence, they privately favored extended tutelage to consolidate resources, leadership, and power (Lim, 1993). The US was willing to grant more political participation to the landowning elite, which led to the rise and consolidation of political clans and families. These remnants of American tutelary government are the dominant agents of Philippine politics today. When the Americans were assured that they had already provided the roots of colonial mentality among the ‘miseducated’ Filipinos, they implemented a Filipinization policy to fulfll the latter’s desire to hold and man public offces. The Americans trained the Filipino elite to make laws and policies, privileges which were previously denied to them by the Spaniards. This privilege led to making laws and policies for the beneft of the Americans in the Philippines and US policy towards the Philippines, regardless of whether these compromised the interests of the people. I thus argue that ‘miseducated diplomacy’ is a concept that describes the underlying norms of neo-colonial Filipino-American relations. First, as argued, the goal of an ‘American-style’ education was to instill colonial mentality and an inferiority complex that set the tone for the continuity of subjugated relations on both an epistemological and bilateral level, as shall be elaborated in the following. Education became a means of subjugation that furthered the unlearning of local history, culture, and philosophies as well as a submissive disposition towards ideas emanating from a former colonial master.

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Secondly, the use of the colonial language as a conduit of knowledge production and historical writing has legacies in both Philippine legislation and diplomacy. McGlinchey (2017) characterizes diplomacy as a peaceful process where actors in the international system engage in private and public dialogue to pursue their objectives (p. 21). Since language is both an instrument of communication and forms the very essence of diplomacy, written or unwritten, Filipino diplomats were able to use the English language, with its associated linguistic pragmatics and conceptual vocabulary imported from the West, in negotiating, persuading, presenting, and communicating with other state agents while remaining largely unrefective of the degree of conceptual coherency with local beliefs and long-held values. The fact that the Americans trained Filipinos as fuent speakers of English made sure that the latter succeeded in accruing symbolic capital in bilateral and multilateral diplomacy and maintaining a close cultural affnity with the US. The English language further bridged the diplomatic ties between the Philippines and the United States. The Americans ensured that the diplomatic activities of the Philippines were articulated through their desired medium and its associated socio-political concepts and worldviews, as English has remained the means of negotiating about law and policy that by nature ought to take into account local conditions and may require concepts of justice and order that go beyond the horizons of what is regarded as ‘normal’ in the US. The current 1987 Philippine Constitution as well as the 1973 and 1935 constitutions were all inspired by the tenets and provisions of the US Constitution, despite the fact that the foundations of the latter came as a result of starkly dissimilar historical and societal conditions. The continued desire to benchmark the United States in matters of legal theorization and conceptualization demonstrates a cultural bias towards an American-centric legal system that is often far-removed, linguistically and philosophically, from the social worlds of a majority of Filipinos. Lastly, the Filipino bureaucrats continue to manifest a socially induced inferiority complex as an effect of miseducation by the Americans. The Americans sought the legal justifcation of their colonization by installing American-trained lawyers-turned-bureaucrats in the government. They groomed lawyers at the highest levels of bureaucracy: a majority of Philippine presidents and lawmakers since the 1900s were lawyers trained in this tradition. Filipino lawyers studied under the auspices of the US legal system and jurisprudence and paved the way to the Americanization of Filipino politicians. Through these Filipino lawyersturned-bureaucrats with a colonially induced inferiority complex, the Americans were easily able to justify that the government was manned by brilliant legal minds who would not allow malfeasance and injustice to prosper in the country. The top bureaucrats then went on to confate the norms of the colonizer in policy making, lawmaking, and diplomatic affairs with the interests of the Filipino people. Fernandez (1976) notes that ‘since 1946 the development of PhilippineAmerican relations has revolved around certain basic military and economic treaties defning the trade, aid, investment, and political security alliance.’ In exchange for independence, the US has assured its control over the Philippines through onerous agreements and impositions. In 1946, the US Congress extracted from

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its former colony several concessions like the Parity Provisions of the Bell Trade Act and the implementation of the Tydings Rehabilitation Act. The Bell Trade Act contained the so-called ‘parity provisions,’ which granted Americans citizens and corporations equal rights of exploiting natural resources that are supposedly for the Filipinos alone. The Americans have acquired this parity right in exchange for the needed reconstruction assistance to the Philippines through the Tydings Rehabilitation Act (Lande, 2007). The Bell Trade Act was superseded by the Laurel-Langley Agreement. Since the former law became passé, as it was a law legislated during the American occupation, the Laurel-Langley Agreement was the Americans’ curative measure to extend their uneven trade impositions. Independence of the country comes with it the exclusive and supreme right of each state over its territory. In exchange for Philippine independence, the US demanded the former with the right to use military bases in 1947 through the Military Bases Agreement (Fernandez, 1976). The Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) in 1951 intertwined the military activities of both countries. The US used the MDT in dragging the Philippines to go to war against the former’s belligerent nations. The Philippines helped the US in the latter’s war of aggression against the Vietnamese, Koreans, Afghans, Iraqis, and the like. The MDT was the basis of succeeding agreements between the two countries – the Balikatan Agreement, Visiting Forces Agreement, and Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, among others. These were all the laws that entitled the US to dominate its relation with the Philippines and are also used by the former to beneft from the diplomatic affairs of the latter with other countries. Truly, these policies and agreements were perfected not because our politicians do not know what these policies and agreements were all about, but because the Americans were prescient enough to ensure that whoever would be their friends and foes were also ours.

Conclusion Constantino has been primarily hailed as being a great nationalist and historian. His writings were seldom seen as part of earlier attempts to mark the feld of international studies in the Philippines. His works on historiography and history were mostly rooted in the dialectics of colonialism and nationalism and oppression and struggle. He challenged the dominance of colonial and neo-colonial hegemony in historical writing and knowledge production. Constantino’s works signifed opposition to two colonial projects by rejecting their dominance while calling for the formation of historical narratives that are based on the masses’ concrete social experiences. His version of history was an attempt at contesting colonial writings and colonizer-sponsored history written by insiders through the use of the collective memory of the people. He was well aware that learning a foreign language was in itself not bad but could be oppressive when used for assimilation. And in terms of conceptualizing ‘regions’ as noted by Simbulan (2009), Constantino challenged ‘the idea that we are doomed to live in a region or a world that is dominated and defned solely by hegemons which have forced their economic, military, cultural, political and diplomatic power upon us.’

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It is upon Constantino’s version of history and nationalism and historiography on colonialism and neo-colonialism that the concept of miseducated diplomacy has been put forward. It exists in a country when a colonizer uses education to instill colonial mentality as a tool for subjugating the colonized and to institute political hegemony which nurtures a sense of inferiority in terms of culture and identity (Fanon, 2014). Second, the colonial language functions as a tool of oppression when used as a medium of instruction, in historical writing, and in knowledge production but at the same time to conceptualize and conduct legislation and diplomacy upon forming a neo-colonial state, and third, most of the politicians in top positions in the bureaucracy during and after colonization are blinded by the fact that they assumed the national interests of a foreign country as their own interests. The colonial psyche of the bureaucrats is politicized – it functions as the representation of the former colonizers. The politician’s neo-colonial psyche subsumes nationalism and even political interest, doing diplomacy or acting in the international system not necessarily for peaceful objectives but in alignment with the interests and/or foreign policy goals of their former colonizers. This new concept can be a new contribution to the study of international studies in the Philippines.

Note 1 The theoretical differences between the framework of neo-colonialism and decoloniality, while important, fall outside of the main scope and arguments of this chapter.

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Publishing on the ‘international’ in the Philippines A lexicometric inquiry Frances Antoinette Cruz

1

Contextual development

The question of Philippine contributions to international relations (IR) theory is largely dependent on what ‘counts’ as IR theory (Behera, 2010, p. 92). The implications of accepting theoretical premises that run contra to mainstream IR are worth serious consideration, particularly if the challenge for the discipline in the 21st century is to become more pluralistic, more holistic, and more open to the possibility of multiple epistemologies and ‘worlds.’ For theoretical scholarship to be productive, therefore, there appears to be little recourse but to address the issue of boundaries of knowledge that have long prevented concepts and worldviews from the non-West from breaching the mainstream of the discipline. Indeed, the hegemony of West-centric discourses in the discipline of IR and the ubiquity of the Westphalian state system mean that even the examination of extant non-Western IR scholarship may simply confrm the dominance of wellestablished paradigms and theoretical assumptions, exemplifying yet another barrier in discovering novel objects of knowledge in the ‘perilous but unavoidable terrain of the Non-West’ (Shilliam, 2011, p. 12). The role of local conditions, such as institutionalization and work-related expectations of IR faculty, has frequently been cited as a hindrance to the production and dissemination of locally-generated scholarship (Acharya & Buzan, 2010), particularly as these conditions often privilege the proliferation of Euroor West-centric thought rather than leveraging local forms of knowledge to attain serious consideration beyond their immediate geography. Nevertheless, the situation is hardly one-sided. The call to critically engage with Western social theory has been frequently echoed in various corners of the Southeast Asian academe, as well as throughout the Global South (see Acharya, 2014; Roxas-Lim, 1997). The objective to seek local, or even regional, sources for social and international theory notwithstanding, the practical issue of mapping ‘distinctiveness’ in the local despite the discursive power of disciplinary gatekeeping remains. If ‘distinctiveness’ in experiences and knowledge claims is considered a digression from conventional boundaries of accepted disciplinal knowledge or interest, then how can novel objects and formations of knowledge be mapped as such?

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Faced with a similar question, Chatterjee (1995) employed a Foucauldian approach in his edited volume Texts of Power: Emerging Disciplines in Colonial Bengal, which explores discursive changes that shaped disciplinary knowledges from the West in a colonial setting. The work’s collection of writings examines the formation of objects of knowledge that incur differentiation when they do not equate with their ‘original’ forms – a question that is asked in this chapter of the subject matter of IR in Philippine scholarship. To overcome disciplinal barriers to ontology when extrapolating objects of knowledge in non-Western IR, this chapter proposes that a broader defnition of the international is required, in which all phenomena that pertain to ‘complex relations across borders’ are considered as sources for relevant ‘objects’ (Booth, 2017, p. 24). Regardless of whether the objects under study conform with those typical of the IR canon, they can still be considered as a way and type of temporally, spatially, and institutionally bound knowledge concerning the international. As with Texts of Power, modalities of enunciation shall also be considered, which in this case are select publications that act as a collection of perspectives from an epistemic community comprising the contributing authors, who in turn participate in the discourse of the international. Seen in this way, the publications occupy an interstitial space between global disciplinary trends and local conditions, in which discursive manifestations of what is considered to be of thematic importance by an institutionally empowered group of people constantly take place. Lastly, thematic choices in scholarly publications shall serve to elicit the construction of the episteme of the international in a local setting, possibly revealing pluralist content that emerges from the import, exchange, and appropriation of theories and practices. Accordingly, investigating the ‘distinctiveness’ of local practices in teaching IR, qua Chatterjee, requires paying attention to contextual factors that infuence the development of objects of knowledge and the selection of themes. The study of IR in the Southeast Asian region, for instance, is relatively recent and by many accounts began to take on an autonomous status from degree programs such as diplomacy, foreign service, and political science during the Cold War. One of the most dynamic responses to international externalities and regional cooperation in the Philippines is exemplifed by the establishment of academic and research centers that assembled scholars to carefully study issues in the felds of area studies and foreign policy. Among these was the Institute of Asian Studies in 1955, later absorbed in the 1970s under the Philippine Center for Advanced Studies, known today as the Asian Center. Institutional responses to the need for knowledge on the international extended to regions outside the capital, where linkages with the rising economies of the Gulf States culminated in the establishment of the BS in international relations program at the Mindanao State University in Southern Philippines, under the King Faisal Center for Islamic, Arabic, and Asian Studies, fostering scholarly cooperation between the predominantly Muslim population in the south of the country and the Middle East. These institutions and their early research foci had strong alignments with the interests of the post-WWII IR of Southeast Asia, which distinguished itself by an interest in nation-building and economic development, ideology, and structural bipolarity, decolonization, the

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theoretical dominance of realism, and the rise of area studies and regionalization (Chong & Hamilton-Hart, 2009). In addition, shared decolonial concerns with the Global South, such as the quest for national unity and economic development (Chong & Hamilton-Hart, 2009), commonly appeared in the academic literature. The dovetailing of growing interests in both international relations and area studies in the latter half of the 20th century was accompanied by not only a normative drive in the social sciences to be more responsive to local problems and issues but also more dedicated efforts to increase the body and capacities of tertiary educators in the feld (Agpalo, 1979; Butwell, 1974). In the frst issue of the Philippine Political Science Journal in 1974, for instance, Butwell exhorted, ‘Political Scientists in the developing lands must produce basic studies dealing with their own cultures’ (p. 30), indicative of the shared aspirations of a decolonial drive to diversify and make peripheral states the center and object of local research. Nonetheless, this line of inquiry may have also unintentionally limited the role of the Global South scholar to the provision of empirical and cultural information (Aydinli & Mathews, 2000) and an agent only visible on the periphery of theory generation (Kristensen, 2015). The ‘local turn’ appears to have further fostered a strict separation between research on local epistemologies and their relevance to global or regional issues, as seen in the inward focus that characterized scholarship on indigenization in the Philippines, with Enriquez’s Sikolohiyang Pilipino (Philippine Psychology) and Salazar’s Pantayong Pananaw as prominent works that endeavored to break away from the strict adherence to Western social paradigms and theories of the previous decades. The connections between these foundational efforts at indigenization have nevertheless rarely been assessed for their potential connections to theory production on the ‘international’ in other parts of the world. The seeming predilection of many social scientists in the Philippines to confne ‘indigenous thought’ to a limited geographic and/or cultural scope, while simultaneously resorting to empirical data to supplement mainstream approaches in IR, arguably demonstrates a tendency to treat the West as theory-generator and the non-West as theory-tester (Kristensen, 2015), all while extant research in the Southeast Asian region is largely realist/constructivist (Tan, 2009), or in the Philippine case, constructivist/liberal in nature (Adiong & Cruz, this volume). Insofar as such an outcome is hardly remarkable because of the foundational nature of these paradigms, there does not appear to be signifcant evidence of an ensuing dialectic or a concerted debate about the application of homegrown theories in the realm of the international. Nevertheless, a potentially fertile source of prevalent modes of enunciation for the idea of the international outside of Foreign Policy documents presents itself in the form of academic journals in the Philippines, such as the Philippine Political Science Journal, Kasarinlan: Third World Studies Journal, Journal of Critical Perspectives on Asia, Social Transformations, and the Asia Pacifc Social Science Review, which were published by institutions that have variously endeavored to navigate issue-areas that concern, yet also transcend, their own localities. A similar

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approach can be found in Whyte (2019), whose topic modelling of abstracts in IR journals revealed that paradigmatically framed research in IR was associated with a diminished likelihood of creating ‘pathbreaking’ work (i.e., research that generates ‘novel’ topics). While it must be noted that IR is not the only focus of the scholarly output in the preceding journals, their articles can nonetheless serve as useful windows into the conceptualization and practices vis-à-vis the international in the last four decades.

2

Societal multiplicity

This section explores under which assumptions novel objects of knowledge and themes can be identifed when interrogating contemporary literature on various cross-border phenomena. I argue that Rosenberg’s (2016) proposed defnition of the international and Acharya’s (2014) Global IR agenda offer practical inroads for the discovery and importation of novel and hybrid concepts. The debate on ontology and epistemology in IR brought about by refexive paradigms in the eighties is captured by a revealing statement in Keohane’s (1989) article on feminist standpoints in IR, where he claims that post-modernism, particularly variants that deny the ‘possibility of a single epistemology’ (p. 249), is a ‘dead end’ and emphasizes that he ‘object[s] to the notion that we should happily accept the existence of multiple incommensurable epistemologies, each equally valid,’ (p. 249). Keohane thus perceived that the assumption of a variety of epistemologies that postmodernism was a disciplinal weakness and acknowledged that instead of ‘dialogues’ between different paradigms that have characterized the history of IR, ‘post-modernism’ has instead engendered profound differences that prevent any reasonable exchange from occurring. Yet not only do positivist and non-positivist epistemologies co-exist in contemporary IR, but empirical methods in the discipline have ostensibly little in common, with IR scholarship variously borrowing from microeconomics, social contract theories, formal modelling, and game theory, among others. The liberal adoption in IR of ideas from other disciplines, all while the discipline itself is not commonly treated as a source of knowledge outside of its own scholarly community, is a consistent feature of IR’s disciplinal history, with the particularly long-standing link to political science, for instance, coming in the form of asserting power relations between ‘groups’ or ‘societies’ that are bounded into nationstates (Rosenberg, 2016). If IR is to fulfl the criteria of universal validity, its scope should necessarily include both the contemporary system of nation-states and the interaction of human societies throughout history and across the globe, a realm that area studies has increasingly called attention to. In line with this, Rosenberg (2016) proposes the idea that the international is ‘that dimension of social reality which arises specifcally from the co-existence within it of more than one society’ (2016, p. 136). I take from Rosenberg (2016) that it is precisely the detachment of IR from a broader defnition of ‘the international’ and its tendentially narrow preoccupation with the tenets laid by the statist canon of IR scholarship that has not only

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hindered it from becoming its own independent area of study but has paradoxically contributed to the diffculties of determining the nature of the relationship between IR and area studies, both of which share a thematic overlap through their mutual interest in inter-societal relations. The existence of ‘societal multiplicity’ generates dynamic relations of difference, combination, interaction, coexistence, and dialectical change between societal units. The international is thus the ‘positive’ that defnes the scope of IR, which includes the effects of the existence of multiple societies on politics, the economy, geographies, race, and gender. The scope of IR for Rosenberg, then, ought to cover the types of interactions amongst different societies that the condition of the international engenders. The appropriation of area studies knowledge as a way to engage with nonWestern knowledge in the Global IR agenda articulated by Acharya (2014, 2016) can thus pose both a serious challenge and an opportunity to the study of the international. At best, it invites area studies experts of various disciplines to engage with dominant theories of international relations to stimulate dialogue about the persistent West-centrism of IR, a dialogue that inevitably concerns the ends of IR theory in general. At worst, it risks espousing and reproducing modernist logic without offering concrete ways of going beyond it except for accommodating a ‘multiplicity of cultural forms’ (Vasilaki, 2012, p. 7), all while eschewing debates on positionality within area studies itself. Yet though it is true that references to the ontological category of a region (through area studies) may reify modern colonial nomenclature of extant ‘regions,’ acknowledging the inclusive spirit of Global IR presents an opportunity for the mapping of methods, objects of study, and themes between the various agents of knowledge and knowledge production. The implications of what local interpretations of the international can have on our understanding of the history of the discipline will accordingly be examined in the following section.

I

Discourse and the international

A prevalent way of characterizing local or peripheral views in IR is through textual analysis, typically accomplished with the use of discourse analysis approaches (DAAs). Though representative of a largely heterogeneous set of methods, such approaches share the assumption that through language, ‘objects, subjects, states, living beings, and material structures – are given meaning and endowed with a particular identity’ (Hansen, 2006, p. 16). DAAs in combination with lexicometrics, a broad set of methods that include the measurement of concordances, collocations, keyness values, and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modelling,1 allow the discovery of repeated themes and actors, while providing information on semantic patterns, such as the dynamic nature of signifers that inform discourse on a particular signifed by a particular group through time. This section of the chapter thus utilizes textual data from 1980–2016 in research articles in fve academic journals whose publishers are, or were previously, based in the Philippines. This exploration of discourse creation through publications, which accumulate data on academic concerns at periodic intervals,

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fulfls two primary functions. First, in a constructivist sense, it represents the intersubjective processes of a community of scholars, or epistemic communities, that facilitate the construction of processes and trends in the feld of the international. The practices of scope delimitation, gatekeeping, and the peer review process are inseparable from the texts that are eventually published and play a key role in the process-oriented nature of defning the international. Secondly, textual analysis uncovers the limits and functions of the discursive feld, allowing researchers to uncover repeated themes and objects of interest as well as make conjectures about the workings of power that inform knowledge production and dissemination. Journals were selected according to the inclusion of international relations (as an area of inquiry, rather than a discipline) in their scope, namely the Philippine Political Science Journal (PPSJ), Kasarinlan (KAS), the Journal of Critical Perspectives on Asia (JCPA), Philippine Studies (PS), and the Asia Pacifc Social Science Review (APSSR). The inclusion of both multidisciplinary journals and those with a more disciplinal focus on political science serves to elicit information on how and how frequently international objects of study are presented. The selection was further based on online accessibility and rootedness in the national context – Kasarinlan, JCPA, PHS, and APSSR are open-source and issued by institutions based in the Philippines (the University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University, and De La Salle University, respectively) while the acquisition of PPSJ by Taylor and Francis (now Brill) from the Philippine Political Science Association in 2012 increased its international profle while maintaining its focus on matters of concern to the Philippines. Research articles with themes that correspond with the ‘broad’ defnition of the international presented earlier were selected from issues that fell within the thirty-six-year period from 1980–2016. Commentaries, book reviews, reprints, and other texts not explicitly defned as research articles were not included in the scope of the survey. A total of 472 articles and 3,856,560 word tokens formed the corpus for analysis in Antconc (Anthony, 2019). A previous study offering insights into PPSJ (Teehankee, 2014) reveals that a total of 6% of 222 articles fell unambiguously into the category of international relations and foreign policy since its frst publication (p. 13), while globalization and supranational integration accounted for 4% and 2% of articles respectively. The study employed the nomenclature and categories of Munck and Snyder (2007), in which articles with more than one overarching topic are counted more than once. The following corpus analysis, in contrast, operationalizes the term international, in terms of all cross-border, transnational interactions, which may involve a broad thematic scope that encompasses felds from comparative politics to human security and historical interactions.

Topic modelling Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic modelling was used for all articles from the selected journals from 1980–2016, with a topic selection of 12 based on initial tests varying from ten to 15 topics. While results for LDA may be highly variable,

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Table 4.1 Theme occurrence per year, n = 472,2 k = 12 Topic

Words

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

china/asia/asean/security/states/chinese/asian life/people/indian/religious/god/village/christian political/military/government/movement/politics/national/anti japanese/japan/flipino/flipinos/war/american/manila social/state/human/society/rights/international/cultural worker/women/flipino/labor/children/work/migration government/american/bases/policy/military/president/united trade/countries/economic/development/country/market/percent rice/land/production/health/manila/sugar/government spanish/manila/chinese/spain/century/islands/dutch economic/political/system/state/third/power/policy history/american/colonial/nation/historical/western/national

precautions must be taken to ensure that the initial selection for the number of topics is not too broad as to hinder reasonable generalizations from being made or too restricted as to prevent topic coherence. Initial topic modelling results were presented for peer discussion to determine the fnal number of topics (k-value) that would strike a balance between the two criteria, while presenting a suffcient basis for a discussion of thematic novelties.3 These are presented in Table 4.1. The resulting topics reveal that while the international has largely retained the orthodoxy of topics that dominate IR (i.e., security, international political economy, confict, and the state), as evidenced by the agential role attributed to specifc countries (see Table 4.1),4 the inclusion of other disciplines has revealed a historical dimension (topics 2 and 4) and an emphasis on transnational and human security issues, such as health, agriculture, and migration (see Table 4.1, topics 6 and 9), with the expanded topic modelling selection of k=30 introducing additional dimensions of societal interaction through topic 22’s inclusion, Islam, Mindanao, Malaysia, India, and the MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front) (Table 4.2). While it is unclear whether Philippine foreign policy is consistent on all these fronts, they provide insights into the enduring foci of the Philippine relationship to the ‘outside.’ The results further indicate various non-state actors in the felds of development, trade, and people-to-people relations. Labour migration (topic 6) in particular is a long-standing feature of development in the Philippines, which institutionalized migration in the latter half of the 20th century through government agencies such as the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA) and the Overseas Workers Welfare Association (OWWA). The emergence of migration as a signifcant topic cluster demonstrates its embeddedness in both national and academic discourses, particularly its articulation as a gendered economic

Table 4.2 Theme occurrence per year, n = 472, k = 30 Topic Id 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Words health/manila/city/colonial/public/american/taft/urban/islands/ centers asean/asia/regional/security/region/asian/southeast/states/ cooperation/economic dutch/trade/manila/spanish/ships/van/vessels/spain/spaniards/ islands military/political/government/aquino/president/thailand/power/ party/forces/marcos nation/national/flipino/history/power/colonial/nationalism/ historical/experience/ibid development/government/policy/foreign/program/local/policies/ programs/economic/ngos american/flipinos/flipino/americans/spanish/church/aguinaldo/ early/united/states manila/german/sulu/flipinos/quezon/spanish/suehiro/consul/ sultan/germany people/manila/time/war/day/house/left/second/january/good china/chinese/taiwan/sea/vietnam/south/islands/maritime/ relations/spratlys policy/united/military/war/states/foreign/bases/american/ relations/soviet workers/labor/migrant/migration/work/class/migrants/overseas/ employment/domestic chinese/christian/manila/spanish/kinship/religious/mestizos/ mestizo/number/faith rizal/history/western/studies/asian/time/century/revolution/asia/ historical economic/countries/capital/trade/growth/foreign/economy/ development/crisis/investment people/life/story/igorot/native/stories/woman/culture/man/art social/cultural/community/culture/identity/ethnic/people/ society/group/individual political/state/social/society/politics/movement/democracy/ movements/economic/process japanese/japan/flipino/war/nikkeijin/tokyo/occupation/ entertainers/number/nisei global/globalization/business/market/media/transnational/cities/ companies/property/thai women/flipino/children/family/flipinos/education/school/ language/men/schools muslim/india/indian/mindanao/indonesian/islamic/milf/muslims/ islam/malaysia trade/food/agricultural/agriculture/wto/countries/developing/ gatt/agreement/farmers (Continued)

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Table 4.2 (Continued) Topic Id

Words

24

security/rights/human/confict/international/peace/state/states/ arms/national spanish/manila/flipinas/spain/governor/leroy/islands/los/ spaniards/robertson percent/total/export/table/trade/exports/production/products/ income/market socialist/tion/af/third/ing/con/america/ment/puerto/popular land/rice/government/sugar/production/lands/system/century/ cotton/colonial university/members/law/organization/general/three/studies/ public/article/held anthropology/hermosilla/farmers/sa/ang/ormoc/scientifc/ scientists/cannibalism/bukidnon

25 26 27 28 29 30

phenomenon intimately connected with the Filipino family. The value placed on migration, not only on the domestic level, but also as part and parcel of a ‘temporary,’ if not recurring, source of economic development, is refective of the asymmetries of the global economy and the dependence of the periphery on newly industrializing or high-income states for employment or higher wages.

Word frequency The frequency of the appearance of lexemes was tabulated for all articles to elicit actors, thematic foci and levels of analysis that regularly appeared in the data. Word frequencies shown in Diagram 4.1 reveal that the highest-ranking noun for all the journals is the Philippines, followed by the US/U.S./USA/United States, Japan, and China. Frequently used lexemes, such as ‘economic,’ ‘political,’ and ‘social’ are indicative of the dimensions used in conjunction with an international dimension in the data, through the agency of ‘government,’ ‘state,’ and ‘countries.’ Other high-frequency nouns, such as ‘social,’ ‘China,’ ‘economic,’ ‘people,’ and ‘trade’ may indicate a development focus and an Asian regional scope. To explicate the role of state and regional actors, the frequency of selected great, regional, and middle powers, as well as geographically based nomenclature for regions, were elicited from the articles. Prominent state-names included the US, Japan, and China, followed by the regional foci of ASEAN and Southeast Asia (Diagram 4.2). Countries in Southeast Asia appear prominently in comparison with other selected OECD states, with India and Taiwan falling into similar ranges. Seen in the context of trends in IR beyond the region, local nuances emerge from the relative frequency of the lexical data; for instance, the weight of China and ASEAN provide a stark contrast to global TRIP (teaching, research, and

12000 10000 8000 6000 4000 2000 0

Diagram 4.1 Word frequencies of all journals 1980–2016

Spain France Germany Australia Canada Brazil Mexico Argentina Turkey India South Korea Taiwan Indonesia Malaysia Vietnam Thailand Singapore Middle East Latin America/South America/Central America Africa Europe/EU/European Union ASEAN/Southeast Asia US/U.S./USA/United States Japan China 0 1980s

0.1

0.2

1990s

0.3 2000s

0.4

0.5

2010s

Diagram 4.2 Word frequency values for major actors (in %)

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

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0.14 0.12 0.1 0.08 0.06 0.04 0.02 0

Global

International 1980s

Domestic 1990s

2000s

National

Local

2010s

Diagram 4.3 Word frequency values for scope (in %)

international policy) data, where only 0.77% of surveyed faculty indicated China as their main research area, while 1.05% and 3.13% indicated Northeast Asia and SEA, respectively (TRIP, 2014). While Europe/EU and Africa are the highestfrequency regional entities after ASEAN, there appears to be little attention paid to the Middle East and Latin America, despite strong migratory ties with the former and colonially driven historical and cultural relations with the latter. Despite being of potential interest for foreign aid, trade, or development cooperation, OECD states outside of the immediate region, such as Germany, France, Brazil, Argentina, and Turkey are thematized infrequently. A notable exception to the tendency to fnd Asia-Pacifc states in the context of research on the international is South Korea, whose economic power and strong presence in the Philippines does not yet seem to be refected in the corpus. The framing of scope is presented in Diagram 4.3. The ontology of the international remains a common way to articulate the scope of issue-areas, closely followed by ‘national,’ which is supported by evidence of the agential power of the state and government presented in Table 4.1. The dimensions of the ‘local’ and ‘global,’ however, do appear at similar rates throughout the data, with various themes in the articles acknowledging the global effects on local phenomena, such as health, labor migration, and food security.

Keyness This section examines results for keyness, a statistical measurement that determines word tokens appearing signifcantly more frequently in one set of texts in

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comparison to a reference corpus.5 Keyness values were elicited to reveal distinctive thematic features of a subset of texts ordered by decade in reference to the rest of the corpus on the international. The resulting keywords were then compared with Rozman’s (2015a) time-based characterization of thematic foci of Asian IR.6 Keywords for the 1980s, for instance, included Cold War actors and ideologies, such as the Soviet Union, (US military) bases, and the growth of multinational corporations (Diagram 4.4). The keyword list was further indicative of concerns of security and loci of power in the bipolar system of the Cold War – communists, socialism, military, troops, Moscow, and Washington featured more prominently in the ’80s corpus as opposed to the succeeding decades. Akin to Rozman’s multilateral and regionalist framing of 1990s Asian IR (2015b), the 1990s corpus draws attention to issues concerning the GATT, non-state actors, multilateralism, and the Asia-Pacifc region (Diagram 4.5), with ‘region’ also featuring high keyness. The 2000s decade is described by Rozman as primarily focused on a more assertive China, terrorism, and a nuclear North Korea (2015c, pp. 143–145), which the keyness values for 2000 to 2009 suggest with the prominence of China, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the Spratly Islands, and nuclear power (Diagram 4.6). The tendency of framing issues such as terrorism in a global scope is also evident in the high keyness of the word ‘globalization’ in the 2000s corpus. The concern with global and transnational norms and trends is more obvious in the focus of the 2010s corpus on the reproductive health bill (RH), migrants, and nikkeijin (individuals of mixed Filipino and Japanese heritage), the FATF (Financial Action Task Force) and CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency), and the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) as institutional lexemes,

1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0

Bases

Soviet

MNC

Diagram 4.4 Keyness values, 1980–1989

Ceylon

Dutch

Foreign

Debt

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600 500 400 300 200 100 0

Diagram 4.5 Keyness values, 1990–1999

900 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0

Diagram 4.6 Keyness values, 2000–2009

demonstrating distinct social and institutional dimensions of the international, as well as issue areas of a people-to-people nature (Diagram 4.7), with high keyness concepts ‘transnational,’ ‘multicultural,’ ‘identity,’ ‘narratives,’ and ‘discourse’ further serving as a prelude to the increasing importance of identity politics on a global scale.

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700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0

Diagram 4.7 Keyness values, 2010–2016

In connection with the relevance of migration described earlier, the lexicometric and text mining data demonstrate that the international, more than just the domain of states and ‘traditional’ security, is viewed through the enunciative mode of the academe as a realm where interdependence comprising institutions, economic relations, and extensive social ties – the Philippine diaspora, migration, and development through agriculture, trade, and foreign aid – are seen as proftable sites of endeavor and scholarly attention.

Textual patterns While the results of the textual data are not necessarily indicative of a distinctively ‘Filipino’ approach in a particularist or national sense (Vasilaki, 2012), some reoccurring themes are worth noting. First, concerns with migration, agriculture, and multilateralism may indicate the academe’s acknowledgment of the country’s condition as a small state, its international agential power limited to seeking solutions to domestic, particularly, economic issues (Huxley, 1996), instead of shaping the nature or norms of the international community (Ayoob, 2002). Secondly, the promise of Afro-Asia cooperation presented in Bandung in 1955 has not appeared to materialize into sustained and equanimous research production on the relationship between the Philippines and other non-Western regions and states outside of Japan, China, and Southeast Asia. Rather than a global network of knowledge transmitted through academic journals in the Philippine context emerging from the decolonial period, we witness a turn towards the immediate (Asia-Pacifc) region and, arguably, the geographic intersection of a rising and great power. The

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nature of this turn requires some consideration – could this be a natural outcome of subaltern realism (Ayoob, 2002), the product of decades of institutional ‘turns’ towards Asia and ASEAN, or has the Philippine academic engagement vis-à-vis the ‘international’ simply not perceived Latin America (Rubiolo, this volume) and the Middle East (Sevilla, this volume) as coherent and consistent objects of scholarly interest and policy? The results of textual analysis further suggest the need for a re-examination of the horizons of the ‘West’ as an ontological category – while the treatment of the US transcends disciplinal and temporal boundaries, individual European states are often relegated to the annals of history, leaving yet much to be said about how previous experiences with ‘Europe’ and European peoples and states underlie current framings of relationships with the EU, the US, or the ‘West.’ Lastly, latent possibilities of non-territorial dimensions of power may be inferred from the data on keyness, which isolates thematic foci from words distributed equally throughout the corpus. The institutional, identity-focused and transnational nature of current academic discourse is indicative of an interest in exploring various avenues of decentralized or localized cooperation in response to needs of a social or economic nature – that is, paradiplomatic relations – providing critical insights into the changing nature of agency and its directionality, both from within the state and without. The seeming emergence of institutional, social, and identity-based dimensions of the international are, however, belied by the fact that the articles do not refect a conscious engagement between these novel or local objects of knowledge and selection of themes with IR theory. Of all the articles surveyed from the time period 1980–2018, very few of them identifed IR theory within the keyword selection. The broad scope of internationally related themes, therefore, appears not to be explicitly linked to IR – instead, articles tend to reference their ‘home’ disciplines or the general scope of the journal. When viewed as an inherently multi- or interdisciplinary venture, the international has certainly engendered a substantial amount of scholarly literature in the Philippines. At the same time, engagement with literature on IR, scholarly collaboration, and relevant tags for the realm of the object of study are desired towards creating an environment where one can ‘playfully’ (Contreras, 2002) write and experiment with theory. Broadly speaking, Teehankee’s (2014) survey of PPSJ, appears, on one hand, to support the fndings of TRIP that theory is in fact featured in non-Western scholarship – more than 20% of the articles in the PPSJ journal feature theoretical engagements on politics in the Philippines; on the other hand, very few articles deal with ‘pure’ theory – more so for IR.

II

Critical ways forward

The preceding has shown that the selected publications on the international in the Philippines, while having their own particularities, have yet to take conscious efforts using these experiences to engage IR theories, or more broadly, theories as to how the international is ‘performed.’ This is not to argue that there is an absence of middle-range theorizing, yet even these practices are not wont to label

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themselves as ‘IR theory.’ Notwithstanding the varied uses of different IR paradigms, the tendency to pursue the issues of empirical deviations from the Western experience through explicitly stated theoretical research in IR remains low in the selected local publications as of writing, despite encouraging results from TRIP’s Philippine results in terms of interest in IR theory (Adiong & Cruz, this volume). Scholarship in post-colonial IR has thus far presented critical theories that to various degrees incorporate Western scholarship. While acknowledging that post-colonial theories primarily serve a critical rather than an ostensibly theorygenerating purpose, the ability to point out the horizons of a discipline and its various lacunae can draw attention towards the more theoretically generative projects, such as the development of methods to further explore concepts and extrapolate histories geared towards an understanding of the international from places where it has been theorized the least, some of which shall be discussed in the following. Chong (2010), for instance, has advocated for hybrid or transitional theory, which both engage with ‘mainstream’ theories to varying degrees – hybrid as a combination of both ‘Western’ and ‘non-Western’ and transitional theorizing, which uses Western theorizing as a bridge towards a ‘more independent framework’ (p. 136). These methods, however, necessitate a conscious engagement with historical, philosophical, and religious dimensions of IR, aspects that have not necessarily been triangulated in the data retrieved earlier. The Philippine experience with theory generation and indigenization has battled with drawing the line between locally generated theory and nativism/ essentialism, particularly seen in the iterations of and debates on Salazar’s pantayong pananaw (1991), which promoted local historiography through discursive communities in the national language (Filipino). The debate continues to remain relevant, as the main publications featuring local scholarship on the concept of the international are written in English for an English-speaking discursive community. The view from any one country about IR has similarly been charged with potential essentialism and nativism, which has led to explicitly national approaches coming under considerable skepticism. This serves as a necessary caveat against appropriating labels arbitrarily, lest one resort to simplifcation and stereotyping, particularly in cases where the state is ethnically and linguistically heterogeneous (i.e., comprising peripheries within peripheries). The co-existence of the local and global is further referenced in an essay on methods in Global IR, in which Bilgin (2016) suggested that Edward Said’s infuential critique of Orientalism paved the way both politically and methodologically for the non-West to reclaim its agency in scholarship and forge parallel yet ‘harmonious’ historical narratives that present alternatives to Western discourses and characterizations of the ‘East.’ It is because of this that the method of contrapuntal readings and a ‘strategically de-essentializing’ stance in post-colonialism emerged as a possibility for IR. Contrapuntal readings interrogate multiple perspectives of shared time and can accordingly be applied to discourse within Said’s line of comparative literature as well as the social sciences. In line with Rosenberg’s (2016) article, it is worth exploring further how precolonial relationships (towards outgroups, the natural world, knowledge, and

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so on) were transformed qua colonialism into current modes of international practice (for an Indonesian example, see Sebastian & Lanti, 2010). For instance, persisting features of political order in the Philippines, such as the role of families (McCoy, 2009) may act as an inroad to exploring the practices of the relational values within the family in politics and its possible implications on state-state relations. This is not to, however, disregard the role of institutional and social change; rather, it aims to interrogate the role of practice in the ‘international’ or amidst societal multiplicity. For Contreras (2002), however, the focus of social sciences in general, particularly in developing countries, is to make themselves relevant and not merely an intellectual activity limited to peers. This goal resonates in other theoretical and pedagogical research in the Philippines that links the study of political science for nation-building and to infuence policy, such as in Butwell (1974) and Agpalo (1979) and, in area studies, Roxas-Lim (1997), who all stressed the need for examination of the Philippines in order to understand its position in the world and translate this knowledge into praxis. ‘Relevance,’ however, means not only determining the multifarious ways the Philippines is positioned and connected with other states (through networks and relations) and emphasizing the relevance of its history, geographic position, and economic needs but encouraging sensitivity to, on the level of knowledge and theory production, co-existing local practices, norms, and worldviews and their relationship to extant power structures when writing about and ‘doing,’ ‘experiencing,’ and ‘living’ the ‘international.’ To conclude, while the ‘Philippines’ as a state, and its various sub-state actors, are inextricably bound to transnational, international, and inter-governmental systems and networks, there is yet to be a concerted movement to locate universal yet locally generated meanings of the international and the global. I have argued that Rosenberg (2016) and Acharya’s (2014) plea for Global IR may offer inroads into how allied disciplines and felds can be used and channelled under an ‘IR’ lens and generate maps of post-colonial or post-Western areas of concern and knowledge claims. It is at this juncture that Inayatullah and Blaney’s (2004) injunction to go beyond the West in the acknowledgment of a shared history involves not its rejection but its rediscovery and re-imagination (p. viii) – a task that can be accomplished in IR through situating ‘peripheral’ knowledge and practices as a counterpoint alongside powerful extant world imaginaries.

Supplementary material Supplementary materials such as wordlists, keyword lists, and topic modelling data can be found on http://tiny.cc/cruzdatafles

Notes 1 LDA represents a “fexible generative probabilistic model” (Blei, Ng, & Jordan, 2003, p. 1014) that discovers ‘topics’ – clusters of words that are used together frequently (see Whyte, 2019 for a similar approach).

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2 Stopwords were excluded, but words were not stemmed in order to preserve nuances of adjectival and noun usage. 3 Peer review determined that the minimum k-value of topics that offered a coherent summary of the data and its relationship to the international was k=12. The upper threshold was determined at k=30. 4 Table 1 presents a summarized form of the frequency of the ten topics derived from LDA per year. 5 Keyness values provided here are calculated according to log likelihood, a detailed description of which can be found in Rayson and Garside (2000). 6 While there is reason in the argument that academic journals do not necessarily refect the most pressing concerns of current events the way newspapers do – the mode of articulation of journals as venues for scholarly exchange manifest what gatekeepers perceive to be relevant to the journal’s scope and distribution. By contrasting IR themes relevant to Asia in a given chronological period with articles that concurrently appear in academic journals, one may begin to discern the divergences across enunciative modes on the ‘international.’

Bibliography Acharya, A. (2014). Global International Relations (IR) and Regional Worlds: A New Agenda for International Studies. International Studies Quarterly, 58, 647–659. doi:10.1111/isqu.12171 Acharya, A. (2016). Advancing Global IR: Challenges, Contentions and Contributions. International Studies Review, 18, 4–15. doi:10.1093/isr/viv016 Acharya, A., & Buzan, B. (2010). Why Is There No Non-Western International Relations Theory? An Introduction. In A. Acharya & B. Buzan (Eds.), Non-Western International Relations Theory: Perspectives on and beyond Asia (pp. 1–25). Oxon: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203861431 Agpalo, R. (1979). Political Science for Knowledge and Civilization. Philippine Political Science Journal, 7(10), 59–75. doi:10.1080/01154451.1979.9754075 Anthony, L. (2019). Antconc (Version 3.5.8) [Computer Software]. Tokyo, Japan: Waseda University. Retrieved from www.laurenceanthony.com/sotftware Aydinli, E., & Mathews, J. (2000). Are the Core and the Periphery Irreconcilable? The Curious World of Publishing in Contemporary International Relations. International Studies Perspectives, 1(3), 289–303. doi:10.1111/1528-3577.00028 Ayoob, M. (2002). Inequality and Theorizing in International Relations: The Case for Subaltern Realism. International Studies Review, 4(3), 27–48. doi:10.1111/ 1521-9488.00263 Behera, N. C. (2010). Reimagining IR in India. In A. Acharya & B. Buzan (Eds.), Non-Western International Relations Theory: Perspectives on and beyond Asia (pp. 92–116). London and New York: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203861431 Bilgin, P. (2016). “Contrapuntal Reading” as a Method, an Ethos and a Metaphor for Global IR. International Studies Review, 18, 134–146. doi:10.1093/isr/viv018 Blei, D. M., Ng, A. Y., & Jordan, M. I. (2003). Latent Dirichlet Allocation. Journal of Machine Learning Research, 3, 993–1022. doi:10.1162/jmlr.2003.3.4-5.993 Booth, K. (2017). What’s the Point of the International? The International in the Invention of Humanity. In S. L. Dyvik, J. Selby, & R. Wilkinson (Eds.), What’s the Point of International Relations? (pp. 21–33). London and New York: Routledge. Butwell, R. (1974). On the Role of Political Scientists in Developing Countries. Philippine Political Science Journal, 1(1), 28–41. doi:10.1080/01154451.1974.9753897

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Chatterjee, P. (1995). The Disciplines in Colonial Bengal. In P. Chatterjee (Ed.), Texts of Power: Emerging Disciplines in Colonial Bengal (pp. 1–29). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Chong, A. (2010). Southeast Asia: Theory between Modernization and Tradition? In A. Acharya & B. Buzan (Eds.), Non-Western International Relations Theory: Perspectives on and beyond Asia (pp. 117–147). New York and London: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203861431 Chong, A., & Hamilton-Hart, N. (2009). Teaching International Relations in Southeast Asia: Historical Memory, Academic Politics and Politics: An Introduction. International Relations of the Asia-Pacifc, 9, 1–18. doi:10.1093/irap/lcn024 Contreras, A. (2002). Polity beyond the State: “Postmodernizing” Political Science in the Philippines. Philippine Political Science Journal, 23(46), 49–82. doi:10.108 0/01154451.2002.9754235 Hansen, L. (2006). Security as Practice: Discourse Analysis and the Bosnian War. Oxon: Routledge. Hobson, J. (2012). The Eurocentric Conception of International Relations: Western International Theory 1760–2010. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139096829 Huxley, T. (1996). Southeast Asia in the Study of International Relations: The Rise and Decline of a Region. Pacifc Review, 9(2), 199–228. doi:10.1080/ 09512749608719179 Inayatullah, N., & Blaney, D. L. (2004). International Relations and the Problem of Difference. New York and London: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203644096 Keohane, R. (1989). International Relations Theory: Contributions of a Feminist Standpoint. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 18(2), 245–253. doi:10. 1177/03058298890180021001 Kristensen, P. M. (2015). How Can Emerging Powers Speak? On Theorists, Native Informants and Quasi-Offcials in International Relations Discourse. Third World Quarterly, 36(4), 637–653. doi:10.1080/01436597.2015.1023288 McCoy, A. (2009). An Anarchy of Families: State and Family in the Philippines. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. Munck, G. L., & Snyder, R. (2007). Debating the Direction of Comparative Politics: An Analysis of Leading Journals. Comparative Political Studies, 40(5), 5–31. doi:10.1177/0010414006294815 Rayson, P., & Garside, R. (2000). Comparing Corpora Using Frequency Profling: Comparing Corpora Using Frequency Profling. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Comparing Corpora, Held in Conjunction with the 38th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2000) in Hong Kong (pp. 1–6). Pennsylvania: Association for Computational Linguistics. Retrieved September 22, 2019, from www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/users/paul/publications/rg_acl2000.pdf Rosenberg, J. (2016). International Relations in the Prison of Political Science. International Relations, 30(2), 127–153. doi:10.1177/0047117816644662 Roxas-Lim, A. (1997). Re-Thinking Area Studies. Asian Studies Journal, 33(1), 1–18. Rozman, G. (2015a). Introduction. In G. Rozman (Ed.), Misunderstanding Asia: International Relations Theory and Asian Studies over Half a Century (pp. 1–24). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/9781137506726 Rozman, G. (2015b). The 1990s: Asia’s Transformation and IR Theory. In G. Rozman (Ed.), Misunderstanding Asia: International Relations Theory and Asian

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Studies over Half a Century (pp. 107–124). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/9781137506726 Rozman, G. (2015c). The 2000s: China’s Rise, Responses to It, and IR Theory. In G. Rozman (Ed.), Misunderstanding Asia: International Relations Theory and Asian Studies over Half a Century (pp. 143–162). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/9781137506726 Salazar, Z. (1991). Ang Pantayong Pananaw Bilang Diskursong Pangkabihasnan. In V. V. Bautista & R. Pe-Pua (Eds.), Pilipinolohiya: Kasaysayan, Pilosopiya at Pananaliksik. Manila: Kalikasan Press. Sebastian, L., & Lanti, I. G. (2010). Perceiving Indonesian Approaches to International Relations Theory. In A. Acharya & B. Buzan (Eds.), Non-Western International Relations Theory: Perspectives on and beyond Asia (pp. 148–173). London and New York: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203861431 Shilliam, R. (2011). The Perilous but Unavoidable Terrain of the Non-West. In R. Shilliam (Ed.), International Relations and Non-Western Thought: Imperialism, Colonialism, and Invetigations of Global Modernity (pp. 12–26). London and New York: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9780203842126 Tan, S. S. (2009). Southeast Asia: Theory and Praxis in International Relations. In A. Tickner & O. Waever (Eds.), International Relations Scholarship around the World (pp. 120–133). New York and London: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203885451 Teaching, Research and International Policy. Retrieved from https://trip.wm.edu/ charts/#/questions/38 Teehankee, J. (2014). The Study of Politics in Southeast Asia: The Philippines in Southeast Asia. Philippine Political Science Journal, 35(1), 1–18. doi:10.1080/01 154451.2014.903555 Vasilaki, R. (2012). Provincialising IR? Deadlocks and Prospects in Post-Western IR Theory. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 41(3), 3–22. doi:10. 1177/0305829812451720 Whyte, C. (2019). Can We Change the Topic Please? Assessing the Theoretical Construction of International Relations Scholarship. International Studies Quarterly. Advance online publication. doi:10.1093/isq/sqy050

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Internationalizing pagdamay and palakasan A Philippine perspective on Duterte foreign policy1 Ricardo Roy A. Lopez

Introduction Since the victory of Rodrigo R. Duterte in the Philippine presidential elections last May 2016, numerous scholars have attempted to comprehend his unorthodox style of governance. Casiple (2016) notes that Duterte’s attack on institutions such as the church and human rights groups, among others, ‘have no precedent’ in presidential elections (p. 181). Unlike previous presidents, Duterte was never appointed nor elected to a national position before the presidency. His status as an outsider to the traditional political elite has also mainstreamed discourses that were otherwise relegated to the margins, such as his alleged identity as a socialist and a Maranao (Curato, 2016, p. 10). It was because of these reasons that the academe felt the exigency to provide for an explanation of Duterte’s conduct, such as in Nicole Curato’s (2017) edited volume entitled, A Duterte Reader: Critical Essays on Rodrigo Duterte’s Early Presidency. Literature regarding Duterte’s praxis of international relations mostly focused on traditional security, such as that written by Renato de Castro. While this chapter does not intend to contradict such studies, it acknowledges that such literary works have led to inquiries about whether existing frameworks in the social sciences are adequate to explain his conduct. Hence, there is a need to seek a scholarly explanation as to how Duterte conducts foreign policy. With this, a research question is conceived: how can the literature on Philippine studies explain Duterte’s foreign policy? I argue that contra mainstream political or IR frameworks that have cast Duterte as ‘populist’ (Curato, 2016; McCoy, 2017), ‘radical’ (Maboloc, 2018), among others, there are alternative explanations/frameworks that can be gleaned from an FP-focused appropriation of area studies literature, particularly on socio-political norms in the Philippines. Cognizant of the country’s geopolitical location, this chapter further supplements such works with literature from Southeast Asia. The idea of synthesizing area studies and international relations has been advanced by Amitav Acharya (2005), wherein he argued that Asian scholars could utilize local concepts of power in conducting research (p. 8). Taking this into account in the study of Duterte, two main works in Philippine and Southeast Asian studies will be utilized. Remigio Agpalo (1999) describes the concept of pangulo regime in the Philippines as being characterized by the supremacy of the concept of pagdamay

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or caring for others in the executive branch of government (p. 46). In the second source, entitled Asian Power and Politics: The Cultural Dimensions of Authority (1985), Pye and Pye (1985) described Philippine politics as being characterized by palakasan (asserting power), wherein power is measured by one’s exception to the rules and norms of society (p. 124). The said concepts and how they relate to one another will be further discussed in the succeeding sections. This paper argues that the nexus between pagdamay and palakasan can explain Duterte’s foreign policy: Duterte embodies pagdamay towards his fellow Filipinos. In perceiving himself as the pangulo, he believes that he should be subjected to little to no constraint in pursuing pagdamay in his relationship with his constituents. This, in turn, leads Duterte to utilize the concept of palakasan in his conduct of politics, specifcally foreign affairs. This paper will be organized by frst discussing the methodologies and limitations of the chapter. In the second part, this paper attempts to discuss related literature regarding pagdamay and palakasan. The purpose of such a review is to elucidate how such concepts are to be utilized in this chapter. In addition, the section will briefy discuss the rhetoric or action of previous administrations and local governments to better comprehend pagdamay and palakasan. The third section operationalizes the concepts of pagdamay and palakasan. For the fourth part, pagdamay and palakasan are discussed relative to the negotiation of power in the Philippines. Lastly, the nexus between pagdamay and palakasan are elaborated on two cases, namely the diplomatic implications of the war on drugs and the Kuwaiti-OFW crisis.

Methodologies and limitations This chapter attempts to provide an explanation of Duterte’s foreign policy utilizing area studies literature, in line with Acharya’s (2014) conception of global international relations, which advocates for the use of local culture and history in undertaking scholarly inquiry in international studies (p. 3). While this research focuses on Duterte’s foreign policy, it seeks to encourage further research into a foreign policy framework that utilizes indigenous knowledge. This chapter utilizes inter-textual analyses of Duterte’s speech and policy pronouncements obtained via archival research. In addition, this chapter will also utilize archival research of existing literature in Asian studies in an attempt to formulate a foreign policy framework by utilizing two concepts namely Remigio Agpalo’s (1981, 1999) conception of pagdamay (to care for others) and Pye and Pye’s (1985) conception of palakasan (asserting power). The literature section attempts to discuss concepts from different Philippine ethnic groups that could be similar to the aforementioned concepts.2 Incorporating a subnational analysis enables this paper to incorporate perceptions of authority at the local level (Lara, 2014, p. 6). Such is important to address what Tusalem (2019) referred to as the Imperial Manila syndrome. According to Tusalem (2019), the Imperial Manila syndrome is the belief that the farther an area is from the capital, Metro Manila, the more underdeveloped (political, economic, and social) it is (p. 1).

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A discourse on the literature of pagdamay and palakasan Alfred McCoy (1994), in his research on Philippine political dynasties, stated that scholars must accept that the social sciences could ‘often capture but a fragment of this (the Philippines) complex, Southeast Asian society’ (p. xi). The existence of formal institutions associated with democracy such as regular elections, checks and balances amongst the three branches of government, and a bill of rights presents the Philippines as a country that is similar to Western liberal democracies. But what is not captured by a brief overview of formal institutions are the socio-cultural norms that shape the negotiation and understanding of power in Philippine politics. Scholars such as Amitav Acharya (2005) have proposed utilizing indigenous theorizing in international relations. Relative to the Philippines, Filipino intellectuals in the feld of psychology have conceptualized Sikolohiyang Pilipino or Filipino psychology. According to Pe-Pua and Protacio-Marcelino (2000), ‘Sikolohiyang Pilipino’ (Filipino psychology) utilizes the concept ‘indigenization from within’ wherein framework and methodology are interpreted from local culture (p. 49). Similar to the proponents of Sikolohoyang Pilipino, this paper also attempts to ‘indigenize from within’ but in the feld of international relations and not psychology. While area studies are not inadequate in providing theoretical frameworks to conduct various scholarly inquiries on the respective areas, rarely they are used for producing local knowledge for international studies scholarship. Most of these works of literature were undertaken by area specialists (Acharya and Buzan, 2010, p. 22) and formulated relative to local interactions such as domestic politics. Hence, scholars seldom utilize such concepts in conducting scholarly inquiry related to the international relations. With this, there is a need to test whether such literature is capable of explaining the praxis of international relations. The notion of domestic politics affecting the conduct of foreign policy is not in itself innovative. This level of analysis is referred to by Waltz (1959) as the ‘Second Image’ or the state level. However, Waltz privileged the Third Image or the systemic level of analysis over the Second Image. In contrast, this research will argue that domestic politics heavily infuences the conduct of foreign policy. Putnam (1988) argues that domestic politics is intertwined with international relations (p. 427). Mishra (2016) has a similar argument to Putnam wherein he stated that, the ‘foreign policy of any country is domestic politics conducted on the international stage and not, strictly speaking, international’ (p. 2). While this research is conducted on the necessity of utilizing area studies literature in knowledge production for international relations, it also attempts to supplement the discourse on the connection between domestic politics and the practice of international relations. Relative to the argument of utilizing area studies literature in conducting research on international relations, Remigio Agpalo’s (1999) concept of pagdamay (care for others) will be discussed. To comprehend Agpalo’s conception of pagdamay, it is necessary to discuss his (1981) earlier work on the pangulo

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regime entitled The Philippines: From Communal to Societal Pangulo Regime. The pangulo regime is a polity headed by a leader referred to as pangulo, which is derived from the word ulo, or head (Agpalo, 1981, p. 61). His use of the word ulo emphasizes his argument that language is used to socialize Filipinos into believing they are all part of one polity. Agpalo (1981) states that the society’s acceptance of a need for the head or pangulo in the feld of politics is brought about by ‘the pervasive infuence of language on the subliminal felds of perception of the Filipino and is reinforced by folk sayings, rites of passage, ordinary activities of the family, and epithets’ (p. 69). He emphasized this argument by citing a folk saying that is translated into the different Philippine languages, Ang sakit ng kalingkingan ay damdam ng buong katawan (‘The pain suffered by the little fnger is felt by the body’) (Agpalo, 1981, p. 76). His discourse on body parts emphasizes his perspective on the Philippine nation as a communitarian society. In discussing the history of the pangulo, Agpalo concluded that such an authoritative fgure wields tremendous power that could enable him or her to become a dictator (Agpalo, 1981, p. 78). His formulation of the concept of pagdamay (to care for others) is meant to prevent dictatorial tendencies. To have pagdamay or care means that the pangulo will undertake action to be of service to the community. Such hypothesis is similar to the perception of ownership in Tausug society. According to Kiefer (1972), a Tausug’s comprehension of ownership is to be responsible for one’s safety and protection (p. 23). This is in contrast to the Western notion of property relations, which is legitimized by the impersonal power of the state (Kiefer, 1972, p. 23). To illustrate this, Agapalo argues that the alternate term for pagdamay is pag-ibig, or love. The implication of this argument is that pagdamay constrains the pangulo from utilizing power in a Machiavellian manner in pursuit of self-interest and at the expense of the populace. Agpalo (1999) reiterated his main thesis about the pangulo regime in commemoration of the centennial anniversary of Philippine independence in his article “The Philippine Pangulo Regime.” In articulating the pangulo regime, Agpalo argued that while it is democratic, it places a ‘premium’ over two aspects of governance, namely pagdamay and a strong executive. The ability to use pagdamay serves two functions. First, it provides the pangulo a rationale to mobilize resources in implementing programs related to it. Second, it provides patronage for the pangulo to continue staying in power. Another aspect of governance that he articulated was the need for a strong executive. In articulating for supremacy of the executive, he illustrated the differentiation of the pangulo regime relative to the British parliamentary system and the American presidential system. He argued that in the British system of governance, the legislature exercises supremacy, and the American system calls for equality in the power of both the executive and congress while the pangulo regime argues for the supremacy of the executive (Agpalo, 1999, pp. 47–49). With this, Agpalo (1975) states that ‘Philippine Presidents, however, never followed the prescription of the Constitution of separation of coordinate or co-equal powers of the three branches of the government’ (pp. 3–4). The supremacy of the pangulo persisted despite the

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introduction of the 1935 Commonwealth Constitution during the American colonial era. While Agpalo’s conception of pagdamay is valuable, the examples he cited did not elaborate on how pagdamay will be conducted relative to foreign affairs. He did mention, for example, the case of Bayanihan (the practice of a community in helping a family transfer its house) as a viable example of pagdamay. Other examples that he cited were at most theoretical and were not tested. One example that he cited was Macario Sakay’s constitution, which called on all the Tagalogs to engage in pagdamay towards one another (1981, p. 79). Since Sakay and his followers were preoccupied with engaging in guerilla warfare to resist American colonial designs in the Philippines, his government did not have the opportunity to pursue a public program that would have illustrated how pagdamay would have been implemented. Relative to this, another concept will be introduced to assist in comprehending Philippine foreign policy. Lucian W. Pye and Mary W. Pye (1985) referred to the concept of palakasan in their book entitled Asian Power and Politics: The Cultural Dimensions of Authority.3 Palakasan, or asserting power, is a concept wherein power is understood as being over and beyond the rule of law (Pye & Pye, 1985, p. 124). The term comes from the word lakas meaning strength or power. The word palakasan suggests competition for power wherein whoever holds the most lakas succeeds. This is in contrast to Max Weber’s (as cited in Waters & Waters, 2015) conception of ‘legal authority’ wherein belief in authority is derived from regulations based on ‘rational rules.’ However, Pye and Pye did not propose as to what constitutes being over and beyond the reach of legal authority. With this, it is perhaps best to take note of Anderson’s (as cited in Lara, 2014) argument that for the Javanese, any debate pertaining to what legitimizes power is ‘meaningless’ (p. 33). This suggests that power or lakas is self-legitimizing in any form it may manifest, whether it be material or based on norm diffusion, among others. A similar concept to lakas is concerned with how power and legitimacy are understood by traditional datus in the province of Maguindanao. Beckett (as cited in Lara, 2014) states that a datu’s personal character is vital in obtaining ‘fear and respect,’ which in turn legitimizes power (p. 34). However, power in Philippine society is also guided by another concept referred to as delicadeza or the refusal to be vulgar or crass in the exercise of power (Pye & Pye, 1985, p. 123). While the word delicadeza is Spanish, Pye and Pye do not in any way describe whether such a concept was a by-product of Spanish colonialism in the Philippines. Asserting power to defy norms and rules must, therefore, be done subtly. Relative to this, the exercise of lakas is diffcult, as doing so will risk the authority being accused as walang (no) delicadeza, or being vulgar in the exercise of power. This predicament of being accused of walang delicadeza is resolved when the pangulo cites pagdamay as a rationale for the exercise of palakasan to respond to problems that harm the populace. The relation between pagdamay and palakasan in the negotiation of power can serve as an explanatory framework for scholarly inquiry into the praxis of international relations in the Philippines and more specifcally the Duterte foreign policy.

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Operationalizing pagdamay and palakasan Given that the connection between pagdamay and palakasan in the negotiation of power had been established, it is now necessary to articulate such nexus in the conduct of foreign policy. The pagdamay-palakasan nexus requires the pangulo to identify him/herself as being one with the constituents. This is related to an element of what Anderson (as cited in Sebastian & Lanti, 2010) refers to as a ‘graduated sovereignty’ wherein ‘it is important that the power and infuence of the center are manifested in increasing social prosperity’ (p. 151). When events that are considered detrimental to the populace occur, the pangulo will engage in palakasan so as not to be hindered by institutional or normative limitations. With this, he or she will be able to ensure that increasing social prosperity will be attributed to him or her. He or she will justify this process by invoking pagdamay to the populace. In invoking pagdamay, he or she could also avoid violating delicadeza. To operationalize the pagdamay and palakasan, there is a need to undertake discussion as to how these two concepts are applied in a Philippine setting.

Pagdamay Filipino politicians regularly engage in activities where pagdamay is practiced in their relations with the constituents. Most of these are done through campaign propaganda during election periods. In terms of pagdamay, the primacy of the executive branch in governance relative to the other two branches also needs to be illustrated. While Agpalo did not intend to defne the supremacy of the executive branch as the curtailment of powers of the legislative and judiciary branches, the current relations amongst the three branches will demonstrate otherwise. Though the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines mandates both the legislative and judicial branches of government to counter potential excesses committed by the executive, their relation to the latter will reveal how informal networks of patronage render them powerless against executive powers. According to Agpalo (1975), Commonwealth President Manuel L. Quezon dominated the legislature during his administration by choosing its speaker (pp. 3–4). Furthermore, with control of the legislature, 95% of Quezon’s proposed bills were enacted (Agpalo, 1975, pp. 3–4). For instance, while the president conducts foreign affairs through the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), the constitution also mandates the legislative and judiciary branches of government to ‘check and balance’ the executive branch. As far as the legislative branch is concerned, Article 7, Section 21 of the 1987 Constitution mandates that all treaties and international agreements entered into by the Philippine government will only become binding upon the ratifcation of two-thirds of the Senate (1987 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines). However, the Constitution does not stipulate whether Senate concurrence is needed should the executive branch repeal treaties. Such will have a very serious implication on the war on drugs as will be discussed later. According to Thompson (2014), Philippine presidents make use of what is generally referred

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to as ‘pork-barrel’ to infuence congress (p. 437). Christensen and Selway (2017) defned pork barrel as ‘the ineffcient use of government funds to local constituencies over broad, national policies and programs’ (p. 283). Pork-barrel is known by different names in the Philippines, such as the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF). The pork-barrel was a controversial issue in the Philippines that compelled offcials from the House of Representatives to issue a public explanation as to the controversies regarding PDAF. Then-House Speaker Prospero C. Nograles and then-House Committee on Appropriations Chairman Edcel C. Lagman (n.d.) denied that the PDAF was a cash allocation to members of the legislature (p. 2). Nograles and Lagman (n.d.) further argued that the members of Congress did not have control over project implementation, as the earmarked funds were given to the concerned agencies (p. 2). In response to a 2013 issue, which revealed that the PDAF was being used to fund ghost projects (Inquirer, 2018), the Aquino administration called for its abolition (Cheng, 2013). Notwithstanding the Aquino administration’s interest in discontinuing PDAF, allegations of its existence have persisted throughout Duterte’s administration. Despite the issue in 2013, Duterte threatened to veto the 2020 national budget should he fnd any pork-barrel insertions (Corrales, 2019). The discretionary powers of the president in allocating or vetoing porkbarrel gives members of Congress an incentive in approving the presidential legislative agenda.

Palakasan For a Filipino to participate in the practice of palakasan, he or she must be able to assert personal interest via lakas while subtly bypassing prescribed rules and procedures in line with delicadeza. In the Philippines, this can be observed both by the elites who, for example, refuse to obey traffc rules or ordinary citizens who receive privileged access to government service through their illicit connections or contacts within the bureaucracy or patronage to certain politicians (Jimenez as cited in De Leon, 2018). With the case of Duterte, it can be shown how he has on numerous occasions deviated from norms that were observed by other political elites. In the Philippines, newly elected offcials often deviate from normative forms of governance of their predecessors to assert lakas. Institutions formulated by the previous regimes will be replaced by new policies.

Duterte’s pagdamay and palakasan Duterte’s campaign ads would portray videos and images of him conversing with the masses to emphasize the belief that he is no different from them. Concerning the Bangsamoro, he would claim that one of his ancestors is Maranao. Citing his supposed Maranao ancestry (Curato, 2016, p. 10) can be seen as an attempt to emphasize a shared heritage with this ethnic group, even if he does not share in their religious faith. Relative to Agpalo’s argument of a leader being a pangulo, such reference is not lost on Duterte, as his supporters also refer to him as Tatay

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Digong or Father Digong to acknowledge his role as a patriarch of the country. During his third State of the Nation Address (SONA) last July 23, 2018, the program director was instructed by government offcials to ensure that Duterte was portrayed as a father (Diaz, 2018). Concerning palakasan, McCoy (2017) describes Duterte as a ‘populist strongman’ with ‘blunt rhetoric and iconoclastic diplomacy’ (p. 1). His detractors sometimes consider his rhetoric offensive or politically incorrect. To portray how much palakasan he is capable of wielding, he would remind those around him of a quote he attributes to Abraham Lincoln (as cited in Placido, 2017), which states, If I were to try to read, much less answer, all attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I can and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won’t amount to anything, but if the end brings me out wrong, ten angels of God swearing I was right could make no difference. In reiterating this poem, Duterte is insisting that he is over and beyond normative rules as even ‘ten angels of God’ could not pass judgment upon him. Relative to the pagdamay-palakasan nexus, Durterte argues that in the pursuit of pagdamay, he should be allowed to pursue palakasan without any constraint. Furthermore, the pagdamay-palakasan nexus has similarities with the conduct of a veteran politician named Datu Ali Dimaporo from the Lanao area. Bentley (as cited in Lara, 2014) argued that Dimaporo can provide patronage to his followers yet incite ‘chaos and violence to those who oppose him’ (pp. 35–36).

Diplomatic implications of the war on drugs During the elections, one of Duterte’s campaign pledges was to declare a war against drugs. Upon assuming the offce of the presidency, he immediately declared a war on drugs. The Philippine National Police (PNP) then began the implementation of Operation Toktok Hangyo (Tokhang) or to knock and plead. The original intention of the campaign was for law enforcement to visit the residences of known drug users and sellers to convince them to cease their involvement in illicit substances. While implementing this program, the PNP claimed to have killed drug suspects because they resisted arrest (Marquez, 2019). However, members of the opposition and human rights organizations have countered that the killings were not done out of self-defense but were cases of extrajudicial killings. The argument that Duterte had sponsored or encouraged such killings were due to statements he had released to the media. One such incident was when he announced that he would not hesitate to kill drug dealers ‘if you touch our children’ (Mogato, 2017). His reference to children in his statement projecting himself as tatay or father of the nation is his method of expressing pagdamay. In portraying this father-like personality, he is also implying that he is justifed in his palakasan against illicit substances.

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A survey conducted in September 2017 by Pulse Asia, showed that 88% of the respondents support the war on drugs and 77% believe that law enforcers had been committing extrajudicial killings (Punzalan, 2017). Despite accusations of human rights violations, the war on drugs is supported by the population. Notwithstanding popular support, some members of the legislature, particularly the Senate Committee on Human Rights then-under Sen. Leila de Lima, conducted inquiries in aid of legislation. One of the witnesses was an alleged gunman for the so-called ‘Davao Death Squad’ Edgar Matobato. This, in turn, caused members of the majority who are supportive of the president to remove the members of the opposition Liberal Party from committee chairmanships, including Sen. De Lima in her capacity as chairperson of the Senate Committee on Human Rights. Furthermore, Duterte’s allies in the House of Representatives have conducted an investigation into the conduct of Sen. De Lima in her role as justice secretary of the previous Aquino administration. The hearings have led to allegations that the then-Sec. de Lima’s conduct had aggravated the proliferation of illegal drugs in New Bilibid prison (which is under the administrative jurisdiction of the Department of Justice). Eventually, this led a court to order the incarceration of Sen. De Lima for drug-traffcking (Reformina, 2017). The critics of Duterte have argued that the charges were fabricated and accused the administration of abusing its powers. Regardless of the legal implications, this is yet another demonstration of the infuence that is exercised by executive power.4 Some members of the opposition in the Senate and civil society organizations (CSO) then perceived that it would be diffcult for both the legislative and the judiciary to conduct checks on Duterte’s exercise of power. Matobato’s lawyer, Jude Sabio, and members of the opposition in congress then went to the Hague and fled a case for Crimes Against Humanity against Duterte at the International Criminal Court (ICC) (AFP, 2018). With the fling of complaints against the war on drugs, Duterte responded by announcing the withdrawal of the Philippines from the Rome Statute. In announcing the withdrawal, he referred to ICC personnel as a ‘bunch of criminals’ (Lopez, 2018). While the war on drugs may enjoy a degree of support domestically, one can observe that internationally, different personalities, such as then-US President Barack Obama, and institutions, such as the United Nations, were a lot more critical. Duterte initially responded by denying the accusations and issuing expletives towards then-US President Barack Obama. With his displeasure with Obama, he declared his ‘separation’ from the United States in a state visit to China in October 2016 (Hunt, Rivers, & Schoichet, 2016). This act was considered unprecedented, as all Philippine presidents, since the country gained its independence on July 4, 1946, have endeavored to have positive diplomatic relations with the United States. More recently, the previous administration under Aquino had even relied on the 2012 US Pivot to Asia to assert the Philippines’ claim to the South China Sea. Positive bilateral relations with the US had been one of the established norms of Philippine foreign policy (De Castro, 2018, p. 40). Aside from the United States, the European Union had also been critical of the conduct of the war on drugs. Duterte’s seeming practice of pagdamay and

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palakasan contradicts the Western perspective of power as impersonal (Kiefer as cited in Lara, 2014, p. 34). While government agencies such as the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) have been denying the accusations of summary killings, Duterte personally began responding to such criticism by hurling expletives at the EU (Salavierra, 2016).

Kuwait-OFW crisis Aside from illegal drugs, the issues of the overseas Filipino workers (OFW) are another issue where the pagdamay-lakas nexus is applicable. Since the administration of Ferdinand Marcos, the Philippine government had been implementing labor exportation. It was initially intended to be short-term to provide the Philippines with needed remittances. However, the policy had been an important indicator of Philippine development. Up to the present, the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) had admitted to the necessity of remittances for the Philippine economy. NEDA further argues that the economy cannot be ‘completely independent’ of remittances but can only be ‘less dependent’ on them as it is a signifcant source of income for households (Ordinario, 2012). The Philippines’ labor policy was sustained since other countries were also in need of the cheap labor that the country could provide. Weiner (1985) stated that labor migration is necessitated when one country requires labor importation while another promotes its exportation (p. 447). With this premise, other countries in need of affordable human resources imported Philippine laborers. One such country was Kuwait, which needed low-cost laborers (Westall & Hagagy, 2012). In 1973, the economies of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), such as Kuwait, experienced massive economic development (Ling, 1984, p. 24). According to Ling (1984), problems such as lack of human resources caused Kuwait and other OPEC members to begin importing labor (p. 24). However, as Weiner suggests, aside from compatible objectives, the exporting and importing states need to agree on the migration policy. The link between pagdamay and palakasan and the Duterte government’s approach to OFW policy comes as a response to the frequent diffculties characteristic of the OFW experience, such as abuse at the hands of employers and signifcant periods spent away from their respective families. An early example of a response rooted in pagdamay and palakasan is the Flor Contemplacion case. Contemplacion was an OFW who was executed in Singapore in 1995 for double murder. Her execution caused a public uproar in the Philippines. Duterte, the then-mayor of Davao City, staged a local protest by burning a fag of Singapore (Shenon, 1995). This case paved the way for the enactment of the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995 or Republic Act 8042 (Gonzalez, 2018, p. 201). Furthermore, Gonzalez (2018) argued that ‘Public policies enacted in the name of diaspora diplomacy allow the Philippines to be smart and aggressive without being hegemonic and arrogant’ (p. 202). This allows the Philippine government to show pagdamay to its constituents without adopting aggressive policies towards states it presumes not to have provided safeguards to

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the OFWs against abuses. Should the government need to undertake palakasan, pagdamay towards OFWs can be used as a rationale to assuage accusations of walang delicadeza. As for Kuwait, labor relations, specifcally those with foreign workers, are governed by a traditional customary practice called the kafala. According to Khan and Harroff-Tavel (2011), ‘under the kafala, the employer assumes full economic and legal responsibility for the employee and thereby holds considerable power over him or her’ (p. 294). An example of this practice is when employers take the passports of their foreign employees. This leaves the latter vulnerable, as they are unable to immediately leave the country if working conditions become abusive. This portrays a disagreement in what could otherwise have been amicable cooperation in migration based on compatible objectives. As the long history of unresolved cases of OFW abuse tends to spark social outrage, government offcials often feel compelled to act on them. The importance of the overseas Filipino workers (OFW) relative to praxis of international relations in the Philippines is refected in Republic Act Number 7157 otherwise known as the ‘Philippine Foreign Services Act of 1991.’ In the law, one of the three pillars of Philippine foreign policy is the ‘protection of the rights and promotion of the welfare and interest of Filipinos overseas’ (Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), n.d.). A key OFW incident that occurred during the Duterte administration is the discovery of the remains of an OFW named Joanna Demafelis inside a freezer in February 2018. The Philippine government responded in two ways. First, it declared a total ban on the deployment of OFWs in Kuwait (Manila Times, 2018). Second, Duterte heavily criticized the Kuwaiti government by saying, ‘Is this something wrong with your culture . . . Is there something wrong with your values?’ (Wang & Murphy, 2018). Duterte’s antagonistic rhetoric is his method of portraying pagdamay towards Demafelis and palakasan towards the Kuwaiti government. Two months after the discovery of the remains of Joanna Demafelis, Philippine– Kuwaiti relations deteriorated further. On April 2018, Philippine offcials in Kuwait staged a rescue of distressed OFWs (Maceda, 2018). The said rescue came to public knowledge when the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) publicly released a video of the operation. This led to the breakdown of relations between the Philippines and Kuwait, as the latter accused the former of violating its sovereignty and expelled the Philippine ambassador. Duterte responded by declaring the initial temporary ban of OFWs to be permanent. However, the lifting of the ban also led to additional concessions from Kuwait for OFW benefts, such as health insurance coverage and provision of clothing, housing, and food (Mendez & Romero, 2018). Unlike his conduct of the war on drugs, his handling of the OFW Kuwait crisis did lead to results advantageous to the Philippines. While his aggressive conduct paid off, he did not fail to remind the constituents of his pagdamay to the OFWs as he stated in his third SONA that ‘I am a worker of government and it is my vow to make sure that your [OFWs] well-being remains our foremost foreign policy concern’ (Manila Bulletin, 2018). His demonstration of the pagdamay statement of support for the OFWs and temporary deployment ban justifed his palakasan towards the Kuwaiti government.

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Conclusion This chapter argued for literature in Philippine studies, specifcally the nexus between pagdamay and palakasan as a viable model in explaining Duterte’s foreign policy behavior. This is accomplished by undertaking an inter-textual analysis of his statements. Pagdamay, or caring for others, serves as a rationale for the conduct of political action because of its capability to emphasize communitarian sentiments. In contrast, palakasan, or asserting power, is a method by which Filipino leaders bypass or undermine norms and institutions. However, the idea of delicadeza in Philippine culture declares palpable use of power as objectionable. The Filipino leader then has to cite pagdamay to justify undertaking excessive use of power. The nexus between pagdamay and palakasan was elaborated further with two cases namely the diplomatic implications of the war on drugs and the Kuwaiti-OFW crisis. Having demonstrated the viability of using area studies literature to explain the conduct of foreign policy, it is hoped that this chapter could be of help in improving the scholarly discourse on Duterte. Future research endeavors can focus on indigenous concepts that are applicable on a regional scale, such as Southeast Asia or South Asia. Also, further scholarly inquiries can be undertaken that would utilize concepts from different ethnic groups within the Philippines.

Notes 1 The author would like to thank all those who commented on the previous versions of this paper at various events, such as the 2018 PHISO exploratory workshop in Davao City, Philippines, last March 2018 and at the 60th ISA Annual Conference in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, last March 2019. He would also like to acknowledge the support PHISO has provided for this paper. 2 A draft of this chapter was presented at two international studies conferences. In the said events, it was suggested that the terms pagdamay and palakasan ought to be discussed relative to other indigenous concepts to check for any similarities or overlaps. 3 Lopez (2016) previously utilized the same reference in a commentary during the 2016 Philippine elections entitled, ‘Mar Roxas as “Ideal”? Presenting the self and Tuwid na Daan.’ 4 The legality of Sen. De Lima’s arrest goes beyond the scope of this paper.

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Discursive experiments in vernacularizing international studies in the Philippines Adonis L. Elumbre

In countries where English is not a native language, studying the ‘international’ is conducted mostly, if not exclusively, in vernacular languages. The case of the Philippines, however, presents a contradiction. With its seeming ambivalence in decolonization, its discourse of the ‘international’ has always been outwardly driven, manifesting primarily in the linguistic hegemony of English in both state functionalities and academic scholarship. Despite this, discursive experiments that challenge not only the intellectual status quo but also the political order can be extrapolated over time. This chapter explores these largely unnoticed nonmainstream attempts at moving international studies inwardly using the vernacular. All the social sciences, which include international relations, were brought in through the aegis of American colonialism in the Philippines by the early 20th century (Bautista, 1999). Area studies, another related feld, would occupy a distinct academic and ideological space of its own during the Cold War period. Although much has certainly transformed in these felds of inquiry, tracing their foundational epistemologies could potentially demonstrate how knowledge itself is mediated by the contexts that created them. International relations, for example, emerged from the conditions of the First World War with the aim then to understand the system of state relations (Schmidt, 1994). State-centric approaches are thus quintessential to the feld. Area studies, for its part, was a global strategy by liberal democratic-capitalist and autocratic-communist rivals during the Cold War to enhance their knowledge of and infuence over non-aligned nations (Khosrowjah, 2011). The end of the Cold War therefore created a condition of crisis for area studies. International studies may be seen in these contexts as a corrective response to the substantive and geographic limitations of its earlier disciplinary forms and traditions. Its rise is often attributed to globalization, which emphasizes various transnational relations of late. The narrative that follows looks at another response to these developments coming from a non-Western academic stream. Specifcally, it attempts to understand and historicize discursive experiments on vernacularizing international studies in the Philippines. It proceeds by explaining Araling Kabanwahan [Filipinized inter-national/cultural studies] and its project of vernacularizing international studies in the local academic scene. Drawing on a periodization of Bagong Kasaysayan [New Historiography] (Navarro, 2000), the chapter posits

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that such discourses trace back to the late 19th century, became evident in the 1930s, and eventually found their full expression in the 1970s to the present time. This narrative emplotment comes in full circle with the corpus of theoretical and methodological innovations pursued in Araling Kabanwahan, where studies on international relations and civilizations are reconfgured to effect a shift in the praxis of international studies in the Philippines. These discursive experiments unabashedly privilege the Filipino while simultaneously adhering to the principles of solidarity and internationalism.

Araling Kabanwahan: situating international studies in the Philippines This exercise in intellectual history is predicated on the need to articulate and tap into the possibilities of vernacularizing international studies. In particular, this chapter argues that such a practice turn could spawn new directions for the feld of international studies in the country. This would entail not only a larger audience by which scholars could engage the public and vice versa but also potential substantive explorations on areas of study that transcend the typical academic borders of international studies in the Philippine setting. The frame being proposed is that of openness and refexivity – to challenge the hegemonic and hegemonizing status of the instruments for creating, consuming, and circulating knowledge. This includes, among others, the language that the epistemic community uses. The vernacular, in the sense used in this chapter, refers to the popular language common among the people. Studies have shown that outside the academe and similar formal institutions like the government, Filipino (or alternately, a national language based in Tagalog – depending on one’s linguistic view) is the most widespread language in terms of comprehension and communication (Navarro, 2000). There is a historical development to this stretching from early history (Salazar, 1998) to recent times (Mendoza, 2006). It must be noted, however, that the use of a national language or a nationalizing vernacular does not or should not be done at the expense of local and foreign languages. Filipino language may be seen in this context as a mediating device among diverse localities and as an entry point for understanding various nationalities. From this perspective, enhancing local languages should strengthen the national, while foreign languages should expand further the international. Emphasizing though the vernacular serves a strategic purpose: to generate conditions of possibility for a civilizational or national discourse on everything and anything that is of interest and relevance to the country. This is the main impulse behind an alternative discourse referred to as Araling Kabanwahan, or a ‘Filipinized international/cultural studies.’ Araling Kabanwahan is rooted in a perspective in history and the social sciences known as Pantayong Pananaw (‘For Us – From Us – About Us’ perspective) and its disciplinal expression Bagong Kasaysayan (New Historiography). This assertion of an indigenous view is both a critique against and a proposal for addressing the manifest inadequacies of foreign constructs and language to account for and

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engage with the people in the creation of knowledge. While Pantayong Pananaw traces its immediate roots in the 1970s, Araling Kabanwahan would only fnd its fuller articulation through the works of Zeus Salazar, Atoy Navarro, and Lily Mendoza from the 1990s onwards. Kabanwahan is a neologism taken from the word banwa, a widely used term in the Austronesian-speaking world denoting a place, a people, or a community (Salazar, 2006). It is akin to other communitarian categories, such as bayan, which is of popular usage as well in the Philippines, and ili, which is used mostly in Northern Luzon. Banwa is widespread among the Bicol, Visayas, and Mindanao regions. With the affxes ka- and -an, which pertain to collectivity, the constructed terminology signifes not only a conceptual or a desired ‘coming-together’ of communities but also an assertion to consciously employ constructs drawn from the Philippine context itself. Salazar (2006, p. 165), doyen of Pantayong Pananaw, defnes his variant of Araling Kabanwahan as a way of organizing knowledge based on the ‘agham ng pakikipag-ugnay (at) pakikipagtalastasan sa mga bansa’t etnisidad sosyo-pulitikal’ [science of interacting and communicating with countries and socio-political ethnicities]. He sees the use of Filipino at the core of this intellectual project, as it can be utilized to learn and converse with other societies. An assumption thus exists that these other societies are to use Filipino too in understanding and interacting with the Philippines. Navarro (2012, p. 6), who has carried on the task of elaborating the theoretical substance and the expanse of methodological considerations for Araling Kabanwahan, focuses his defnitional take to the ‘pakikipagtalastasan sa mga kababayan sa loob ng sariling kabihasnan ukol sa mga bansa’t ibang etnisidad sosyo-pulitikal’ [discourse undertaken between and among members of a civilization about other countries and socio-political ethnicities]. It again underlies the use of vernacular, but the primacy of the intellectual project here is on the internal understanding of peoples about civilizations outside its own. Mendoza (2006, p. 106), whose expertise is on intercultural communication, thinks of an ‘equivalent of “Area Studies” in Western discourse’ (i.e., Araling Kabanwahan) as a Pansilang Pananaw project (‘For Us – From Us – About Them’ perspective) with the goal of developing ‘a Filipino discourse on other cultures and civilizations in ways that collectively beneft the Filipino people – a taken-for-granted project in the case of every nation with its own kabuuan (“totality”) or a sense of who they are as a people.’ This assertion comes with a recognition of a normative international studies – the global is always understood according to the categories and language of the national and local. Knowledge is seen in this respect as situated. This discursive act of foregrounding occurs in a concrete spatio-temporal location. Two social ontologies mentioned earlier, kabihasnan and kabuuan, deserve a brief explanation. Kabihasnan may be translated to civilization, but it carries with it a nuanced meaning in that kabihasnan pertains to a societal whole with distinct adaptive strategies to its surroundings (etymologically, ‘bihasa’ means having a mastery). This is different from civilization, which is rooted in a specifc advancement in terms of structures and technologies. In the old times, this meant having a city (‘civitas’)

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with irrigation, infrastructures, zoning, and so on as its basis. Salazar, Veneracion, Tamayo, and Pastores (1981) consider the Philippines a kabihasnan in its own right, with its roots stretching to Austronesian origins at around 5,000 BCE. A self-respecting kabihasnan, in relation to international studies, is one that sees itself as an equal in the concert of other kabihasnan. Kabuuan is a much more complex category. Totality, as its translation effects, may pertain to the sum total of a culture’s consciousness, experience, interest, and so on. This is different, however, from ‘totalizing,’ as Navarro (2012) points out. Kabuuan is understood as a whole with its own fssures and contentions. A totalizing intellectual project, on the other hand, seeks erasure of differences and orchestrates a homogenization of society. Araling Kabanwahan, however, builds on the differences but also emphasizes similarities and congruence. Heterogeneity is in fact appreciated here in its genuine sense of recognizing differences between and among totalities and not hiding under the guise of implicitly hegemonizing categories of analysis and language. This is refected in Araling Kabanwahan’s strong bias on learning languages to gain an understanding of other societies. The problem with the Anglo-American bias and practice (that uses English as medium) is that international studies/relations are refracted according to Anglo-American lenses. In other words, the method of learning is indirect and biased. Discursive experiments relating to this can be found in earlier periods in Philippine intellectual history. While their theoretical and methodological approaches were still in their infancy stage, these point nonetheless to hints of understanding the world through Filipino prisms. International studies is also taken in this narrative as an educative endeavor and hence the transcending of formal academic or state institutions. Movements and publications pursuing an understanding of the global through the vernacular are also at the core of this chapter.

The 19th century and the (inter-)national formation Intellectual activities relating to the formation of the nation are typically rooted in the 19th century, the period that saw the Philippines’ separation from its former colonial principal, Spain. It was an immense period of transformation, one that re-produced a conception of what is global and international amidst the contradictorily co-existing phenomena of imperialisms and nationalisms (Osterhammel, 2017). The Philippines, prior to its declaration of independence from Spain, became involved in a network of power relations that would soon feed into the narrative of its nascent foreign relations. Even before the establishment of the 1898 Philippine republic, the international was already within the orbit of analysis and interaction by the Katipunan [‘Collective’], the anti-colonial movement that liberated the country from Spain. Founded most likely in January 1892 (Richardson, 2013), the movement sought to espouse an organic sense of community that was then taken to mean the entire archipelago. This can be seen in opposition to the idea of nación [nation] as imagined by a group of educated Filipinos of the period known as ilustrado

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[enlightened]. Emphasizing this binary clarifes a way of understanding the global in relation to the desired national formation. For Katipuneros, globality was an extension of revolutionary endeavors at the home front, while for ilustrados, recognition in the international community was a marker for political and ideological independence. This was well-refected in the communicative exercise of both movements – Katipunan insisted on a vernacular while the ilustrado was conversing with its perceived international audience using Spanish and eventually, during the American colonial period, English (Salazar, 1998). Zooming in to the Katipunan variant of engaging what it considered as international, it must be noted that its very statement and act of separating from Spain were, by themselves, constitutive of its sense of foreign policies and relations. In the founding document of the organization entitled Pinagcasundoan [Covenant], the international system was understood as composed of various kajarian [kingdoms or ‘states’] that maintain a sacred duty to defend its honor and well-being against another kajarian that imposes itself on others: Yamang ang unang majalaga at pinuputungan ng masaganang carangalan at capurijan sa alin mang maningning na Kajarian ay ang mahal na catungculan na mag tangol sa caniyang bayan, mag paca jirap sa icaguiguinjaua nito, gugulin ang dugo sampo nang bujay sa icararangal ng caniyang bayan, manga capatid at anac, upang juag sacupin, lupigin at apijin ng ibang cajarian. (Richardson, 2013, p. 9) [Whereas the most important, most abundantly honorable and sublime duties of any enlightened power (kingdom/state) are to defend her country, to safeguard its welfare, and to shed blood and even life for her country, brothers, and children in order that they are not subjugated, oppressed, and enslaved by another ruler (kingdom/state).] (Translation by Richardson, 2013, p. 18) The agency decreed in the statement is predicated on the right of any self-respecting society to fght for the cause of its own freedom. Justifcation of the revolution likewise emanated from an idealized natural order whereby societies were seen as teleologically bound for greatness; colonialism was an aberration to this path and overthrowing its system was the just and responsible course of action of take. In contrast, however, to a view that Katipunan’s ‘national question [is] within the global framework’ (Jose, 2001, p. 5), one senses more a dialectic between the global and national, if not its total reversal, i.e., the global question is within the national framework. Foreign relations were just one of the many instruments and/or strategies of Katipunan; the international is subsumed under the internal considerations and operations of the organization (Elumbre, 2014). This (and also its secretive nature at the onset of its formation) explains the organization’s limited interaction with foreign entities, in contrast with the succeeding government of Emilio Aguinaldo in 1898 that relied heavily on international support (Epistola, 1996).

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Katipunan was more intent on generating a stronger force from within the country. On August 24, 1896, a revolutionary government by the name of Haring Bayang Katagalugan (referred to in the Spanish daily La Española in Madrid as ‘Tagala Republica’ or Tagalog Republic; Reparaz, 1897) was formed to elevate the anti-colonial resistance. Katagalugan, as Katipunan itself would qualify in its newspaper Kalayaan [Freedom], did not only refer to the ethnic group Tagalog but to other ethnicities in the country as well. Andres Bonifacio, the Supremo [head and ‘founder’], became the president of this alternate political order (Guerrero, Encarnacion, & Villegas, 1996). In one manifesto, he addressed and reminded the Katipuneros of the republic to uphold morality even in the time of war: ‘Nang malubos ang kabanalan at kapurihan ng ating lahi, nang tanghalin ng sandaigdigan ang kamahalan ng ating kalooban, ay huwag nating tularan ang ating mga kalaban sa pagkahamak na asal na ugaling gamit sa pakikidigma’ (Bonifacio, 1897, p. 155). [In order to achieve the sanctity and dignity of our race, so that the world may also look up to us with nobility, let us not mimic our enemies in their disgrace of the conduct of war]. Bonifacio was a strategist, and he probably would have read about the excesses of revolutions across the world (Agoncillo, 1956). In as much as the internal takes precedence over the external, the revolutionary government of Katagalugan situated its struggles with other oppressed societies. The following statement of solidarity (written circa 1897) coming from Emilio Jacinto, a general of the revolution and Bonifacio’s right-hand, pleaded for support from the international community, too: Hindi kami natangi ng manga lahi: tinatawagan namin ang lahat ng may iuing puri at pamahalaan ng isang may paglingap sa kaniang bayan; gayon ang katagalugan para ng taga Asia, America, Europa tayong lahat ay nag durusa; at lahat ay nagsisipagdusa, ay aming inaanyayahang ibangon ay isang bayang inilugmok, pinasakitan, isang Ynang bayan minunglay at itinulak sa putik ng kaalipustaan. Hindi namin inililisan ang sino man kahima’t kastila, sapagka’t may mararangal na kastilang nakikihanay sa aming hokbo, na walang mga ligalig ang mga kalooban, at sukat sa kanilang pagkamagalang sa katuiran at ipinagtangkilik ang aming karaingan, karaingang damayan baga ng mga may kaya at wagas na kamahalan. (Santos, 1935, p. 64) [We do not distinguish among races: we call on everyone with self-dignity and governmentality who value their country; that is what Katagalugan is, like any other country in Asia, America, Europe – we all suffered; to all who continue to suffer we call on you to share with the cause of our country that is oppressed, overburdened, a broken Motherland thrown in the mud of desecration. We do not exempt even the Castillans (Spanish), because there are those honorable among them who joined our ranks, without hesitation, and with respect to justice and our call, a call for assistance from those who are able and with the most noble of intentions.]

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Contrary again to previous limited attempts at explaining the foreign relations of Katipunan (and subsequently, the Katagalugan) (Mactal, 2000; Epistola, 1996; Jose, 2001), and using the newly found documents of the revolutionary organization, it appears that a diplomatic post had already been created in Hong Kong, then a British colony, as early as September 1892 with Ildefonso Laurel as its head. This predated the Hong Kong Junta and the Comite Central Filipino of the Aguinaldo government. The choice of Hong Kong as a base of Katipunan operations, and the other limited international contacts with Japan, Germany, and France, were born out of a strategic understanding of the international context of the period that was increasingly becoming a tug-of-war among great powers. Bonifacio wanted to secure national interest by taking advantage of the prevailing animosities in the international system. This strategy was not at all new in the Philippine setting, as this can be seen in the 18th-century uprising of the Ilocano hero Diego Silang and the defense of Maguindanao leader Sultan Kudarat, who exploited the rift of Spain against Britain and Holland, respectively (Elumbre, 2014). In sum, 19th-century Philippines, and in particular, the Katipunan and its government Katagalugan, made sense of the international according to the country’s own internal dynamics. The mode for understanding and communicating the global was done in the vernacular, consistent with an internalist logic of international relations (i.e., the legitimate and just national interest takes primacy in the engagement with other societies). This however did not mean an overblown national ego akin to the imperialists of the period, as demonstrated by Katipunan’s solidarity with and call to action for the emancipation of suffering societies. It was as internationalist as it was internalist. Such internationalism then was also strategically guided by a sense of geopolitics and history. These however would be lost when the Aguinaldo government took the helm and the United States of America began its effective colonization of the Philippines towards the closing of the century.

Nationalist internationalisms in the 1930s The 1930s represent a unique turning point in Philippine social movement and intellectual histories. About two decades had passed since the United States claimed the Philippine victory over Spain in the Mock Battle of Manila and declared the ‘end of the Philippine insurrection’ in 1902, the revolutionary spirit of Katipunan seemed to have found a continuation in the movements and intellectuals especially in the 1930s (Ileto, 2017). This included attempts at situating, again, the international through the vernacular. What are the contexts of this decade that have led to these intellectual and political activities? At an earlier decade, US colonial governance to the Philippines shifted to Filipinization, which then meant increasing the number of Filipinos to the bureaucracy. What prompted this was the 1916 Jones Law that paved the way for the enactment of the Tydings-McDuffe Act. This reorganized the government into a Commonwealth in 1935. While this period was referred to as a

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continuation of ‘peace time’ from the perspective of American colonials, nationalist texts and movements continued contesting the intellectual and political space. This was also the period when debates on the national language were ‘initiated’ by Filipino politicians. However, even absent these state-sponsored deliberations, Tagalog was already being used among intellectuals and organizations regardless of their ideological leanings. This qualifcation had to be stated since the 1930s was also a period of social movement formation in the country with the establishment of Partido Sosyalista ng Pilipinas [PSP, Socialist Party of the Philippines] and Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas [PKP, Communist Party of the Philippines]. Both organizations used the vernacular in their internal memoranda and educational work (Fuller, 2007). Another movement that stood out in the period is Sakdal [‘Accuse’]. Although it gained notoriety for its collaboration with the Japanese during the Second World War, mostly through its founder and head Benigno Ramos, much of its earlier history before 1942 revolved around an alternative nationalism to the statist and elite nationalism espoused by Manuel Quezon, the leading politician of the period. Founded on January 28, 1930, the group came to existence following events involving racial discrimination against Filipinos both in the US and in the Philippines. By 1931, it appropriated the Indian satyagraha movement led by Mahatma Gandhi and launched a campaign for ‘Mapayapang Pagsusuway’ or civil disobedience. Its activities gained national prominence with meetings conducted (‘Miting ng Bayang Api,’ or Meeting of the Oppressed People) and chapter recruitment made across different provinces in the Philippines. To support its campaign for independence, Sakdal (1933; Quoted from and Translated by Terami-Wada, 1988, p. 142) pleaded as well for voluntary collections from the people so they could send a representative to Washington: ‘Na ang ating mga pagtulong at pagpapakasakit sa dakila at pangbayang kilusang ito ay ipagpapatuloy hanggang hindi mawawakasan ang gawaing ito sa ikatutubos ng ating bayan at sa ikatutupad ng kapangakuan ng bayan at pamahalaang Amerikano.’ [That our help and suffering for this noble and nationalist movement will continue until our task is fnished, for the salvation of our country and in the fulfllment of the promise of the people and the American government.] The movement went electoral in 1934 and became the Sakdalista Party (‘Lapian ng Bayang Api, Sangkapuluang Filipinas’) [Organization of the Oppressed Country, the Entire Philippine Islands], which advocated for immediate independence. Motoe Terami-Wada (2014), who has written extensively about this aspect of history, noted that the party made credible electoral victories, even defeating Quezon in terms of votes in his own home town. Deeming the cause for independence as neglected, however, the Sakdalista moved towards two related political directions: an uprising seeking to achieve total liberation and an attempt to establish foreign relations with Japan to aid the cause of resistance. These events would be overrun by the eventual invasion of Japan of the country in December 1941. Of importance to the narrative of a vernacularized international studies of the period was the newspaper Sakdal (Navarro, 2019), which bore the same name as that of its organization. It carried the byline ‘Malaya, walang panginoon kundi

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ang Bayan’ [Free, no other master but the Country], which is a critique in itself not just of imperialism but also the pervasive elite nationalism of the period. The newspaper reportedly had a vast readership (Sakdal, 1931), which is understandable in the period given the nationalist orientation and popular usage of the vernacular among the people. It bannered mostly domestic issues, but its articles on the international system are worthy of further analysis. One such article entitled ‘Si Mussolini at ang Diwang-Alipin’ [Mussolini and Slave Mentality] (1930, p. 1) outlined what it means to have an enslaved mentality: ‘1

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– Ang paghanga sa mga Puti (maraming kababayan natin ang ayaw pumasok na utusan kundi sa mga Puti, pagka’t ang palagay nila ay talagang superior o higit kay sa Pilipino ang uri ng Puti). – Ang paggamit ng wikang dayuhan, ingles o kastila upang masabing sila’y marunong, pagka’t ang palagay nila ang taong nagsasalita o sumusulat ng tagalog ay ‘walang nalalaman.’ – Ang pag-aalipusta sa naka-kamisa-tsino o san aka-barong tagalog kung kaya pati mga taong bukid natin ay madaling nadadaya, pagka’t ang palagay nila ay totoong lahat ang sinasabi ng isang naka-amerikana ng lana, seda kaya o de-ilo.’ [1. Admiration over the White [peoples] (many of our countrymen will not work as helper unless to White people, because they assume the superiority of these people or that their being White is better than being a Filipino). 2. The use of foreign language, English or Spanish, so that they can be considered as learned, because they assume that those who speak and write in Tagalog ‘know nothing.’ 3. Denigrating those who wear kamisa-tsino and barong-tagalog [clothing used by common folk] which explains why farmers are easily fooled, because they assume that anything coming out of a person wearing americana in wool, silk, or linen is true.]

The fourth point was where the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was mentioned, along with the policies that he effected to dismantle hierarchies in society. According to the article, Mussolini ordered the non-usage of privileging titles such as doctor, attorney, marquis, and others to avoid exploitation of the poor. While the principle is certainly a progressive call, it must be noted that Sakdal did not seem to bother itself with the fascist contexts reigning over Italy during this time. Its pro-Japan position and its extremely anti-American politics make sense against this backdrop. Another strategy for its vernacularization of the international was through translation and what seemed like popular education as well. An article published in 1931 translated and abridged parts of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital. The translator and writer was a certain Jose Quirante who gave the title ‘Ang Puhunan’ [The Capital] to his piece. He saw it as a contribution to a Kabuhayang Pangsambayanan,

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his term for a ‘socialist political economy’ (1931). Among the concepts he introduced to his readers were commodity, use value, and exchange value. Aside from critical political economy and class analysis, Marxism’s orientation towards internationalism and anti-imperialism could be sensed in much of the newspaper’s observation of international events. Beyond Sakdal (and even PSP and PKP), progressive politics may also be found among intellectuals and their contributions to knowledge production in the vernacular. An example would be Jacinto Manahan, a known labor leader during the 1920s and 1930s. Among his works that vernacularized narratives of the global order during his time were ‘Ang Bayoneta at Dolyar Amerikano’ [The Bayonet and American Dollar] (1931), ‘Kaarawan ng Paggawa: Ang Tunay na Kasaysayan, Diwa at Kahulugan ng Unang Araw ng Mayo’ [Labor Day: The Real History, Spirit, and Meaning of the First Day of May] (1932a), and ‘Ang mga Anakpawis sa Ilalim ng Pamahalaang Sobyet’ [Working Class Under the Soviet Government] (1932b). Although writing in 1941, Rufno Robles, also provided an incisive analysis of the destructive international system of the period in his book entitled Ang Kasaysayan ng ‘96’ [History of ‘96’], which was primarily about the events of the 1896 Revolution but included as well a section on ‘Maikling Kasaysayan ng Digmaan sa Europa at sa ilang mga Bansa sa Daigdig’ [Short History of Wars in Europe and in Other Nations Around the World]. The article hints at solidarity and lessons that maybe drawn from experiences of resistance across the world (‘Ang Kasawian ay Isang Mahalagang Aral ng Sangkatauhan’) [Failure Is an Important Lesson for Mankind] (1941, p. 65): [H]abang inaasam-asam natin ang muling pagbabalik sa ating mga kamay ng ating pinakamamimithing Kalayaan ng Sangkapilipinuhan, sa ipagkaroon natin ng isang malawak na karanasan, ay sandaling isulyap muna natin ang ating diwa, sa ibang mga tagumpay at maraming kasawiang ating nasaksihan sa iba’t ibang dako ng mga bansa sa Daigdig. [While we fervently await for the return of the most desired Freedom of the Entire Philippines, and in order for us to broaden our experience, let us momentarily shift our attention to the other victories and the many failures that we have witnessed across nations in the World.] Reminiscent of the Katipunan’s nascent discourse on internationalism, Robles pointed to the achievement of freedom in the country as the main basis of his work. ‘Sa ipagkaroon natin ng isang malawak na karanasan’ [to broaden our experience] also implied that an understanding of how resistance succeeded and failed in other countries could expand one’s horizon, even if at a discursive level. Vernacularizing then is not merely an act of translation, or communication using one’s language (although these are important markers); a study on comparative societal conditions and resistance at the international level, with the Philippines as focal point, can also yield insights to one’s own intellectual and political tasks.

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Indigenizing and internationalizing through the vernacular in the 1970s The 1970s, according to Cynthia Bautista (1999), were a crossroads not only to Philippine society but also to the areas of inquiry of the social sciences. Aside from Marxism, which was then (and arguably even now) a popular intellectual and political framework for emancipating society, indigenization also heavily infuenced the social sciences of the period. International studies, or at least its variety that found its expressions in related disciplines, was not an exemption to this trend. At the core of this endeavor is the pursuit of relevant and appropriate knowledge creation and circulation from, for, and with the people. Indigenization movement was clear from the onset that its subjectivities are bound by a commitment to re-centering the Filipino in any discourse. One of its more explicit areas of work is vernacularizing studies about Philippine society and culture to effect a civilizational discourse (Salazar, 1991). This period was a turning point as well in national and global histories. This was the time of dictatorship in the Philippines, and alternative intellectual and political movements were in search of frameworks to grapple with the complexity of the times. The global political and economic crises and the new philosophical movements arising from the period can thus be seen in the same plane of reality and epistemicity, respectively. This means that knowledge creation and circulation then were interrogated to effect ‘alternative discourses’ (Alatas, 2004) that could deconstruct not just the chaos of the period but also the deeper structural contexts that bred it. By implication, most of these alternative discourses, particularly in the Philippine setting, would rest on a simultaneous critique and transformation of knowledge. Pantayong Pananaw is perhaps the most theoretically innovative alternative discourse emanating from and engaging with the discipline of history and the broader feld of social sciences. While much of its contributions are understandably in the hitherto unchartered areas of Philippine history and historiography (substantiating in the process its praxis inscribed in Bagong Kasaysayan), it is interesting to note that the turning point for its incubation in the 1970s is the same marker as that of Araling Kabanwahan. In other words, while looking more intensely at the internal, its foundations were also interested in the external – albeit again, mediated by a strong sense of ethno-centering. What is referred to here was the publication of an edited book by Salazar (1974–1975), the intellectual behind Pantayong Pananaw, Bagong Kasaysayan, and Araling Kabanwahan. Entitled ‘Ang Kasaysayan: Diwa at Lawak’ [History: Thought and Range], the compendium comprised texts about themes in global history written in the vernacular. Among the contributors were celebrated scholars such as Silvino Epistola (‘Ang Matandang Daigdig ng Asya’) [The Ancient World of Asia], Leslie Bauzon (‘Ang Mehiko at ang Pilipinas: Inter-Kolonyal na Relasyon, 1565–1815’) [Mexico and the Philippines: Inter-Colonial Relations, 1565–1815], Isagani Medina (‘Manira Hihon Ryojikan: Ang Konsulado ng Hapon sa Maynila, 1888–1898’) [Manira Hihon Ryojikan: Japanese Consulate

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in Manila, 1888–1898], and Oscar Evangelista (‘Ang Temang ‘Pagkakaisa sa Pagkakaiba-iba’ sa Kasaysayan ng Timog Silangang Asya: Ang Halimbawa ng Indonesia’) [‘The Theme “Unity in Diversity in the History of Southeast Asia”: The Case of Indonesia’]. Salazar also translated articles from global historian Oswald Spengler (‘Ang Pag-aaral ng Kasaysayang Pandaigdig’) [Studying World History] and diplomatic historian Bonifacio Salamanca (‘Ang Pagpapaamo sa Nasyonalismo sa Kapanahong Kasaysayan ng Europa’) [The Retreat of Nationalism in the Contemporary History of Europe]. Irma Pereyna translated as well Josefa Saniel’s important essay bearing the title ‘Ang Pag-aaral ng Isang Erya: Isang Pagtatampok ng Multidisiplinaryong Pamamaraan sa Pag-aaral ng mga Agham-Panlipunan’ [Area Studies: Focus on a Multi-disciplinary Approach to the Study of the Social Sciences]. It was area studies, a discursive kin of international relations (and later on international studies) that became the point of critique. Navarro (2012) argued that the decision to change the name from area studies to Araling Kabanwahan marked a shift in perspective among concerned scholars during the period. The institutional context for this was during the time of Salazar’s deanship in 1992 at the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy in the University of the Philippines Diliman (the country’s national university and fagship campus). Modifying the semantics was therefore crucial, as it resonated a new approach in dealing with the study of the international. Area studies, in its initial stage, was a Cold War instrument for the ideologically warring great powers. The Philippines, which developed a ‘special relationship’ with the US following its establishment of a republic in 1946, naturally served as a harbor for the shipment of knowledge to and from the West. US intelligence offcer McGeorge Bundy (1964; Quoted from Khosrowjah, 2011, p. 134) admits that [i]t is a curious fact of academic history that the frst great center of area studies . . . [was] in the Offce of Strategic Services . . . It is still true today, and I hope it will always be, that there is a high measure of interpenetration between universities with area programs and the information gathering agencies of the government. Understanding the international from this platform was tainted with the promotion and protection of the interests of countries invested in area studies. Knowledge becomes excessively externalized here and hence has to be framed and written according to the powerful. Araling Kabanwahan sought to reverse this misplaced priority of area studies. In an explanatory essay for his translation of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto (the frst translation from the original German in the vernacular), Salazar (2000, p. 167) claims, Bawat kabuuang sosyo-pulitikal na may PP [Pantayong Pananaw] . . . ay may sarili’t nagsasariling araling kabanwahan na nasasalalay sa paghahangad at pangangailangang makilala at maunawaan ang mga kaugnay at ibang kabuuan

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Adonis L. Elumbre upang ang mga kaalaman at karunungang natatamo ay makatulong sa sariling pag-iral, sa pagsulong ng sariling interes sa mundong ibabaw, sa makabuluhan at mabungang pakikipag-ugnayan sa iba at kaugnay o kapwang kabuuang sosyo-pulitikal at pangkalinangan. [Each socio-political totality with its own civilizational discourse . . . has its own and independent araling kabanwahan (international studies) whose basis lies on the desire and need to know and understand related and other totalities so that this knowledge and wisdom gained maybe used for one’s own existence and to advance one’s own interest in the global community, towards a relevant and fruitful relations with other or related socio-political and cultural totalities.]

Pantayong Pananaw and its internationalist dimension Araling Kabanwahan point then not to a discursive closure but rather to a more meaningful and relevant conversation with regional and global communities in whatever language (English among them). Vernacularizing from within the Philippines however is of primacy, as the perceived problem in the national context is still the lack of a communicative framework that could effectively reach out to a greater number of Filipinos. Addressing the linguistic paradox in effect provides a platform for a better engagement with the international. By closing the communicative gap between the scholars and practitioners of international studies and the people themselves, conversations from ‘above’ and ‘below’ become much more nuanced and dynamic. Pursuing one’s interest at the international level is deemed here as normative as well, but it is to be tempered with extant principles of equality and solidarity with related and other societies/civilizations. [S]a pagtatanghal ng kagalingan, kapakanan, at karapatan ng sariling kabihasnan, hindi dapat maging kasangkapan ang Kasaysayang Kabanwahan sa pagsasantabi ng kagalingan, kapakanan, at karapatan ng mga kaugnay at/o ibang kabihasnan. Bukod sa pagiging makabuluhan at makatotohanan, mahalagang maging makatatungan at makatwiran din ang Kasaysayang Kabanwahan. (Navarro, 2012, p. 7) [In emphasizing the betterment, welfare, and rights of our own civilization, kasaysayang kabanwahan (i.e., araling kabanwahan in the discipline of history) should not be instrumentalized to marginalize the betterment, welfare, and rights of related and other civilizations. Aside from the pursuit of truth and relevance, it is important that kasaysayang kabanwahan becomes just and reasonable, too.] The constructed categories, however, as exemplifed in the use of kaugnay at ibang kabihasnan [related and other civilizations] lead one to an understanding of one’s referentiality in the discourse of the international (Navarro, 2012). Kaugnay na kabihasnan [related civilizations] emphasizes the situatedness of one’s own totality to larger totalities. Examples of these are the Austronesian-speaking

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societies, Southeast Asia, the Global South, or even the entire world. Pantayo is the perspective here, where the international is appropriated to the Filipino worldview. Ibang kabihasnan [other civilization] distinguishes itself as an understanding of another totality vis-à-vis one’s own. Pansila seems more consistent with this task as other nations (e.g., Malaysia or Germany) or other regions (e.g., Latin America or Europe) are discoursed to learn about their ways of life (e.g., history, politics, culture, language) that could potentially beneft the Filipino. These metadistinctions presuppose sensitivity towards one’s own grounding or situatedness when approaching a subject of inquiry. Such a refexive scholarship could potentially bridge an inherently externalizing feld such as international studies and an internalizing and vernacularizing feld such as Araling Kabanwahan. In other words, branching out becomes tantamount to rooting from or in. Priority research areas in Araling Kabanwahan refect the reconfguration of key themes in its variety of international studies. In a run-up to the 1970s, former colonial principals Spain and the US (or generally the Anglo-European world) seemed to pervade discourses on the international at the local academic scene. One major intellectual task to reorient Filipino consciousness towards its Asian context was via a textbook written in the vernacular by Salazar and other historians (1981), described as ‘unang hakbang ng mga Pilipinong mag-aaral ng kasaysayang Asyano . . . tekstong yari ng mga Pilipino sa wikang Pilipino . . . kaalamang Asyano sa kapakanan ng sambayanang Pilipino’ [frst step of Filipinos studying Asian History . . . a text by Filipinos in the P/Filipino language . . . Asian knowledge for the beneft of the Filipino peoples] (Epistola, 1981, p. vii). In contraposition to area studies’ predisposition to see differences among areas and units of analysis, what one sees in this vernacularized work was an attempt to underscore too the interconnectedness of seemingly isolated societies. Salazar followed through with this paradigm with his publication of The Malayan Connection: Ang Pilipinas sa Dunia Melayu [The Malayan Connection: The Philippines in the Malay World] (1998) and Ang Pilipinong ‘Banua’/‘Banwa”sa Mundong Melano-Polynesyano [The Filipino Banua/Banwa in the Melano-Polynesian World] (2006). These are indicative of gradual shifts to the study of the international in the Philippine setting – from Asia to the Malay, Southeast Asia, and Austronesian worlds. Aside from the geographic relocation of analysis, another thematic innovation that counts as part of Araling Kabanwahan’s corpus is migration. This is a particularly interesting phenomenon in the Philippine setting given the consistent migratory movement of Filipinos across time. Not only historians, but also psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, and development scholars looked at the theme and vernacularized their studies to effect a multi-level analysis of a national experience within an international context (e.g., Asis, 1999). While Araling Kabanwahan may have moved the frontier of international studies in Filipino, it must also be stated that different yet related attempts at vernacularization of the global appeared as well in other disciplinary traditions. One of these is in Sikolohiyang Pilipino [Filipino Psychology], which was pioneered by Virgilio Enriquez. In many of his publications, he unmasked the so-called global psychology as just one form of psychology (i.e., Western psychology). To him, a

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genuinely universal psychology would be one that is predicated on cross-indigenous psychology (Enriquez, 1993; Pe-Pua, 2005). This necessitates foundational indigenous psychologies in which Sikolohiyang Pilipino or American psychology is just one of the many. There were publications too on a variety of topics about the international in the vernacular ranging from territorial disputes to language planning, geopolitics, and regional order, among others (Navarro, 2019). In the late 1980s translated classics were also published by Novosti Press Agency and Solidaridad Publishing House (e.g., Yefmov, 1985; Abdullah & Siddique, 1987). Theses and dissertations likewise abound from this period onward in pushing further the frontier of vernacularized international studies.

Vernacularizing international studies and non-Western international relations This chapter has shown discursive experiments in broad historical strokes that aimed to understand and communicate the external via the internal. Engagement of the international has become an intellectual and political task primarily as it serves the purpose of what is perceived as national and local. These counterhegemonic narratives range from a conscious articulation of and standing in solidarity with the international community using the popular language and tedious translations and abridgement of classical works for common readership. With the advent of Araling Kabanwahan, new categories and research agendas have been introduced to deal with the necessity of re-centering the Filipino in any and all discourse. This does not automatically wither away commitments to fair and equal foreign relations. On the contrary, the assertion for vernacularizing of international studies comes with a view that generating public conversations about the regional and the global using a Filipino standpoint holds a potential for addressing the imbalance of power in both discursive and international levels. While this linguistic reality may be seen as normative among many countries, the formerly colonized, mostly in the Global South – and especially the Philippines – remains in a decolonizing state. Creation, consumption, and circulation of knowledge, which includes international studies, require an understanding of the very instruments that produce and/or limit the bounds of academic and policy-making discussions. The epistemic machinery that runs international studies needs a rethinking in this sense – what parts of it belong to formal diplomatic engagements? What parts of it should involve the public? How is this done at present, if it is done at all? Do international studies and international relations scholars distinguish among its audiences? Vernacular modes of communicating knowledge are a habitual mode of social inquiry in the Philippines as the chapter demonstrates. This however exists beyond the radar of the formalistic and mostly academic and statist brand of international studies. The culprit is the language barrier that renders conversations, approaches, and sources in the vernacular invisible. In the desire to push further the frontiers of international studies, new communicative and educative paradigms that could accommodate alternate languages and persuasions of thought should be considered.

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This does not mean a total abdication of the feld’s current practices. From the historical cases surveyed, what is clear is that audience matters in the pursuit of understanding the international. English, which is just as par with all other foreign languages, is instrumental to a different set of audiences. Those who pursued vernacularization knew which languages were appropriate for public conversation and actual international work. The insistence on the use of a vernacular ultimately ties to the standpoint that knowledge has to transcend to the people and that it must emphasize the national interest in a sea of other interests at the international level. It brings to fore another movement in the current dispensation of international studies, advocated by the likes of Amitav Acharya. This pertains to the assertion of a non-Western tradition of international relations. ‘Non-Western IR theories do exist, but are hidden’ is one conjecture as to the lack of intellectual streams, especially outside of the English debates in IR (Acharya & Buzan, 2007, p. 295). While there may be a renewed interest and vigor over this, the ideas on locating ‘alternative discourses’ that have been suppressed because of colonialism and the current ‘academic division of labor’ – where the formerly colonized are just expected to consume Western knowledge – have long taken off. Syed Farid Alatas (2004, p. 69) believed that ‘[t]he search for alternative discourses is a contribution to the universalization of the social sciences to the extent that alternative civilizational voices are added to the ensemble of ideas and works.’ At a much earlier time than these, Filipinos had already been pushing their versions of international studies, with Araling Kabanwahan as the most elaborate attempt to date. Predating these searches for non-Western alternative discourses, Araling Kabawanhan built on previous and similar experiments at vernacularizing the international, introducing in the process new perspectives and approaches for internalizing international studies. While it naturally began as a critique of Western knowledge, and more specifcally the ideological baggage of area studies, it has nonetheless carried on with the task of reconstituting knowledge – defnitely a respite to intellectual projects that have yet to transcend their critique stage. Much of its corpus, however, is understandably from the discipline of history and the humanities, owing to the academic orientation of most of its scholars. The topics of its publications have mostly been on comparative and area/regional histories, people-to-people interactions and migration, and cross-cultural studies. Expansion to new territories of research and areas of dialogue and accentuating further its progressive politics are all possible directions in moving forward this typology of Filipinized international studies. Paraphrasing a popular constructivist catchphrase, it might be said that vernacularizing tendencies such as Araling Kabanwahan hold on to a view that the international system is about ‘nations/communities and peoples all the way down.’ In contrast though to ultranationalist populisms of late, this project of generating democratic spaces for people’s involvement in discourses about the international aims to promote a better understanding of the system upon which nations exist (i.e., ‘inter-national’). If at all, its normative principles should be based on fairness and equality and not xenophobia and isolation or exceptionalism. This remains

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an urgent and relevant task, not only for Araling Kabanwahan and other similar efforts at vernacularizing, but also for scholars and practitioners of international studies who share a sense of engaged and committed scholarship – especially in this time of a troubled global order. Creating conditions of meaningful and relevant dialogue in the various levels of international studies is thus an imperative. Vernacularizing offers an opportunity to bridge the feld to a larger public audience, a platform for reframing the international to the internal.

Acknowledgment The author acknowledges the insights, sources, and encouragement from Atoy Navarro (Thammasat University), Alan Chong (Nanyang Technological University), Linda Quayle (University of Nottingham Malaysia), and Peter Vale (University of Johannesburg), as well as the support of the Philippine International Studies Organization (PHISO) headed by Frances Antoinette C. Cruz and its founder Nassef Manabilang Adiong. All errors in fact and interpretation are of the author.

References Abdullah, T., & Siddique, S. (Eds.). (1987). Islam at Lipunan sa Timog Silangang Asya [Islam and Society in Southeast Asia] (A. Batnag, Trans.). Manila: Solidaridad Publishing House. Acharya, A., & Buzan, B. (2007, August). Why Is There No Non-Western International Relations Theory: An Introduction. International Relations of the AsiaPacifc, 287–312. doi:10.1093/irap/lcm012 Agoncillo, T. A. (1956). The Revolt of the Masses: The Story of Bonifacio and the Katipunan. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press. Alatas, S. F. (2004). The Meaning of Alternative Discourses: Illustrations from Southeast Asia. In S. Ravi, M. Rutten, & B. L. Goh (Eds.), Asia in Europe, Europe in Asia (pp. 57–78). Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Publications. doi:10.1355/9789812305879-005 Asis, M. B. (Ed.). (1999). Mga Eksilo, Inang Bayan, at Panlipunang Pagbabago [Exiles, Motherland, and Social Change]. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Center for Integrative and Development Studies and Scalabrini Migration Center. Bautista, C. R. B. (1999). The Social Sciences in the Philippines: Refections on Developments and Prospects. In V. A. Miralao (Ed.), The Philippine Social Sciences in the Life of the Nation (pp. 381–409). Quezon City: Philippine Social Science Center. Bonifacio, A. (1997 [1897]). Katipunang Mararahas ng mga Anak ng Bayan [To the Brave Sons of the Nation]. In V. S. Almario (Author & Ed.), Panitikan ng Rebolusyon (g 1896) [Literature of the Revolution (of 1896)] (pp. 154–155). Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press. Elumbre, A. L. (2014, November). Kaisipan at Karanasan sa Ugnayang Panlabas ng Katipunan, 1892–1897 [Idea and Practice of Foreign Relations in Katipunan, 1892–1897]. Saliksik, 3(2), 142–168. Retrieved from www.ejournals.ph/article. php?id=5490

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Enriquez, V. G. (1993). Developing a Filipino Psychology. In U. Kim & J. W. Berry (Eds.), Indigenous Psychologies: Research and Experience in Cultural Context (pp. 152–169). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Epistola, S. V. (1981). Unang Hakbang, Unang Alay [First Step, First Offering]. In Z. A. Salazar, J. B. Veneracion, W. E. Tamayo, & E. A. Pastores (Eds.), Kabihasnang Asyano: Isang Pangkasaysayang Introduksyon [Asian Civilization: A Historical Introduction] (p. vii). Manila: Miranda and Sons. Epistola, S. V. (1996). Hong Kong Junta. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press. Fuller, K. (2007). Forcing the Pace: The Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas: From Foundation to Armed Struggle. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press. Guerrero, M., Encarnacion, E., & Villegas, R. (1996). Andres Bonifacio and the 1896 Revolution. Sulyap Kultura, 2, 3–12. Ileto, R. C. (2017). Knowledge and Pacifcation: On the U.S. Conquest and the Writing of Philippine History. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press. Jose, V. (2001). Katipunan External Affairs: Bonifacio’s Politics and Foreign Policy. Diliman Review, 49(1–2), 3–32. Khosrowjah, H. (2011). A Brief History of Area Studies and International Studies. Arab Studies Quarterly, 33(3–4), 131–142. Retrieved from www.jstor.org/ stable/41858661 Mactal, R. (2000). Hong Kong Junta/Comite Central Filipino: Pulitika at Kontrobersya [Hong Kong Junta/Central Filipino Committee: Politics and Controversy]. Manila: De La Salle University Press, Inc. Manahan, J. (1931). Ang Bayoneta at Dolyar Amerikano [The Bayonet and American Dollar]. Manila: Jacinto Manahan. Manahan, J. (1932a). Kaarawan ng Paggawa; Ang Tunay na Kasaysayan, Diwa at Kahulugan ng Unang Araw ng Mayo [Labor Day: The Real History, Spirit and Meaning of the First Day of May]. Manila: J. M. Manahan, J. (1932b). Ang mga Anakpawis sa Ilalim ng Pamahalaang Sobyet [Working Class under the Soviet Government]. Manila: J. M. Mendoza, S. L. (2006). Between the Homeland and the Diaspora: The Politics of Theorizing Filipino and Filipino American Identities. Manila: University of Santo Tomas Publishing House. Navarro, A. M. (2000). Ang Bagong Kasaysayan sa Wikang Filipino: Kalikasan, Kaparaanan, Pagsasakasaysayan [New History in the Filipino Language: Nature, Methodology, Historiography] [Monograph]. Bagong Kasaysayan [New Historiography] [Monograph], 11. Navarro, A. M. (2012, September). Araling Kabanwahan, Kasaysayang Kabanwahan, at Araling Timog Silangang Asya [Filipinized Inter-National/Cultural Studies, Inter-National/Cultural History, and Southeast Asian Studies]. Saliksik, 1(2), 1–32. Retrieved from www.ejournals.ph/article.php?id=5449 Navarro, A. M. (2019, October). Si Zeus Salazar sa Kasaysayan ng Araling Kabanwahan [Zeus Salazar in the History of Filipinized Inter-National/Cultural Studies]. Presentation at the Forum on Zeus Salazar and His Contributions to Filipino Scholarship, Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Manila. Osterhammel, J. (2017). The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. doi:10.1515/9781400849949

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Pe-Pua, R. (2005). Kros-Katutubong Perspektibo sa Metodolohiya: Ang Karanasan ng Pilipinas [Cross-Indigenous Perspective in Methodology: Philippine Experience] [Monograph]. Binhi, 2(1). Reparaz, G. (1897). Nuestros Grabados (Filipinas) [Our Records (Philippines)]. La Ilustración Española y Americana [Spanish and American Illustrations], 41(5). Richardson, J. (2013). The Light of Liberty: Documents and Studies on the Katipunan, 1892–1897. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press. Robles, R. (Ed.). (1941). Ang Kasaysayan ng “96” [The History of “96”]. Manila: Dimasalang Publishing Company. Sakdal. (1930, September 20). Si Mussolini at ang Diwang Alipin [Mussolini and Slave Mentality]. Sakdal, 1, 1. Sakdal. (1931, February 14). Ang Puhunan [The Capital]. (J. Quirante, Trans.). Sakdal, 1(32), 2. Sakdal. (1933, January 14). Abuluyan sa Kasulatan at Sugo ng Bayang Api [Donations to the Campaign and Emissary of the Oppressed Country]. Sakdal, 3(121), 1, 3–4. Salazar, Z. A. (Ed.). (1974–1975). Ang Kasaysayan: Diwa at Lawak; Dyornal ng Malawakang Edukasyon [History: Thought and Range; Journal of General Education]. Quezon City: University of the Philippines College of Arts and Sciences. Salazar, Z. A., Veneracion, J. B., Tamayo, W. E. & Pastores, E. A. (1981). Kabihasnang Asyano: Isang Pangkasaysayang Introduksyon [Asian Civilization: A Historical Introduction]. Manila: Miranda and Sons. Salazar, Z. A. (1991). Panimula [Introduction]. In V. V. Bautista & R. Pe-Pua (Eds.), Pilipinolohiya: Kasaysayan, Pilosopiya at Pananaliksik [Philippine Studies/ Filipinology: History, Philosophy, and Research] (pp. 5–9). Manila: Kalikasan Press. Salazar, Z. A. (1998). The Malayan Connection: Ang Pilipinas sa Dunia Melayu [The Malayan Connection: The Philippine in the Malay World]. Quezon City: Palimbagan ng Lahi. Salazar, Z. A. (Ed. & Trans.). (2000). Karl Marx at Friedrich Engels; Manifesto ng Partido Komunista [Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Communist Manifesto] [Monograph]. Bagong Kasaysayan [New Historiography], 10. Salazar, Z. A. (2006). Ang Pilipinong Banua-Banwa sa Mundong Melano-Polynesiano [The Filipino Banua-Banwa in the Melano-Polynesian World]. Quezon City: Palimbagan ng Lahi. Santos, J. (1935). Buhay at mga Sinulat ni Emilio Jacinto [Life and Works of Emilio Jacinto]. Manila: Jose Paez Santos. Schmidt, B. (1994). The Historiography of Academic International Relations. Review of International Studies, 20(4), 349–367. doi:10.1017/s0260210500118169 Terami-Wada, M. (1988). The Sakdal Movement, 1930–1934. Philippine Studies, 36(2), 131–150. Retrieved from www.jstor.org/stable/42633076 Terami-Wada, M. (2014). Sakdalistas’ Struggle for Philippine Independence 1930– 1945. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press. Yefmov, D. (1985). Ang Ikalawang Digmaang Pandaigdig at ang Tadhana ng mga Asyano at Aprikano [The Second World War and the Future of Asians and Africans]. Manila: Novosti Press Agency.

Part II

Mapping practices

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The case of agrarian reforms in Philippine-USA relations A biopolitical perspective Aliya Peleo

Introduction This paper explores the ‘agrarian reforms’ in the Philippines as a form of discourse (Foucault, 2008, pp. 18, 35–37) using the critical perspective of ‘post-development’ (Parftt, 2002, pp. 12–44) during the Cold War rivalry between the USSR and the USA. In general, the main criticism from the post-development perspective is that ‘development’ has become on one hand an ‘amoeba-like concept, shapeless, but ineradicable, with contours so blurred it denotes nothing’; on the other hand, it is a ‘Western concept’ that was used by powerful states ‘for their own ideological projects of domination’ and exercise of power (Parftt, 2002, pp. 3–4). These criticisms imply that government offcials of powerful states did not need to intend harm to less powerful states for negative effects to have occurred because of structural characteristics of power imbalances related to, for example, trade, defense, and industrialization. However, the concept of ‘development’ appears to escape this imbalance, as international development appears to be based on the assumption that wealthier states have intentionally intervened in the operations of developing states for the humanitarian beneft of all. The Cold War involved the struggle between two major world powers, the United States and the Soviet Union between 1947 and 1991. Geopolitical analysis (Dodds, 2007) of the rivalry and balance of power of the United States and the Soviet Union in the anarchic conditions of the world has long been part of the paradigms of realism (Mackinder, 1904), (Mahan, 1890), (Hagan, 1942), (Brodie, 1958) (Snyder, 1961) and neorealism (Dodds, 2005), (Waltz, 1979) in international relations. However, biopolitical analysis (Lemke, 2011) was excluded from mainstream international relations, until recently appearing as part of the ‘human security’ discussion (Roberts, 2010). ‘Human security’ as opposed to ‘state security’ was introduced by the Human Development Report in 1994 published by the UNDP. However, the discussion of ‘biopolitics’ had already appeared in the public discourse from the ‘critical perspective’ on the political technologies of ‘neoliberal governmentality’ in lectures by Michel Foucault in the 1970s (Lemke, 2001). The genealogy of ‘liberal design of power’ over populations can be traced to the Cold War initiatives of President Truman that determined the donor’s agenda about preventing the crisis in the ‘Third World’ by ‘fostering “their” development’

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in order ‘to improve “our” security’, or more specifcally, the security of the liberal ‘First World’ during the Cold War (Duffeld, 2007). The ‘development’ projects during the beginning of the Cold War have particular signifcance for establishing the foundational truth claims and overall discourse about what ‘development’ is and why it has become essential for the international system and foreign policy of the major powers. The importance of the NSC-68 report in the United States that initiated the major Cold War-related policies and expenditures of the 1950s show the perceived high threat of the USSR’s ‘hostile design’ not only directly to the USA politically, economically, and militarily but to the rest of the world. Thus, isolationism was rejected by the US State Department as the course of foreign policy action, which could geopolitically ‘leave the United States marooned on the Western Hemisphere, cut off from the allies and resources it needed’ (Department of State Secretariat, 2016). This chapter attempts to explore these research questions: How and why did the ‘agrarian reform’ come to almost ‘permanent’ existence in the history of the Philippines through generations of political leaders? Ultimately, is the term reform still meaningful if the process appears to be endless? And how was the ‘biopolitical power’ exercised by foreigners in the Philippines? The US-sponsored agrarian reforms may not have resolved the problems of rural poverty and food insecurity in the Philippines; however, American involvement in the Philippines was part of a broader biopolitical ‘development project’ of Cold War rivalry. Furthermore, the reforms were regarded as useful for the development of counter-insurgency tactics against communists and other insurgents in the developing countries of the global periphery.

Biopolitics (or limits of geopolitics) The discourse of ‘biopolitics’ originated in the early geopolitics school of Swedish social scientist Rudolf Kjellén and German social scientist Friedrich Ratzel. The foundations of the geo-/biopolitics theorizing were in Lebensphilosophie, which discussed ‘ruthlessness of the life struggle for existences and growth’. In the early school of geopolitics, biopolitics was considered as complementary to ‘geopolitics’ of the state. While geopolitics was about the spatial geographic issues of state survival and expansion, biopolitics was about the observation, analysis, and administration of the life processes of populations in the state. Biopolitics would be impossible without knowledge of ‘new disciplines such as statistics, demography, epidemiology, and biology’ to help ‘administration and regulation of life processes on the level of populations’ (Lemke, Casper, & Moore, 2011, pp. 5–6). The concept of geopolitics in its early 20th century construction by Rudolf Kjellén and Fredrick Ratzel was closely linked with the idea of a state ‘being considered as a super-organism’ requiring ‘living space’ rather than with the idea of a state as an entity of ‘legalistic interpretation’ defned by its constitution, claims of sovereignty, borders, and membership in international organizations (Dodds, 2007, pp. 24–25, 30). Thus, a state is conceptualized using ‘biological metaphors’ as ‘one body’ with many functions and needs that ensure its survival in particular

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geographic space (Somit, 1972). The idea of geographic ‘space’ (‘raum’) or ‘living space’ (‘lebensraum’) in this ‘organic theory’ of the states was important to explain the related governing qualities and possible political or military behaviors of these ‘state-organisms’ towards each other (Hagan, 1942). This notion of ‘state’ was linked to ‘human’ biopolitical aspects of population that needed to be governed and improved. Therefore, such issues as ‘birth, death, growth, decay, youth, age, sickness and health’ were crucial aspects of the state’s governmentality and at the same time Social Darwinist ‘survivability’ among other states of the world (Somit, 1972, pp. 209–210). Biopolitics emphasized the ‘living being rather than . . . legal subjects’ for analysis of the life of individuals, groups of individuals, and the overall population from birth to death (Lemke et al., 2011, p. 4). Moreover, legislation and juridical administration of the state become one of the means of wider governance of population life through science and statistics, as well as ‘disciplinary’ institutions of ‘improvement,’ such as education, jail, health care, sanitation, and other aspects that affect the life system. Therefore, the livingbeing becomes subject to the hierarchical ‘order of knowledge and power’ of the state and its biopolitical ‘governmentality’ over life processes of people (Lemke et al., 2011, p. 5). In the modern state, the biopolitical ‘equitable justice’ had substituted the ‘prince’s wisdom’ of the ‘sovereign’ power (Foucault, 2008, p. 17). The irony of this condition is that although present-day ‘elite’ government offcials may learn about the negative effects of ‘police states’ in the past through the histories of states, their status as components of sovereign states prevents them from totally abandoning ‘police state’ practices if they rationalize into the liberal democratic order. Cases of post-colonial liberal states, such as the Philippines, highlights this problem, as government offcials are defned as ‘elites’ or ‘patrons’ not only because they are factually more powerful than the ordinary citizens, but also because their legitimate status and exercise of power is based on their ‘replacement’ of the colonial ‘patrons’ that ruled the colony from the 16th century. The case of agrarian reforms is interesting because its socio-political conditions refect more American biopolitical infuences than Spanish. Biopolitics explains power as a ‘technology of governmentality’ historically reconceptualized from the 17th century ‘sovereign power’ to the more localized ‘disciplinary power’ limited to the public institutions of medicine, education, military, and jails and fnally to the all-encompassing scientifc ‘biopower’ that regulates and improves the life of the population using comprehensive data analysis from birth to death. The modern ‘biopower’ is expressed through allowing, improving, and ‘managing life rather than threatening to take it away’ as in the ‘sovereign’ and ‘disciplinary’ notions of power (Taylor, 2011, pp. 41–54). Therefore, Foucault’s liberal homo œconomicus, who usually ‘pursues his own interest’ can ‘converge spontaneously with the interests of others’ because these ‘converged interests’ will improve the lives of people on the population level. As a result, homo œconomicus ‘responds systematically to systematic modifcations artifcially introduced into the environment’ (Foucault, 2008, p. 256). For Agamben, a good life or ‘bios’ rather than ‘bare life or ‘zoē,’ is the proper objective of politics or ‘polis’ (Agamben, 1998). The political objective is to

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progress beyond ‘bare animal-like life’ to a ‘good life,’ in which the human community successfully structures and administers itself. The concern with the administration of ‘good life’ in the state is fundamental to the nature of biopolitics. Furthermore, Agamben introduces the notion of ‘sovereignty’ as a ‘biopolitical project’ of disciplinary control to impose the authority and the legitimate exercise of power through the law. Parftt explores the idea of ‘sovereignty’ to explain all ‘development as a biopolitical enterprise,’ where some individuals or group of individuals in the ‘Third World’ are reduced by conscious public neglect to a situation of ‘bare life’ (Parftt, 2009). When a government system does not have technical knowledge and capacities to protect vulnerable populations from ‘chronic threats such as hunger and disease’ and other disruptions in the daily life, then there are implications for ‘sovereignty’ in the ‘underdeveloped’ states (Duffeld, 2007, p. 124).

American colonial governmentality in the Philippines At the end of the Spanish-American War of 1898, Spain was defeated, the Treaty of Paris was signed, and the entire Philippine colony with its population was sold to the USA for US$20 million. However, a few days before the US Senate ratifed the Treaty of Paris on February 4, 1899, war broke out between Filipino nationalists and American occupying forces. The war lasted three years and ‘resulted in the death of over 4,200 American and over 20,000 Filipino combatants,’ and ‘as many as 200,000 Filipino civilians died from violence, famine, and disease.’ Americans were critical of the US President McKinley’s administration’s decision to annex the Philippine Islands and were concerned that ‘annexation might eventually permit the non-white Filipinos to have a role in American national government’ and that it was ‘morally wrong’ for the US to be involved in colonialism. The annexation was based on the beliefs that ‘the Filipinos were incapable of self-rule’ and that American companies could beneft from expanding the Asian trade made possible by the ‘Open Door’ policy at the end of the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. Generally, most American politicians and voters of the time were ‘wholly unconcerned about the moral or racial implications of imperialism’ despite widespread belief in the Monroe Doctrine and other principles that made a distinction between the spheres of infuence of the old Imperial European powers and that promoted non-colonization and non-intervention (Offce of the Historian, Department of State, 2018). A question has persisted since the early 1900s concerning American governmentality: ‘How shall our acquired territory be governed? – How shall the Philippines be governed?’ particularly with the reference to other recently annexed territories, such as Hawaii, Alaska, and other territories in the Southwest (Mitchell, 1900, p. 198). One of the guiding principles for the US governmentality of territorial expansion of the mid- and late 19th century was the Manifest Destiny. Americans had the ‘divine sanction’ or ‘providential mission’ to advance expansionism of ‘civilization’ to bring the progress of liberty, individualism, and economic opportunity to the population within the sphere of infuence. The novel idea of the ‘Manifest Destiny’ for American governance was

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frst expressed by John L. O’Sullivan in his article on the annexation of Texas in the July–August 1845 edition of the United States Magazine and Democratic Review. William E. Weeks identifed three key theses of Manifest Destiny doctrine: ‘(1) the virtue of the American people and their institutions; (2) the mission to spread these institutions, thereby redeeming and remaking the world in the image of the United States; (3) the destiny under God to do this work.’ The US legal framework defned that it was ‘in the power and discretion of Congress to govern the Philippines either directly from Washington or indirectly through the medium of a local territorial government, subject to the Constitution and laws of the United States’ (Mitchell, 1900, p. 204). In brief, the origins of American exceptionalism can be traced to the foundational discourse of America’s Puritan heritage. The American public of the late 19th and early 20th century was mostly not opposed to the idea of expansionism, and was most probably impressed by the ‘civilizational’ pursuits, particularly by the modernist development of the Anglo-Saxon white population in the western settlements and newly acquired territories of California, Oregon, and the Republic of Texas. The rationalization of these pursuits was American ‘exceptionalism’ founded on quasi-Darwinist ideas with the emphasis on the supreme quality of ‘Anglo-Saxon heritage’ with its culture, education, and religion. Added to this was the individualist Protestant work ethic (Weber, Baehr, & Wells, 2002) over ‘less developed’ Native American inhabitants and other populations whose Catholic religion and Hispanized cultures, languages, and societies were different from those with ‘Anglo-Saxon’ genetic blueprints.

The origins: foundational narrative of agrarian reform The foundational narrative of land reform in the beginning of the Philippine state formation is essential for understanding of the contemporary legislation, administration, and political rhetoric as well as the origins of biopolitical power dynamics between the categories of people called (1) ‘landowner elites’ and (2) a ‘rural population’ that currently surround the issues of ‘agrarian reform.’ Starting from the First Philippine Republic after 1898, the land issue played a role in the formation of the state and associated ‘governmentality.’ The new Filipino and then American government attempted ‘to confscate large landed estates, especially the friar lands’ (Pabuayon, Catelo, Salvador, & Paris, 2013, p. 112). The Catholic Church friar lands were much politicized at the time as by the 19th century the ‘[Catholic] religious orders owned some 171,000 hectares of prime agricultural land’ (Nadeau, 2008, p. 36), which was later expropriated by the American colonial government. These large portions of land were ‘frst granted to the conquistadors and early settlers and were soon turned over to the missionary orders’, such as Jesuits, Augustinians, and Dominicans. Through the Spanish period, the land was cultivated by tenant farmers ‘who handed over a portion of the harvest as a form of rent’ and ‘supplied rice for local consumption and urban centers, especially Manila’ (Nadeau, 2008, p. 36). The biopolitical ‘power’ of the Catholic Church over the population was implemented through ‘disciplinary’

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institutions of church, education, and health care. The newly arrived American colonial governmentality were particularly interested in administering the political lives of landowner ‘local elites’ and the ‘educated class’ of the population to ensure the support for civilizing development initiatives. Thus, for example, the 1902 municipal elections only allowed participation of those people who ft particular American requirements about the ‘civilized persons’: (1) males, who are twenty-three years old or older, (2) literate in either Spanish or English, (3) owned a property worth at least US $250 or paid annual tax of US $15 (Caoili, 1987). The life context of the early 20th-century population in the Philippine Islands and American governmentality towards the local population are shown in the discourse of William H. Taft., the Second American Commissioner: Of the eight or nine millions of people in the Philippines there are perhaps six or six and a half millions who are Christians, a million to a million and a half Moros, and the remainder non-Christian or pagan tribes, residing in the mountains of Mindanao, Negros and Luzon. The Moros and other nonChristian tribes have no political conception whatever . . . More than 90 per cent of them do not speak Spanish, and very much more than a majority of this 90 per cent do not read and write even their own dialect. They are very ignorant, very docile, very timid, very respectful of authority accompanied by any show of force at all, and are credulous to a degree that can hardly be understood in this country. (Taft, 1902) Thus, the expropriation of these estates by the US government was not likely motivated by the need to ensure fair land ownership among all Filipinos. The total area of the estates was less than 6% of the total agricultural land in the Philippines at the time, which was about three million hectares (Wolters, 1982). Still, the process was a highly symbolic act of power that was easily publicized as a defnite measure to distinguish the new American governmentality as fair, progressive, and democratic, compared to the parochial and feudal Catholic Spanish colonials. Hence, the initial attempt at a highly-publicized land reform may be seen as part of the development project of the second Taft Commission. This ‘project’ was rationalized not only for the need of ‘modernization’ to civilize the Philippine population but also for strengthening US President McKinley’s re-election campaign in 1900. This included the goal ‘to create a better image of his colonial venture in the Philippines, especially with the rise of the opposition led by the anti-imperialist league’. The image of the US military, which ‘killed more Filipinos in 3 years than the Spanish killed in 300 years’ was not the most attractive for the potential voters in the US (Nadeau, 2008, p. 50). Therefore, some ‘125 landed Filipinos” (Nadeau, 2008, p. 50) were organized by American backers into a Philippine Federalist Party to demonstrate the viability of indigenous self-rule by a property-owning ‘civilized’ class (Taft, 1902). At the same time, Taft negotiated with the Pope in the Vatican ‘for the purchase of some 165,000 hectares (400,000 acres) of friar lands’. These lands were bought ‘on December 23, 1903, at a price of about $7,250,000’

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(Nadeau, 2008, p. 51). Even though the Friar Lands Act of 1904 had provisions of ‘preference for sale and lease of the land’ to the ‘60,000 share tenant who were already farming the land’ (Putzel, 1992, p. 53), the land purchases were made by wealthy landowning elite families and the US corporations who could afford the price. The famous corporate examples included the American Sugar Refning Corporation (or Sugar Trust), which bought the ‘22,000 hectare San Jose Estate in Mindoro,’ and the Tabacalera Company that expanded the estate and ‘owned some 15,452 hectares by 1913’ in Tarlac (Nadeau, 2008, pp. 51–52). Large corporations such as Tabacalera Company (and later Hacienda Luisita) generally ‘faired well under US rule’: the ‘sugar barons’ were helped by the public infrastructure work such as the irrigation system of the Tarlac Canal, construction of the ManilaDagupan rail line, and advantageous trade agreements for sugar cane as part of the Payne-Aldrich Act of 1909, the Underwood-Simmons Act of 1913, and the Tydings-McDuffe Act of 1934 (Putzel, 1992, pp. 53–54). Thus, Taft Commission attempts to ‘reform’ the land ownership from smallgroup ‘friar management’ did not result in widespread property ownership but instead re-concentrated land ownership to the small group of families and corporations. The re-capitalization of the landed elite in the Philippines allowed the Americans the freedom to promote token land reform for tenant farmers. The Philippine Bill of 1902 provided legislative provisions ‘on the disposition of public lands’ and opened the way for the Land Registration Act of 1902 for a ‘systematic registration of land titles under the Torrens System’ (Pabuayon et al., 2013, p. 112) as well as for the Public Lands Act of 1903 ‘to allow the landless and land-poor peasantry to acquire their own farms’. This initiative was ‘modelled on the legislation used to settle the American west’ that allowed people to acquire up to ‘16 hectares of public land by establishing a homestead and cultivating it for fve consecutive years with payment of a nominal fee’ (Putzel, 1992, p. 53). However, these measures did not appear compatible with the traditional culture of the barangay and communal existence of the ‘Indios.’ Filipinos at the time identifying themselves with their farming communities assumed that a biopolitically ‘good life’ consisted in living and working collectively in the hierarchy of extended families and clans of ‘barrios’ rather than in the isolated farms. One of the American social scientists grumbled about the Philippine traditional society where ‘a vassal may not say his overlord nay’ and ‘people are an indentured, custom-bound, untutored Malayan mass’ (Robb, 1922, p. 762). American corporate interests seemed to be more readily satisfed, presumably because of their closeness to the Manila-based government. Thus, land reform legislation helped promote the American agribusiness, as for example the case with the California Packing Company. The company was able to establish the Philippine Packing Corporation (PPC), which became Del Monte Philippines, through individual farmers’ and cattle ranchers’ lease holdings of 4,324 hectares between 1917 and 1942 in Bukidnon, Mindanao. Moreover, PPC was permitted to establish a 14,000-hectare ‘agricultural colony’ to support ‘“homesteaders” who would settle and raise pineapples’ (Putzel, 1992, p. 55). The system encouraged the ‘tenancy’ farming based on sharecropping rather than fxed cash

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rent. This practice resulted in the cycle of debt and impoverishment of tenant farm workers. To prevent the recurrence of violent mass action, the colonial and commonwealth governments attempted ‘to quell peasant unrest’ with the introduction of various measures, including the Sugar Cane Tenancy Contract Act of 1933, the Rice Share Tenancy Act of 1935 (that is 50–50 sharing agreement), and Quezon’s Social Justice program of ‘fact-fnding survey of the rural areas’ in 1936 that reported denial of ‘constitutional and inalienable civil and political rights’ to tenant peasants (Putzel, 1992, pp. 58–59). After World War II and the Philippine Independence of 1946, ‘tenancy problems had persisted leading to some social unrest’ (Pabuayon et al., 2013, p. 113). To mitigate the issue of peasant riots that had a risk of evolving into full-scale communist insurgency, the Republic Act (RA) 34 of 1946 introduced the 70–30 crop-sharing agreement for the tenant-landlord relationship, RA 1199 of 1954 introduced leasehold as a new form of relationship, and RA 1160 of 1954 established the National Resettlement and Rehabilitation Administration (NARRA) ‘to resettle dissidents and other landless farmers’ (Pabuayon et al., 2013, p. 113). The NARRA resettlement plan, claimed to be ‘the brain-child of Sixto K. Roxas’ (Putzel, 1992, p. 116) however would prove to be controversial, as it would attempt to resolve the socio-political unrest among tenant peasants in Luzon by moving them to Mindanao and thus opening the issues of marginalization of indigenous Muslim communities in Mindanao by migrant Christian farmers and businessmen. By attempting to resolve communist insurgency issues among impoverished farmers in Luzon, NARRA population resettlement policies exacerbated the Muslim Mindanao issues of subversion and autonomy that are persistent to this day. The NARRA resettlement case of marginalized groups to a different geographic space had shown that clear-cut geopolitical solutions without planned governmentality of life administration for these populations are limited by historically bound societal structures and associated biopolitical conficts.

Biopolitical rationalization: the Green Revolution as a communist counter-insurgency project After the Second World War, the concept of a ‘Green Revolution’ was introduced by then State Department/USAID Administrator William Gaud into the vocabulary of Philippine governmentality, in the hope that it would help to contain the communist ‘Red Revolution’ and associated insurgency threats among rural populations (Gaud, 1968). the Philippines have harvested a record rice crop with only 14% of their rice felds planted to new high-yielding seeds. This year more land will be planted to the new varieties. The Philippines are clearly about to achieve selfsuffciency in rice. These and other developments in the feld of agriculture contain the makings of a new revolution. It is not a violent Red Revolution like that of the Soviets, nor is it a White Revolution like that of the Shah of Iran. I call it the Green Revolution. (Gaud, 1968)

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The ‘Red Revolution,’ using the biopolitical issues of rural poverty in the ‘Third World,’ was able to publicize the Marxist ideology and to mobilize the vulnerable and neglected population for peasant unrest and more organized insurgent armed movement. Any change in biopolitical control of the rural population life systems, particularly in equal distribution of land and other agricultural assets among tenant farmers, was not only a biopolitical threat to the local landed ‘elites’ but also to the geopolitical structure of the liberal-democratic capitalist order of the USA as opposed to the Marxist ‘communist’ order of the USSR and PRC in Asia. However, for Gaud, the Philippines had to become one of the illustrative cases where the ‘food crisis’ was overcome by the American-led agrarian reform to result in better welfare for the population. Therefore, the expansion of Marxist insurgent movements and the greater Cold War implication could be contained by the ‘Green Revolution’ development project piloted in the Philippines in the 1960s. The ‘Green Revolution’ as opposed to the growing ‘Red Revolution’ among peasants had been initiated and implemented by the USAID together with the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and World Bank. The Rockefeller Foundation played a key role in initiating the reform. The frst Rockefeller program that pioneered the agrarian reform was established in Mexico and called Mexico Agricultural Program (MAP). The team of MAP produced The World Food Problem report (Weaver, 1951), where they argued about the link between population growth, unequally distributed resources, food insecurity, and vulnerability to communist agitation. The food crisis would enable conditions for political instability and security tensions in the Third World that were unfavorable to the USA. Therefore, the role of agricultural reforms that would share technological knowledge and improve the welfare of populations in the developing countries was considered to be a critical component of ‘the emerging struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union’ (Perkins, 1997, p. 138). There is a special [Communism] problem in the Philippines, and perhaps special responsibility on the part of the United States to contribute so far as it can to its solution. It is not at all certain that there will be an opportunity to render help in the Philippines, but if there should be, it ought by all means to receive serious consideration. (Weaver, 1951) In 1963, with the USAID backing, the Rockefeller Foundation re-structured its programs to be ‘Toward the Conquest of Hunger,’ which had two biopolitical component areas: ‘The Population Problem’ and ‘Strengthening Emerging Centers of Learning’ (Perkins, 1997, p. 103). To summarize the project concept, Perkins called it the ‘population-national security theory’ (PNST), which suggests that Malthusian overpopulation would lead to resource exhaustion and subsequent hunger that would result in political instability and communist rebellion. This scenario was risky for American geopolitical interests in the Cold War and had to be prevented. The Malthusian issue of ‘food and population’ was to be resolved through technological knowledge, preferably earlier than any agrarian program of Communist agitation. The ‘food and population’ issue was

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politicized by Rockefeller experts as part of the ‘national security’ to ‘persuade political leaders that they (the experts) had intellectual command of an issue with national security implications’ that already could have a technical solution (Perkins, 1997, pp. 132–133). Even though the military power was of primary concern for strategists of the containment policy of the 1950s–1960s, the World Wars had shown that ‘armies, however, exist only on the foundation of food supplies that are adequate for both the military personnel and their civilian support force’ (Perkins, 1997, p. 140). The Filipino political elite represented by the Liberal Party of the early 1960s could see the benefts in alignment with the US. This was a reaction to the rival Nacionalista Party government of President Garcia (1957–1961). President Garcia’s nationalism promoted a ‘Filipino First Policy’ emphasizing the development of domestic industries, imports, and foreign exchange controls, disregarding the IMF, World Bank and US State Department recommendations. The newly elected President Macapagal (1962–1965) of the Liberal Party promised to open up the economy and to follow the advice ‘to devalue the peso and remove foreign exchange controls’, in return for the ‘$450 million in loans’ (Putzel, 1992, p. 114). In the agrarian sector, the ‘attention was focused on increasing productivity’ as part of the technologically advanced Green Revolution (Putzel, 1992, pp. 113–117). In December 1962, the US liberal reformer Wolf Ladejinsky travelled to the Philippines on behalf of the Ford Foundation. He visited IRRI and Agricultural College at Los Banos, and toured Pampanga, one of the centres of rice production in Central Luzon. His report was an indictment not only of the continuing conditions of penury among rural tenants, but also of USAIDsponsored ‘community development projects’ promoted since the rejection of the Hardie Report. He noted that in Pampanga, which had been the centre of HMB guerrilla action in the 1950s, 90 to 95 per cent of farmers were still tenants. (Putzel, 1992, p. 118) Ladejinsky’s visit in December 1962 coincidently happened right after the key geopolitical event of the time. In October 1962, the world was on the edge of possible nuclear war between the USSR and the USA over the Cuban Missile Crisis. Hence, the Philippines and other developing states were not to duplicate the ‘normative example’ of the communist Cuba’s governmentality. The obstacles for the Philippines being rid of the ideas of communism were poverty, food insecurity, and continuous armed attacks of communist insurgents, particularly the Hukbong Magpapalaya Ng Bayan (HMB) or Huk insurgent movement in Central Luzon. For that reason, Ladejinsky’s tour of Laguna and Pampanga in December 1962 to understand the issues of the rural population was of a greater bio- and geopolitical importance for the US foreign policy in Asia and the Cold War power dynamics. This was reported by Lieutenant Colonel Moore, who critically observed the absence of the state biopower among marginalized rural communities. He wrote,

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‘agrarian and social reform legislation, although enacted, was never satisfactorily implemented; justice and political equality were meaningless to the peasants’ (Moore, 1971, p. 31). Furthermore, Rand Corporation research of the same period was similarly concerned about the ‘success factors’ of Huklandia, the area occupied by the Huks. For that, the researchers were applying the latest statistical and econometric methods for determining the greater importance of causal variables: (1) socioeconomic status or (2) coercion and terror – for the success of Huk communist insurgents’ control of Central Luzon (Averch & Koehler, 1970).

Interpretation: the Green Revolution and agrarian reforms for ‘development’ In 1962, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) was established in Los Baños with the help of the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations. The research on rice varieties was essential as a technological solution to the Red Revolution among impoverished farmers. It was critical for the US to show that liberaldemocratic order could produce technologically more advanced varieties of staple food to resolve food insecurity and poverty. Robert Chandler, who was assigned as a director for IRRI, organized a team of scientists to work on developing a new rice variety to increase rice productivity in Asia. Peter Jennings jointed IRRI as a Rockefeller foundation scientist with international experience in Mexico, Columbia, India, and Taiwan. The frst successful example of the ‘Green Revolution’ was the cross of the Philippine variety of rice called ‘Peta’ with a Dee-geo-woo-gen (DGWG) variety from Taiwan. This new Green Revolution rice variety was named IR-8. The IR-8 considerably increased the yield of rice production comparatively to the traditional local rice varieties. President Lyndon B. Johnson was pleased and made a congratulatory speech during his visit to IRRI in October 1966: If we are to win our war against poverty, and against disease, and against ignorance, and against illiteracy, and against hungry stomachs, then we have got to succeed in projects like this, and you are pointing the way for all of Asia to follow. (Hargrove & Coffman, 2006) This underlines the importance of the biopolitical security-development nexus for the US foreign policy in the Third World. Furthermore, the Green Revolution speech of William Gaud, administrator of USAID in 1968, includes the important milestone for the commencing of biopolitical ‘security-development’ initiatives by technologically advanced donor-states in the ‘Third World,’ where the example of the Philippine ‘Green Revolution’ could be replicated in other countries (Gaud, 1968). The agrarian reforms preceding the Green Revolution were mostly focused on the ‘land estates policy’ and land redistribution campaign under the Bureau of Lands (Wurfel, 1983). In January 1963, President Macapagal established a committee on land reform led by Acting Secretary of Labor Bernadino Abes to prepare the draft of the Agricultural Land Reform Code. The code was successfully

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introduced into Congress in March by Senators Raul Manglapus and Genaro Magsaysay and by Representative Juanita Nepomuceno from Pampanga and approved by both houses by July 1963. The legislative process was not straightforward, as the code was subjected to more than 200 amendments to please the elite landowners (Putzel, 1992, pp. 114–116). The code encouraged the distribution of new agricultural technologies, legal assistance, and small farmer credit and created special fnancial institutions for coordination of these activities, such as the Land Authority and Land Bank. Thus, these land reforms had been successfully implemented to pave the way for the introduction of technological advancement rather than land distribution from the elite landowning class to impoverished tenant farmers. Moreover, the introduction of the ‘reform’ of land distribution was still rather more symbolic than pragmatic (Putzel, 1992, pp. 116–117). According to the UN mission to the Philippines that assessed the code, legal provisions, and policy implementation in 1969, it was ‘no more than a “land productivity policy”’ promoting the private sector through new ‘Green Revolution’ technologies ‘without challenging the structure of power’ of the rural population (Putzel, 1992, p. 120). In 1965, Senator Marcos switched parties, by moving from the Liberal Party to the Nacionalista Party to challenge the ‘tradition of elite democracy’ (Putzel, 1992, p. 121) and won the presidential elections in 1965 and 1969. During Marcos’s time, Macapagal’s poorly introduced Agricultural Land Reform Code and its failure ‘to achieve any change in the countryside’ caused continuous peasant unrest and the increasing US involvement because of the fear of communist insurgents in rural communities. During martial law, President Marcos introduced Presidential Decree (PD) No. 2 in September 1972 that legalized ‘the whole country as land reform area,’ challenging the traditional land-owning elite, and PD No. 27 or Tenant Emancipation Decree (or ‘Marcos Land Reform’ program) in October 1972. This ‘reform’ included the lands used for rice and corn cultivation introducing fve hectares per family-size farm for non-irrigated and three hectares for irrigated lands, the retention limit of no more than seven hectares, the value of land that would be equivalent of 2.5 times the average harvest of three crop years multiplied by the government support price for rice or corn and interest of 6% per annum (payable in 15 years), and the cooperatives as a mechanism for legalization of tenant-farmers’ claims (Pabuayon et al., 2013, pp. 114–115). Furthermore, the issue of Mindanao rural communities would prove to be a complex problem of communist, Muslim nationalist, and Islamic insurgencies. The ‘liberalization’ policies of President Macapagal had an impact in the early Marcos presidency when deregulation and monetary and fscal policy, as well as ‘Green Revolution’ technological initiatives, encouraged investment from the ‘transnational agribusiness corporations . . . to develop new export crops, particularly on plantations in Mindanao’. Thus, for example, Del Monte Philippines now entered into more complex oligopolistic competition with the newly arrived rival, Dole Philippines, ‘leasing 8,903 hectares from the government’s National Development Corporation’ (Putzel, 1992, p. 120). Moreover, the failure of agrarian reforms to respond to the growing communist and Muslim insurgency issue

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was used to justify martial law for the state-driven ‘development’ and greater centralization of power, including military terror for any opposition of the policies. The other biopolitical stakeholder of the ‘Green Revolution,’ particularly during the Marcos period, was the World Bank. Since President Macapagal’s acceptance of liberalization policies, the World Bank participated in the reforms actively to improve the economic conditions in the countryside and to deter the peasant revolts and insurgency. From the late 1950s, the World Bank ‘channeled a total of US$3.3 billion to the country’s rural sector by 2008’ (Borras & Franco, 2009, p. 1). The World Bank projects fnanced various types of rural development, ranging from the Green Revolution and its package of technologies (new types of seeds and chemical fertilizers) to land resettlement and rural agrarian administration. In 1965, the World Bank approved its frst agricultural loan to the Philippines, which was called the ‘Agriculture Project.’ The project budget was US$ 5 million, and it provided medium and long-term credit to farmers for farm equipment and irrigation systems development. The World Bank technical solution to rural poverty and the marginalization of tenant peasants was, similarly to the USAID, the modernization of agriculture with the introduction of new technologies, such as high-yield seed varieties and chemical fertilizers to increase the productivity of poor farmers (Borras & Franco, 2009, p. 3). Thus, ‘development’ projects became part of the counter-insurgency security mechanism of biopolitics to deter potential rebellion.

Governmentality of ‘agrarian reforms’ For Tadem (Tadem, Technocracy and the Peasantry: Martial Law Development Paradigms and Philippine Agrarian Reform, 2015), Borras (Borras & Franco, Struggles for land and livelihood, 2005) and other Filipino scholars, agrarian reform in the Philippines is a ‘redistributive mechanism’ to achieve better equality among different marginalized groups of the population. The reform, however, was not completely successful because of the disincentives of the patron-client structure of governance (Scott, 1972) and international involvement of marketoriented initiatives, which undermined the existing land reform process (Borras, Carranza, & Franco, 2007). The agrarian ‘project’ not only sought to represent a ‘teleology of progress’ with a particular goal, objectives, and the defned scope of the Cold War context but also a continuous introduction of new legislation and institutions, as well as social justice initiatives with ‘no beginning and no end’ (Tadem, 2016). In 1988, after the end of the martial law, during the Presidency of Corazon Aquino, the Philippine Congress passed the Republic Act (RA) 6657, or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). This legislative act was expected ‘to promote social justice and industrialization’, as well as ‘more equitable distribution and ownership of land with due regards to rights of landowners for a just compensation’ (Pabuayon et al., 2013). CARP implementation was reconceptualized as part of the ‘democratization’ discourse and neoliberal policies of the USAID, World Bank, and IMF. The implementing agency of the reform

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was the Department of Agrarian Reform, the institution established during the President Marcos era. It was later renamed as the ‘Ministry of Agrarian Reform’ in 1978 and renamed back to the ‘Department of the Agrarian Reform’ in 1987; further, under President Arroyo in 2004, it was renamed as the ‘Department of Land Reform,’ and one year later, in 2005, the name of the institution was returned to the initial ‘Department of Agrarian Reform’ (DAR Secretariat, 2016). Thus, continuous ‘agrarian reform’ has become part of the biopolitical governmentality of the Philippine executive branch. Despite the high-profle mandates of the reforms, each presidential administration had its exemptions to maintain the patron-client governmentality in the Philippines. For example, the ‘coverage and distribution of 358.22 hectares in Hacienda Luisita registered to the Cojuangcos’ Tarlac Development Corp. (Tadeco), with which the Aquino family has been identifed, has been exempted from the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). However, this was immediately changed with the President Duterte’s administration, when Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano ‘made good on his promise to see to the land reform coverage of Hacienda Luisita, the vast sugar plantation owned by the Cojuangco family of former President Benigno Aquino III in Tarlac province’ (Pazzibugan, 2016). The ongoing ‘agrarian reforms’ in the Philippines seem to be institutionalized in a neverending cycle of elite-peasant duality discourse, marginalization of rural populations, and ‘antifarmer decisions’. As the discourse of ‘agrarian reform’ is still relevant during the current President Duterte administration in 2016 (Brizuela, 2016), it also shows that the biopolitical power discourse of ‘agrarian reform’ between the elite politicians-landlords (patrons) and impoverished peasants (clients) (Scott, 1972) of the early Cold War of the 1950s to 1960s still persists to the present day despite the different internal context of the Philippines and the external geopolitical structure of international affairs in the early 21st century.

Governmentality-in-progress: de-agricultural development and de-industrialization? On February 14, 2019, President Duterte signed the RA 11203 or Rice Liberalization Law, which came into effect on March 5, 2019. This new law removed regulatory functions from the National Food Authority (NFA) over international and domestic trade, licensing, warehouse inspection, authority to seize hoarded stocks, and the enforcement of other regulations for rice (National Food Authority News, 2019). And by that, on the one hand, the new law ‘would kill the Philippine rice industry’; on the other hand, it ‘lifted import restrictions on rice to make the price of the staple affordable for all’ (Simeon, 2019). Thus, the current agrarian reforms with the liberalization of staple rice production and international trade would bring new governmentality conditions for both ‘patrons’ and ‘clients’ in agriculture where the survivability of the rice industry as a whole is in question. Does it mean that Filipino ‘agricultural workers’ would now move to the manufacturing sector as economists promised to ‘Third World’ countries in the 20th century’s development models?

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The current manufacturing sector has unfortunately failed ‘to generate sustained growth and employment’ mainly because of two factors: (1) the ‘absence of structural transformation from agriculture to manufacturing’ in the economic history of the Philippines and (2) the ‘inability to generate foreign direct investments’ into the manufacturing sector (Aldaba, 2015). Nevertheless, the major economic indicators of the country show the increasing trend of GDP and the healthy real GDP growth rate of over 5% annual for the past few years despite the fuctuations associated with the 2008 global fnancial crisis. Thus, the internal consumption with expenditures for basic goods and services is one of the major driving forces for this economic growth. In the early 1960s, the World Bank reports were considering the country’s manufacturing sector as ‘Asia’s most dynamic, second only to Japan’, while in 2015, the industrial sector is described as ‘stagnant and even shrinking while its agricultural sector keeps declining’ (Ofreneo, 2015, pp. 111–112). The country nowadays is a ‘service sector-led economy without passing through an industrial transformation’ (Ofreneo, 2015, p. 111). Figure 7.1 shows the economic structure of the Philippines from 2001 until 2016 with a visible growing trend of service sector and marginal improvements in industry and no positive change in agriculture. The ‘deindustrialization in the last four decades has been accompanied by de-agricultural development’ in the country that has been a direct result of the national economic policies, multinational companies’ strategies, and structural adjustment programs. The major neoliberal impact came in 1995 when the Philippines became a member of WTO. In the same year, the country also became ‘a net agricultural importing country,’ failing to reach ‘self-suffciency in staple crops (rice and corn), fshery, vegetables and meat products’ (Ofreneo, 2015, p. 112). The post-colonial Philippines is characterized by the ‘unequal exchange of raw materials and fnished products’ and failure ‘to catch up with the North in the industrialisation process’ (Ofreneo, 2009, p. 194). The failure is explained through ‘industrial policy inconsistencies pursued by the government, the post-war Economic Structure of the Philippines (at constant 2000 prices, in million pesos) Source: Philippine Statistics Authority in Industry.gov.ph 8,000,000 6,000,000 4,000,000

AGRICULTURE

INDUSTRY

SERVICES

Figure 7.1 Economic structure of the Philippines for 2001–2016

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development of the mining and ore processing based on the requirements of an emergent Japan, the changing technology of ore extraction and metal forming’ and other factors of globalization and the complexity of contemporary supply-chain networks (Ofreneo, 2009, pp. 195–196). In 2012, the ADB report outlined the major challenges to ‘sustainable development’ and inclusive growth in the Philippines. A major structural problem behind socio-economic issues in the Philippines is the ‘sluggish transformation of the economy’, in particular ‘stagnant industrialization’. The economic growth and consumer spending are sustained through the service sector, mostly by the Call Center-Business Process Outsourcing (CC-BPO) business for major multinational companies and remittances of the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) (Usui, 2012). This discourse of the ‘development failure’ in the Philippines has ‘added pressure to NEDA and DTI to speed up’ the industrialization program by creating road maps for each region ‘to revive and strengthen Philippine manufacturing’ (Ofreneo, 2015, pp. 111–112). This initiative resulted in greater attention to agriculture, which became a ‘key to inclusive growth,’ where sustainability would not be achieved by improving solely manufacturing capacities. The ‘structural transformation’ again requires agriculture to improve productivity in major commodities. Also, the ‘transformation entails increasing linkages between farm production, agricultural services, industrial inputs, and agroprocessing’, thus moving traditional subsistence agriculture in the rural area to the ‘agroindustrial complex,’ concentrating on high-value crops (Briones & Galang, 2015). The number of people employed in agriculture production is still larger than in the manufacturing sector (Figures 7.2–7.4); thus, increasing employment in the agro-industrial complex will potentially provide greater welfare impact for the population. However, industrialization of agriculture would require technologies, professional knowledge, investments, and the development assistance of multilateral institutions and industrialized donor-countries. How these agrarian ‘development’ initiatives affect local governmentality and restructure the biopolitical relations among categories of people, such as patrons/donors and clients/ recipients from different geographic spaces would show the limits of geopolitical adjustments of multipolar realities in international relations. Labor Force Employed (by sector) in the Philippines 2015 Source: ADB Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacifc 2016

Agriculture, forestry, and fshing , 11,294

8,298

7,313 3,209 235

2,697 135

1,716

2,781 381

498

Figure 7.2 Labor Force Employed by sector in the Philippines in 2015

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Employment in Manufacturing, 2001-2016 (in thousands of persons) Source: Philippine Statistics Authority

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Figure 7.3 Employment in manufacturing in 2001–2016

Employment in Agriculture (in thousands of persons) Source: Philippines Statistics Authority

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

14,000 12,000 10,000 8,000 6,000 4,000 2,000 0

Figure 7.4 Employment in agriculture in 1990–2016

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8

Marginalization of interests The case of Philippine-Middle East relations Henelito Sevilla, Jr.

Introduction International relations are typically understood as a power play between global powers with shared or diverging interests, with small and weak powers striving to survive and exercise independence and sovereignty. Contrary to the heavy reliance on hard power, which is the central thesis of the realist school of thought, Nye’s approach does not confne a state’s ability to make an impact on other states solely to the ‘physical assets a nation possesses’ (Holsti, 1964, p. 180) but instead involves soft power elements, such as knowledge, innovation, and technology, as well as the economic growth of the state. Thus, global powers possess a combination of hard and soft power to ‘get others to do what they otherwise would not’ (Nye, 1990, p. 154). Weak states, or weak power, refer to a group of developing countries in the Global South that are dependent on great powers for protection. Unlike the latter, weak states can ‘not muster the resources to be sustainable on their own’ (Vital, 1967). They ‘lack the strength to sanction and reward’ and have ‘fewer viable policy options’ (Handel, 1990). In a hierarchical international system, weak states display ‘relative power capabilities’ (Hey, 2003). Weak powers enter into alliances with global powers to boost their security in times of confict. They maximize the alliance system and multilateral channels to advance their interests. Thus, it is strategic for them to be strategic in prioritizing their agenda, which is directly connected to matters of independence and the exercise of sovereign power. Understandably, political observers and analysts may expect weak states to have limited options in their foreign policy agenda. Small and weak states, though sovereign, lack the capability to maximize the principle of equality of nation-states as defned by international standards. All states are equal under international law regardless of asymmetries or inequality on other dimensions, such as their military strength, their size (geographical and population), or the extent to which they are industrialized and economically developed. However, this principle can become diffcult to enforce in actual practice, particularly in the decision-making system (Ansong, 2016). Moreover, weak states often become embroiled in the politics of global powers, as exemplifed during the Cold War. Keohane (1969) describes small and weak states as ‘price-takers’ and ‘systemineffectual’ states. The Cold War was characterized by the dominance of the

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Capitalist powers, led by the United States (US), and the Socialist powers, led by the Soviet Union, in the international political, economic, and ideological environment, the small and weak states in the peripheries aligning with either power. Because their infuence is insignifcant, the weak states follow the international system defned by the great powers. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union played the role of ‘system determining’ states. The United Kingdom, France, West Germany, Japan, China, and India were the ‘system infuencers.’ ‘System affecting’ states included Canada, Sweden, Pakistan, Brazil, and Argentina. Small and weak powers require the help of bigger powers, as well as multilateral channels and institutions (Keohane, 1969). Such help becomes signifcant in defense and security. Powerful countries provide a security umbrella that enables the weak powers to focus on development. While this situation benefts small powers, such as the Philippines, it also prevents them from diversifying their options for security, defense, and foreign policy. They turn dependent on the security provided by the great powers and become subject to the political arrangement presided over by extant great powers. The Philippines’ security and military alliance with the US has been hindering its expansion of diplomatic relations with other countries beyond the latter. During the Cold War, the Philippines aligned its foreign policy with US geostrategic interests. This narrowed the strategic options of the country, thus marginalizing its true interests. The Philippines was unable to expand trade and political relations with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and other socialist states. At the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), the Philippines, under pressure from the US, reversed its earlier position and voted for the immediate creation of the state of Israel in 1947. It was embroiled in the United States’ war with Vietnam (Lockwood, 1999), as well as in the war with Korea. The Philippines also participated in the US-led multinational coalition in the Iraq War (BBC, 2004). Weak states face common strategic challenges, such as security, economy, trade, investment and labor migration. Despite this, cooperation between them did not fully materialize because of the prevailing Cold War structure that forced them to be part of the alliance system. After the Cold War, many of these countries joined the Non-Alliance Movement (NAM). Marginalization of interests is the inability of a small and weak power to advance its foreign policy in line with its domestic needs and national interests. By prioritizing its alliance with the US, the Philippines has been overlooking other regions, such as the Middle East. Without doubt, this region brings strategic potential for Philippine development. However, since the mid-1970s, Philippine interests in the Middle East have not diverged much from the traditional ‘three Os’ – oil, OFW, OIC. During the almost four decades since OFWs were frst sent to the region, little advancement has been achieved in terms of trade and investment, as well as tourism and agricultural cooperation. This chapter examines the main features of the foreign policy of the Philippines towards the Middle Eastern countries from the mid-1970s to the present. It argues that an uneven approach in Philippine policy persists from the Cold War

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to this day. Despite the great economic, trade, and investment potential that this region offers, the Philippines has not been able to take full advantage of these possible benefts for its interests. It further argues that this case is not unique to the Philippines: it is also observable in other small and weak states. The Philippines, though an independent and sovereign actor, has not prioritized building expertise and foreign policy towards the Middle East. The Middle East can provide the Philippines with opportunities for cooperation in tourism, agriculture, culture, and development, as well as science and technology. It is a region ripe with potential for foreign investment and a possible market for Philippine products. In addition, many Filipinos share Islamic traditions with the population of the Middle East. The Middle East’s signifcance to the Philippines can be appreciated by examining the case of Thailand. Similar to the Philippines, Thailand’s small Muslim population is in its southern fank. It has also been experiencing terrorism and insurgent activities in the south (Bajoria & Zissis, 2008). Thailand, however, has demonstrated a more strategic approach towards the Middle East. It has relaxed visa restrictions for citizens from Middle Eastern countries, thus contributing to Thailand’s position as one of the most visited countries in Southeast Asia. Moreover, Thailand has successfully penetrated Middle Eastern markets with its products. Given Thailand’s example and its similarities with the Philippines, why has the Philippines failed to achieve the same level of success and capitalize on possible opportunities from the Middle East? Can their different historical experiences explain this? In contrast to the Philippines, which has been a colony of Spain and the US, Thailand has never been subjugated by any Western power. How did the difference in historical conditions manifest in the contemporary foreign policy approach of each country? In other words, why did Thailand, and not the Philippines, maximize its foreign relations with the Middle East? These questions can be addressed by looking at four complementary variables: 1) orientalist discourses of foreign policy; 2) post-colonial and post-Cold War institutions promoting Western discourses; 3) limitations of area studies to foreign policy making; and 4) media reporting.

A

Cultural hegemony: orientalism

Many followers of the realist school of thought conceptualize the world as black and white. For them, the ultimate objective of state actors is to survive in a world where central governance is absent and state actors cannot ask another for help. It is based on a ‘moral and value-free environment’ ( Oldemeinen, 2010) wherein state actors are in constant friction with each other. Distrust is high because all the actors pursue their own interests. In such a political environment, the most powerful actor becomes the most infuential fgure. The theoretical approach of political realism focuses on the relationship between the strong and the weak. This is illustrated in Thucydides’ narration of

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the Peloponnesian War fought between Sparta and Athens from the ffth century until 411 BC. As the international environment is defned in terms of anarchy, all ‘interests’ are defned in terms of ‘power.’ Thus, ‘international politics like all politics is a struggle of power’ (Morgenthau, 1948, p. 25). Under such conditions, the powerful and strong states dictate the actions of the weaker states. The strong design a system of values and practices for the weak to emulate, while disregarding diverse cultures and traditions and imposing their own values and character as the standard. The strong judge the weak and identify ‘uncivilized’ countries – those needing tutelage in the arts of governance, public administration, science, and legal practices. Dominant for many centuries, this thinking is still infuential, albeit on a diminishing scale. Political and social scientists have used different terms to describe changes in international politics. Many of these terms are new, but they still follow the structural distribution of power in which strong states lead while weaker states follow patiently. ‘West’ versus ‘non-West,’ ‘North’ versus ‘South,’ ‘We’ versus ‘Others’ defne a power hierarchy that reminds one of the famous notion that the strong create what is right. The dominant powers of Western Europe and North America hold countries in the Global South in low esteem. The West had always believed in their moral and spiritual responsibility to educate and civilize the people they deemed as underdeveloped, backwards, uncultured, or uncivilized. In recent years, however, the discourse has shifted from development and cultural differences to geopolitical relations of power (Dados & Connel, 2012, p. 12). In 1899, the British novelist and poet Rudyard Kipling wrote the poem ‘The White Man’s Burden: The United States and the Philippine Islands.’ It justifed the US American colonial control of the Filipinos and their country. It underlined America’s manifest destiny to educate the ‘uncivilized children’ of the Philippines. The ‘white man’s burden’ found its expression in the US policy of benevolent assimilation in the Philippines. For 48 years, the US gave its newly acquired colony the best education and tutored them in governance in preparation for the country’s independence. Education became the tool for the West’s imperial expansion and imposition of Eurocentric values in the Philippines and other parts of the world. The West’s control of technology, innovative ideas, and literary productions further supported its scheme to create a world according to Western standards. What the West dictated became the world’s imagined reality, thereby establishing its cultural hegemony. The idea of cultural hegemony derives from Marxist analysis, in which the ruling class has the power to manipulate a culturally diverse society. This ruling class manipulates what society believes or accepts as explanations. By taking control of political and social institutions, it projects its views as the appropriate cultural norms (Bullock & Trombley, 1999; Gramcsi, 1926). For Gündoğan (2008), hegemony is also an ‘imposition of ruling class interests over those of allies or rival groups and classes.’ Not only does hegemony enable control of political and socio-cultural institutions; it also designs and shapes alliances between hegemonic and peripheral countries, to which the Philippines is not an exception.

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Because of the success of American benevolent assimilation, Filipino values have transformed. Public education, as well as the American university degrees earned by many Filipino political and economic elites in the early 20th century, systematically changed the citizens’ values, perceptions, preferences, and ideologies. In less than half a century, the US had deeply planted the American way of thinking into the Filipinos’ psyche. As a result, Filipinos have acquired the American outlook of the world. Sustained liberal education and close bilateral relations in areas of security, politics, and economy have made Filipinos more American, but less Asian, in their thinking. This has shaped the foreign policy approach of the Philippines toward the Middle East in the past decades. The end of colonialism left the former colonies with a dilemma – how to pursue an independent policy without being dependent on former colonizers that are now global powers. As a frst step towards achieving independence at the end of colonial administration, some of them attempted to ‘decolonize their history’ (Lewis, 1973). India, Indonesia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and the Philippines searched for their lost pre-colonial past in the hopes of repairing colonial damage and fnding an inspiration to mark their independence away from colonial legacies. This effort, however, has not been successful in altering the existing international structures and the colonial legacy of the West. The drive to engineer ‘nationalism’ to consolidate perceived national interests was Western-driven. Thus, it ended up glorifying Western colonialism (ibid). Historians from the former colonies and their local supporters started painting a negative picture of the pre-colonial era, depicting it as a period of ‘barbarism and backwardness’ while representing colonization as an ‘instrument of enlightenment and progress’ (Lewis, 1973). Decolonization from the 1950s to the 1970s only created a group of small and weak states unable to challenge or change the existing international order. The continued existence of the Non-Align Movement (NAM) attests to this. Formed in 1961, the NAM remains a venue for its 120 member countries to discuss issues of ‘independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity,’ and security (Castro, 1979). It pursues the ‘struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, . . . racism, . . . and any form of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference, or hegemony as well as the struggle against policies of big powers or blocs’ (Castro, 1979). The Philippines’ approach towards the Middle East mirrors the Orientalist lens of the US. The Americans view the region not only as a source of oil and gas but also as a site of insecurity and political disturbance. For them, Arabs and Muslims are ‘prone to violence, incapable of rational thought, untrustworthy, devious and unclean’ (Rotter, 2000). As defned by Edward Said (1978), Orientalism is a ‘style of thought’ – a systematic way of thinking and a classifcation of Arabs and Muslims as ‘others.’ These ‘others’ are viewed as a challenge to peace and liberalism because of their different values and beliefs. This thinking is continually used to justify American intervention in the Middle East. Using historical polemics, the US has securitized almost everything about the region. This has resulted in reactionary forces there

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fghting the US American projection of ‘reality,’ to which, unfortunately, many countries subscribe. A body of literature that depicts the region’s culture and religion as incompatible with democracy has created tensions among countries maintaining relations with the Middle East. It has also manufactured reactionary policies as well as sociopolitical discourses that warn countries to exercise caution when dealing with nations in the region. Such discourses fnd a summation in Islamophobia, the general idea of fear of and prejudice against Muslims. This belief is widespread in European and North American countries (Shryok, 2010; see also Runnymede Trust, 1997). As an ally of the US during the Cold War, the Philippines has historically followed and supported the US in regional and international politics. Despite the Philippines’ pragmatic approach towards the Middle East to support its labor migration policy, many of the country’s bilateral relations with the region’s countries were anchored in US geopolitical interests. There were, however, a few instances where the Philippines upheld its own national interests. President Arroyo withdrew Filipino troops from Iraq following the kidnapping of Angelo dela Cruz, an OFW working as a driver (BBC News, 2004). In favor of protecting Filipinos in Syria, the Philippines did not participate in condemning President Bashar al-Assad during the New York Human Rights Meeting for his treatment of human rights. This ‘strategic silence,’ as advanced by a former secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), Albert del Rosario, of the Philippines, prioritized national interests over those of the international community. The next section of this paper discusses how the Cold War and economic necessity shaped the Philippines’ effort to navigate the Middle East. Specifcally, it answers how the conformity of Philippine political institutions with US discourses defned its relations with the region during the Cold War.

B

Political institutions favoring US discourse

The ‘benevolent assimilation policy’ was employed by the US in the early 19th century after defeating Spain at the Battle of Manila Bay. Following the Treaty of Paris, Filipinos realized that they were outsiders in their own country. An American way of life was created for Filipinos, particularly for those living in cities, through the widespread use of the English language and the dissemination of Western ideas, such as democracy, liberalism, and free trade. This restricted the space for nationalist groups attempting to reclaim a pre-colonial past. Gradually and eventually, the country found itself adopting a hybrid system of values where its liberal economic and political institutions became amenable to a colonial set of beliefs. This hybrid sociocultural system could have provided the Philippines with a unique platform to advance its interests, had the Cold War not erupted. The Cold War defned almost half a century of international politics. It proved pivotal for foreign policy options of Philippine presidents, from Manuel A. Roxas to Corazon C. Aquino. The Philippines aligned with the global ideological fght of the US against the Communist bloc. While the country was preoccupied with

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an internal fght against local communist groups, externally, it also fought side by side with the US in the Vietnam and Korean Wars (Villasanta, 2012). The Cold War divided the geopolitical world into two camps. The US created alliances with pro-capitalist countries, such as the Philippines, in opposition of the communist bloc of the USSR. This alliance guided almost all policies and actions of the Philippines, which promoted the US agenda at the cost of marginalizing independent domestic and external policies of the country. The Philippines’ effort to form a regional organization within Southeast Asia was also dictated by Cold War politics. Filipino political and economic elites, who were trained and educated in American universities, catered to US interests. The country’s diplomats regarded the US as their patron while advancing the interests of the new republic. This is not surprising, however. Prior to 1946, the US maintained direct control over Philippine foreign relations through the TydingsMcDuffe Act of 1934. This law also authorized the US president to ‘conclude treaties for the Philippines’ (Castro, 1967). A classic example of the Philippines’ conformity to US interests is its affrmative position on the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 by virtue of the UNGA Resolution of 1881 (Hammond, 2010). Not only was the Philippines the only Asian nation to vote for the creation of Israel; it was also among the frst countries to offcially open diplomatic ties with the newly formed nation (Goldstein, 2015, p. 74). The Philippines was originally against the partitioning of Palestine; changing that position clearly refected its political and economic dependence on the US (Hoffman, 2007). At the beginning of the negotiations, then Philippine Foreign Secretary Carlos P. Romulo strongly opposed the partition of Palestine, as it was not in the Philippines’ interest to be an instrument of territorial dismemberment of any country. In addition to this, the ‘U.N. Charter has no precedent for partition’ (Wadi, 1998, p. 37; Meyer, 1965, p. 76). However, the Philippine delegation made the opposite decision a few days later when Romulo was absent and voted in favor of the partition without providing explanations (Wadi, 1998; Meyer, 1965). It should be noted that this reversal was initially due to the infuence of the Jewish community in Manila who had very close ties with then President Manuel A. Roxas (Goldstein, 2015, p. 74), as well as due to US American demands towards the Philippine government. This pressure was strengthened due to the fact that ‘American economic assistance to the Philippines depended on the Philippine support for the partition resolution’ (Wadi, 1998; Ingles, 1980, p. 116). Nevertheless, the Philippines’ alliance with the US created an opportunity for the country to make friends and expand its relations with other US allies in the Middle East. This opportunity was seized by President Ferdinand E. Marcos. Perhaps among all Philippine presidents, it was Marcos who most recognized the need to diversify the country’s foreign policy and wean it away from the Cold War mentality. A lawyer and an astute observer of international politics, Marcos initiated the opening of diplomatic doors to communist countries and Islamic communities in the Middle East, motivated by internal and external realities. At that time, the Philippines was reeling from increasing population size and massive unemployment rates magnifed by university graduates with no employment

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prospects. The Marcos administration had to face the growing secessionist movements in the Muslim south and the spread of communism across several parts of the country, which were detrimental to the country’s internal security and territorial integrity. Externally, the world was witnessing a relaxation of tensions between the US and China, while the Yom Kippur War was proving to be a boon for the oilproducing countries in the Middle East. This confict had weaponized oil, as it was used to impose economic sanctions against countries that supported Israel. Middle Eastern countries earned massive revenues from oil price hikes in the global market. This also created employment opportunities for Filipinos, as Middle Eastern countries embarked on development schemes funded by oil revenues. Thus, the Cold War, although restrictive, opened new opportunities for the Philippines to advance its foreign policy interests. It required, however, a skillful navigation between constraints and opportunities. Marcos’s strategic actions resulted in the Philippines’ ability to promote its interests in the communist and Islamic regions of the world. Although Marcos was criticized for the human rights violations during the martial law regime, he is notable for his initiative to steer the country’s foreign policy out of the Cold War mentality. Equally notable was the return of Philippine democratic institutions that did not necessarily lead to more fruitful and dynamic foreign policy options. The presidency of Corazon Aquino capitalized on the brand of democracy associated with the US and other Western countries. The restoration of Philippine democracy took priority over territorial claims in the region, in particular asserting the country’s claim to Sabah. Fidel Ramos’s administration promoted economic diplomacy, which opened the country and the ASEAN region to US intervention The Philippines pursued trade liberalization at the expense of its already disadvantaged sectors in agriculture and fsheries. Joseph Estrada’s short-lived presidency garnered the Philippines a negative image in Islamic countries when he ordered an attack on Camp Abubakar. This was his own version of the ‘war on terror’ (Gloria, 2011). Gloria Arroyo’s administration witnessed a signifcant downturn in the country’s support for the US War on Terror. After the kidnapping of a Filipino truck driver, pressure from civil society groups compelled the government to withdraw Philippine participation in the US-formed coalition for the military campaign in Iraq. Many scholars believe that the US War on Terror was a tool for reviving American imperialism (Selfa, 2002; Elliot, 2002; Donnelly, 2002; London, 2002). Delmendo (2005) observes that it resulted in a paradigm shift in the bilateral relations between the Philippines and the US. By targeting ‘Islamic terrorist cells,’ the latter encroaches on foreign countries’ sovereignty and economy.

C

The underdevelopment of area studies in the Philippines

The Cold War became a fertile ground for the development of area studies. Its growth arose from the West’s need to understand the complexity of a given political or socioeconomic issue (Jaschik, 2016). The US took the lead, shaping its area

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studies programs with the assistance of the Ford Foundation (Lagemann, 1992). In terms of international relations, knowledge gained from area studies can be used to explain the foreign policy behaviors and orientations of small and weak states, such as the Philippines. The focus of area studies are specifc societies’ cultures and traditions, and their relation to the economic and political orientation of a state’s policies. Western scholarship on international relations can only partly explain the dynamics of Middle Eastern politics. It cannot capture the local cultural realities of Arab and non-Arab countries, which it always examines using Western scholarly instruments and depicts in a way biased by political leanings. This has created an ‘intellectual gulf’ between Middle Eastern studies and international relations or international political studies (Darwich, 2015). This intellectual gulf represents the disconnect of literary and image representations of the Middle East. These representations are created by scholars from the West and reproduced by scholars from the developing world who base their writing on Western literature and theoretical frameworks. This creates a cycle of biased, distorted portrayals and prejudices against the Middle East from a Western perspective. Darwich (2015) argues that this gap is a product of a ‘descriptive’ approach – instead of a theoretical one – in studying the Middle East. It is also attributed to many scholars refusing to refer to the region’s context in their writings. The Middle East is being explained using universal – instead of relative – perspectives, which results in a ‘culture blind’ approach (Teti, 2007; see also Valbjørn, 2004). Area studies hope to ‘produce a new kind of interdisciplinary and policy-relevant scholarship’ as an alternative to the supposedly objective methodological standards of social science’ (ibid). In Southeast Asia, few universities offer West Asia or Middle Eastern studies as a program. However, Islamic studies are offered in many universities and colleges in Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, China, and the Philippines, among others. They do not, however, cover topics on political economy, geopolitics, and security studies. Research on West Asia’s international relations (IR) is also less than Islamic studies research. In the Philippines, the Foreign Service Institute (FSI), a think tank affliated with the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), is experiencing budgetary constraints, rendering it unable to generate research and produce experts. Despite the Philippines’ potential strategic interests in the Middle East, the country has not produced a body of scholarly work on the region. Studies on the Middle East may direct Philippine policy beyond the three Os – oil, OFW, and OIC. Except for a few commentaries, FSI publications barely cover the Middle East. Other institutions, such as the University of the Philippines, offer area studies in Asia’s subregions, but the Middle East was not a priority from the mid-1970s until 2008. The Asian Center at the University of the Philippines Diliman launched programs on Asian studies and Philippine studies to ‘train students to look at Philippine problems from a multidisciplinary point of view’ (Bautista, 1991). A West Asia (Middle East) specialization was offered by the Asian Center, along with Northeast Asia (with China, Japan, and Korea as focus areas), Southeast Asia,

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and South Asia. However, West Asia as an area of specialization did not sustain its momentum, probably due to the lack of expert faculty as well as too little demand from students. In 2008, the center revived its West Asian specialization upon hiring a Filipino graduate from Iran who initiated curriculum development. In the span of ten years, students from other departments cross-enrolled at the Asian Center to take up courses on West Asia. This slow development of Middle Eastern studies in the Philippines and in other Asian countries was mainly due to the dominance of Western discourses. Its marketability is low compared to American or European studies. Western media coverage on the Middle East has also contributed to the diffculties in making regional studies attractive. Thus, it is important to examine the role of media when talking about the Middle East.

D

Biased media reporting

Before the introduction of social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, the dominant media outlets providing public information in the Philippines were newspapers, television, and radio. They remain relevant today despite the emergence of social media. With the availability of all these platforms, media can be easily used to spread misinformation or negative images about a group of people or an individual. This use of media can affect policy options of countries, such as those in the Middle East, as they try to counter the negative images portraying them. Determining correct from distorted information about the region would require additional effort. Historically, Orientalism has pitted Arabs and Muslims against Europeans and Americans. For decades, Arabs’ ‘distorted image’ (Shaheen, 1985) has been the subject of television shows, movies, news, novels, formal correspondence, and reports. This depiction by the media has created stereotypes that deny Arabs and Muslims their own cultural truth. In her content analysis of the New York Times reports from 1917–1974, Mousa (1984) identifed American bias against Arabs. Ibrahim’s (2009) study on American coverage on the Middle East in the 20th century revealed the portrayal of Arabs as ‘confict oriented, backward, dishonest, unreliable, and undemocratic.’ They were also presented as having low education and suffering from poor living conditions. In contrast, Israelis were depicted as ‘peace-loving’ (Suleiman, 1988) and as enjoying a high quality of education and a high standard of living (Ibrahim, 2009). Asi (1981) noted that Arabs obtain favorable coverage when they are on good terms with Israel. Thus, positive relations with Israel became the benchmark of a ‘good Arab’ (Ibrahim, 2009; Asi, 1981; see also Al Hadari, 2018). As Lloyd (2014) has observed, the Israel-Palestine confict has been the ‘testing ground of journalism.’ Some scholars noted how the US government has been exploiting the ‘typical representation’ of the Middle East, ‘particularly in Hollywood movies,’ to justify their presence in the region and their continued support of Israel (Qutub, 2013; Alsultany, 2012). With the end of the Cold War, Western journalism and scholarly production turned their attention, along with their biases, to Islam. Western media have been

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habitually depicting Islam as a ‘violence-prone religion’ and its values as ‘diametrically opposed to the West’ (Espiritu, 2016). Thus, any violence in the region is automatically attributed to radical Islam, with the terrorist given the image of a Muslim. As opposed to the ideological struggle during the Cold War, the postCold War era saw the emergence of the ‘cultural’ source of confict, where ‘religion fuels the confict in a special way by inspiring intolerant and irreconcilable images of identity and commitment among competing civilizations’ (Yilmaz, 2008, p. 50). According to Huntington (1996, p. 21), ‘The most important distinctions among peoples are [no longer] ideological, political, or economic. They are cultural.’ A major example is the September 11, 2001, attack of the Islamic terrorist group Al-Qaeda on New York (Moghadam, 2008). In reaction to this, the US attacked Afghanistan and called their allies to support their war against terror. Many countries responded by creating laws to protect themselves from Islamic terrorism. Thus, a new threat in the form of Islamic fundamentalists and terrorists became the perceived prevailing security issue in national and international relations. The media’s characterization of the Middle East as ‘backward, uneducated, or anti-West’ enables the US to justify its intervention in the region. Such portrayals feature the US as a ‘champion of democracy’ and ‘people’s liberator.’ Ghareeb (1983) points out that the prevalence of the aforementioned representations of Arabs and Muslims exists not only in the media. Instead, the ‘ignorance on the history, culture, and politics in the Middle East’ is found in ‘society at large.’ Despite the region’s civilizational achievements as a contemporary economic and industrial power that provides millions of employment and investment opportunities, Western media continues to portray the Middle East as culturally backward and oppressive. This ‘repetitive play’ of representation (Shaheen, 1985; Boskin, 1980; Hattab, 2016) has created a biased and distorted image of the local situation outside the region. It translates into intense prejudice against Arabs and taints countries’ assessment of the region, leading to the marginalization of their interests in the Middle East. In the Philippines, the stereotypes of Arabs and citizens of Middle Eastern countries follow the prevailing image of the region. Filipinos also regard Arabs and Muslims as terrorists prone to violence. Arabs abusing OFWs always lead to a headline in the news. To date, the country has generated $32.2 billion in remittances from Filipino OFWs working in the Middle East. Remittances in 2018 increased by 3% from the previous year (Caraballo, 2019). But despite the increase in remittances and the improvements of migrant labor policies in recent years, negative news on the Middle East generates more attention from the Philippine media. War, confict, invasion, abusive Arab employers, and abused OFWs continue to be highlighted in the news.

Conclusion As a small country with limited resources at its disposal, the Philippines strives to take advantage of internal and external opportunities and turn them into assets. This requires some degree of balance pragmatism,1 as well as strategic thinking in

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its foreign policy agenda. The Middle East is the traditional source of the Philippine crude oil supply, as well as a market for its human labor surplus. In addition, countries in the region have been crucial in providing good offces for facilitating negotiations aimed at drawing a lasting solution to the Muslim issues in the southern Philippines since the mid-1970s. Given the fve decades of Philippines-Middle East relations, an expansion of cooperation beyond the traditional three Os of the Philippine diplomatic approach towards the region would be necessary. The Middle East is one of the most strategically situated regions in the world. It remains misunderstood, however, despite its vast natural and human resources, as well as past achievements in science, literature, and philosophy. Ignorance alone does not explain the roots of such a misunderstanding of the region. One needs to examine how the Middle East has been depicted in academic literature. These works are products of the colonial encounter with the West, which disseminated dark and dangerous images of the region. This orientalist representation of the Middle East successfully maintained the West’s cultural hegemony for over a century. The prevailing Western discourses, which regard Muslims as terrorists and antiWest, add to the basket of misconceptions and biases against the region. One only needs to look at the coverage on Al-Qaeda and ISIS in mainstream media. Aided by Western scholarship, this depiction of the Middle East helps consolidate the West’s imagined perceptions and to obscure local cultural realities. Sociopolitical variables internal to the region are also another factor. The Arab Spring, which represents the failure of some Arab regimes to address sociopolitical challenges in the Middle East, has also produced a negative image in this respect. Particularly during the Cold War, the West complemented its cultural hegemony with the provision of security and political as well as economic assistance to weak and small states, such as the Philippines. As such, they became indebted to the US. This created a patron-client relationship between the US and the Philippines. While this relationship advanced the interests of the US, it impeded the Philippines in pursuing its own strategic foreign relations. With the possible exception of Marcos, all Philippine presidents have confned the country’s foreign relations with the Middle East to oil, OFW, and the OIC’s role in the peace process in Muslim Mindanao. The current president, Rodrigo Duterte, hails from Mindanao and has better knowledge about and familiarity with Islam and Muslims than the previous leaders of the country (Valente, 2019; Garrie, 2019). Duterte, however, has yet to decide on the country’s foreign policy strategy toward the Middle East. The Philippine political culture also manifests a narrow understanding of Islam, the Muslims, and the Middle East. It can be regarded as a mere consumer of international news and media images on the region. It cannot be stressed enough that media coverage on the Middle East is distorted and biased. Area studies programs, such as the West Asia specialization offered at the UP Asian Center or the Islamic studies programs in other educational institutions, should help rectify existing biases and alter the one-sided depiction of the Middle East. It is, therefore, advisable for the Philippines to train and develop experts on the Middle East and invest more into policy-oriented research on the region.

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The Middle East’s portrayal in Western discourses and literary production, as well as policy options and actions of great powers, such as the US, has also infuenced how small and weak countries read and decide policies toward the region. The Philippines is no exception to this. Because of constraining variables mentioned in this chapter, the Philippines has not been able to position itself in a way that a sovereign country is expected to in international politics. As a small and weak country, the Philippines is a ‘price taker’ that belongs to a ‘system of ineffectual’ states, particularly during the Cold War (Keohane, 1969). This proved true in the country’s foreign policy orientation vis-à-vis the Middle East. With constraining variables such as orientalist discourse, American cultural and political hegemony, the underdevelopment of area studies and Middle East studies programs, and the negative media portrayal of the region, the Philippines was left with few options but to tailor its policies toward the Middle East in line with US geostrategic interests. This marginalized other areas of cooperation in foreign relations with the Middle East, such as in trade, tourism, agriculture, and fsheries, as well as science and technology. Realizing these limitations, the following items should therefore be taken into consideration. 1

2 3

A review of Philippine foreign policy towards the Middle East region should be undertaken in close cooperation with the FSI and other relevant government and non-government agencies from the 1970s up to the present in order to explore possible areas of cooperation. A pool of young Filipino experts in Middle Eastern studies should be developed through various channels. An institutional and policy mapping with similar institutions in the region should be conducted to learn about the best ways of taking advantage of the opportunities offered by the Middle East.

Note 1 Moderate pragmatism refects a balance between maintaining good relations with traditional partners, such as the United States, ASEAN, and even China, while exploring opportunities being offered by other regions and countries, such as the Middle East to achieve its intended national purpose. In this case, the Philippine state would require a strategic move beyond what has been traditionally focused on vis-à-vis the Middle East region using its independent foreign policy option.

References Al Hadari, N. (2018, January 21). How the Western Media Distorts the Middle East. Arab News. Retrieved from www.arabnews.com/node/1230031 Alsultany, E. (2012). Arab and Muslims in the Media: Race and Representation after 9/11. New York: New York University Press. Ansong, A. (2016). The Concept of Sovereign Equality of States in International Law. GIMPa Law Review, 2(1), 14–34.

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Asi, M. (1981). Arabs, Israelis and TV News: A Time-Series Content Analysis. In W. C. Adams (Ed.), Television Coverage of the Middle East. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Bajoria, J., & Zissis, C. (2008, September 9). The Muslim Insurgency in Southern Thailand. Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved from www.cfr.org/backgrounder/ muslim-insurgency-southern-thailand Bautista, V. V. (1991). Ang programang doktorado sa Pilipinohiya ng DAPP: Kasaysayan at kasalukuyang katayuan. In V. V. Bautista & R. Pe-Pua (Eds.), Pilipinolohiya: Kasaysayan, pilosopiya at pananaliksik (pp. 23–36). Maynila: Kalikasan. BBC News. (2004, July 16). Philippines Starts Iraq Pullout. Retrieved from http:// news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3898875.stm Boskin, J. (1980). Denials: The Media View of Dark Skins and the City. In B. Rubin (Ed.), Small Voices and Great Trumpets (pp. 141–147). New York, NY: Praeger. Bullock, A., & Trombley, S. (Eds.). (1999). The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought (3rd ed.). New York, NY: HarperCollins. Caraballo, M. (2019, February 16). OFW Remittances Hit All Time High in 2018. The Manila Times. Retrieved from www.manilatimes.net/ofw-remittanceshit-all-time-high-in-2018/512476/ Castro, F. (1979, October 12). Speech to the 34th UN General Assembly, in His Position as Chairman of the Non-Aligned Countries Movement. Retrieved from http://lanic. utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1979/19791012.html Castro, P. A. (1967). Philippine Diplomatic and Consular Practice. Manila: Jacobo and Sons. Dados, N., & Connel, R. (2012). The Global South. Contexts, 11(1), 12–13. https:// doi.org/10.1177/1536504212436479 Darwich, M. (2015, June). The Challenge of Bridging IR and Area Studies in Middle East International Relations Teaching. Paper presented at the Ethics of Political Science Research and Teaching in MENA Workshop, Rabat, Morocco. Retrieved from https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2015/08/18/the-challenge-of-bridging-irand-area-studies-in-middle-east-international-relations-teaching/ Delmendo, S. (2005). The Star-entangled Banner: One Hundred Years of America in the Philippines. Diliman, Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press. Donnelly, T. (2002, July–August). The Past as Prologue: An Imperial Manual. Foreign Affairs, 81, 165–170. Elliot, M. (2002, July 1). George W. Kipling. CNN Inside Politics. Retrieved from www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/07/01/time.kipling Espiritu, B. F. (2016). Negative Media Portrayal of Islam. Retrieved from www. waccglobal.org/articles/negative-media-portrayal-of-islam Garrie, A. (2019, March 3). Rodrigo Duterte: The First Muslim President of the Philippines. Eurasia Future. Retrieved from https://eurasiafuture.com/2019/03/03/ rodrigo-duterte-the-frst-muslim-president-of-the-philippines/ Ghareeb, E. (Ed.). (1983). Split Vision: The Portrayal of Arabs in the American Media. Washington, DC: American-Arab Affairs Council. Gloria, G. (2011, October 23). Your War, Our Fatal Assumptions. Rappler. Retrieved from www.rappler.com/thought-leaders/126-your-war-our-fatal-assumptions Goldstein, J. (2015). Jewish Identities in East and Southeast Asia: Singapore, Manila, Taipei, Harbin, Shanghai, Rangoon, and Surabaya. Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg. Gramcsi, A. (1926). Some Aspects of the Southern Question. In A. Gramsci, Selections from Political Writings (1921–1926) (Q. Hoare, Trans.). London, UK: Lawrence and Wishart.

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Gündoğan, E. (2008). Conceptions of Hegemony in Antonio Gramsci’s Southern Question and the Prison Notebooks. New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry, 2(1), 45–60. Hammond, J. R. (2010, October 26). The Myth of the U.N. Creation of Israel. Foreign Policy Journal. Retrieved from www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/10/26/ the-myth-of-the-u-n-creation-of-israel/ Handel, M. (1990). Weak System. East Sussex, UK: Psychology Press. Hattab, R. (2016, December 12). Media Portrayal of Middle Eastern Women. Odyssey. Retrieved from https://www.theodysseyonline.com/media-portrayalmiddle-eastern-women Hey, J. (Ed.). (2003). Small States in World Politics: Explaining Foreign Policy Behavior. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Hoffman, C. (2007, April 11). The Ties That Bind: Filipinos and Jews, the Philippines and Israel. The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved from www.jpost.com/Features/ The-ties-that-bind-Filipinos-and-Jews-the-Philippines-and-Israel Holsti, K. J. (1964). The Concept of Power in the Study of International Relations. Background, 7(4), 179–194. https://doi.org/10.2307/3013644 Huntington, S. P. (1996). The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster. Ibrahim, D. (2009). The Middle East in American Media: A 20th Century Overview. The International Communication Gazette, 71(6), 511–524. https://doi. org/10.1177/1748048509339793 Ingles, J. D. (1980). Philippine Foreign Policy. Manila: Lyceum of the Philippines. Jaschik, S. (2016, June 17). ‘Field Notes’. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/06/17/author-discusses-newbook-history-area-studies-and-middle-east-studies Keohane, R. (1969). Lilliputians’ Dilemmas: Small States in International Politics. International Organization, 23(2), 291–310. https://doi.org/10.1017/ S002081830003160X Kipling, R. (1899, February). The White Man’s Burden: The United States and the Philippine Islands. McClure’s Magazine, 12(4). Retrieved from https://babel. hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015030656113&view=1up&seq=314 Lagemann, E. C. (1992). The Politics of Knowledge: The Carnegie Corporation, Philanthropy, and Public Policy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Lewis, D. (1973, December). Anthropology and Colonialism. Current Anthropology 14(5), 581–602. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2741037 Lloyd, J. (2014, September 15). How the Western Media’s Middle East Coverage Has Changed. BBC News. Retrieved from www.bbc.com/news/ world-middle-east-29154941 Lockwood, K. (1999, June). The Philippines: Allies during the Vietnam War. Vietnam Magazine. Retrieved from www.historynet.com/the-philippines-allies-during-thevietnam-war.htm London, J. (2002, August 1). The Unlikely Imperialists [Review of the book The Savage Wars of Peace, by M. Boot]. Policy Review, 114, 81–87. Meyer, W. M. (1965). A Diplomatic History of the Philippine Republic. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press. Moghadam, A. (2008). The Globalization of Martyrdom: Al Qaeda, Salaf Jihad, and the Diffusion of Suicide Attacks. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

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Morgenthau, H. (1948). Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf. Mousa, I. S. (1984). The Arab Image in the US Press. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Nye, J. S., Jr. (1990). Soft Power. Foreign Policy, 80(Autumn), 153–171. Oldemeinen, M. (2010, February 15). The Political Realism of Thucydides and Thomas Hobbes. E-International Relations Students. Retrieved from www.e-ir. info/2010/02/15/the-political-realism-of-thucydides-and-thomas-hobbes/ Qutub, A. (2013). Harem Girls and Terrorist Men: Media Misrepresentations of Middle Eastern Cultures. Colloquy, 9, 139–155. Rotter, A. J. (2000). Saidism without Said: Orientalist and US Diplomatic History. The American Historical Review, 105(4), 1205–1217. https://doi.org/10.1086/ ahr/105.4.1205 Runnymede Trust. (1997). Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All. London, UK: Runnymede Trust. Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. New York, NY: Pantheon Books. Selfa, L. (2002, May–June). A New Colonial Age of Empire? International Socialist Review, 23, 50–57. Shaheen, J. G. (1985). Media Coverage of the Middle East: Perception and Foreign Policy. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 482(1), 160–175. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716285482001010 Shryok, A. (2010). Introduction: Islam as an Object of Fear and Affection. In A. Shryock (Ed.), Islamophobia/Islamophilia: Beyond the Politics of Enemy and Friend (pp. 1–25). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Suleiman, M. (1988). Arabs in the Mind of America. Brattleboro, VT: Amana Books. Teti, A. (2007). Bridging the Gap: IR, Middle East Studies and the Disciplinary Politics of the Area Studies Controversy. European Journal of International Relations, 13(1), 117–145. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066107074291 Valbjørn, M. (2004). “Culture Blind and Culture Blinded”: Images of Middle Eastern Confict in International Relations. In D. Jung (Ed.), The Middle East and Palestine: Global Politics and Regional Confict (pp. 39–78). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Valente, C. (2019, January 20). Duterte: “I Am Not Catholic, I Am Islam”. The Manila Times. Retrieved from www.manilatimes.net/2019/01/20/news/ top-stories/duterte-i-am-not-catholic-i-am-islam/499118/499118/ Villasanta, A. (2012, July 8). Filipino Soldiers’ Story of Korean War: Valor Redux. Philippine Daily Inquirer. Retrieved from https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/225235/ flipino-soldiers-story-of-korean-war-valor-redux Vital, D. (1967). The Inequality of States: A Study of the Small Powers in International Relations. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press. Wadi, J. M. (1998). The Philippines and the Islamic World. In A. Baviera & L. YuJose (Eds.), Philippine External Relations: A Centennial Vista (pp. 15–75). Manila: Foreign Service Institute. Yilmaz, M. E. (2008). “The New World Order”: An Outline of the Post-Cold War Era. Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations, 7(4), 44–58.

9

Political and economic perspectives on diversifcation in Philippine-South America relations Florencia Rubiolo

Introduction Latin America and Southeast Asia have traditionally had negligible relevance to each other’s foreign and domestic policy agendas. Even today, with the growing international connectivity, the increasing awareness of the relevance of East Asia in global affairs, and the resulting need for Latin America to approach this region, relations with Southeast Asia fall behind the shadow of China’s overwhelming presence. Although geographic distance has been a strong determinant of the mutual perception, other factors, such as the cultural differences and the priority that both regions have given to central global and hemispheric powers in their foreign agendas, have also hindered relations on both sides. The Philippines, unlike any other Southeast Asian state, shares common features with Latin America given the common Spanish legacy. The point of intersection between the stories on both sides of the Pacifc was the year 1565 when the mission headed by Miguel López de Legazpi and Fray [Friar] Andrés de Urdaneta initiated the conquest of the Philippine archipelago and managed to establish the coveted transpacifc route of return to the viceroyalty of New Spain (Oropeza, 2016). This established the commercial route that would remain in force for 250 years, known as the Manila Galleon trade. From there on, begins a dynamic link of exchanges not only of merchandise, but also of ideas, people, and customs that would leave a legacy still evident on both coasts. These distinctive and common features between Latin America and the Philippines in the cultural, religious, historic, and, to some extent, social fabric have not stimulated closer bilateral relations when compared to other SEA countries. The reciprocal perception of mutual irrelevance in international affairs has also led Latin American scholars away from the processes in the Philippines,1 creating a gap in academic studies and knowledge about the country in Latin American academia. In this chapter, we aim to understand the contemporary relations between South America and the Philippines, in the context of the rapprochement to East Asia as a main driving force in all South American countries’ foreign policies seeking a more diversifed international integration. The focus of the chapter will be on the central economic and political partners of the Philippines in South America: Argentina, Brazil, and Chile from 2008 to date. The selection of these three

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cases is based on the fact that they were the Philippines’ main trading partners in South America in 2008–2017. And they also implement distinctive international economic models, which we will contrast in following sections. From a historical perspective, the Philippines’ relations with South American states were offcially established after formal independence from the United States was granted to the Asian country in 1946. During the period of American dominance, contacts between the Philippines and Latin America were not as constant as in the Spanish colonial period. Brazil and Chile recognized the Philippines’ independence on July 4, 1946, and Argentina followed them in December 1946. Formal diplomatic relations started soon after and strengthened through the opening of embassies in the following years.2 The decades following witnessed a meager political interaction in the bilateral and multilateral levels. Some bilateral agreements were signed, especially on visa exemptions for diplomats in the case of Brazil and commercial issues with Brazil in 1976 (Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1976) and later with Argentina in 1984. Offcial visits were also scarce and contributed to a mutual sense of irrelevance. From a developmental perspective, foreign policy has traditionally been linked to the economic development model in the South American nations. This implies that, depending on the characteristics of the domestic economic model, there have been different foreign policy orientations that vary within the region (Bernal Meza, 2013; Busso, 2014; Van Klaveren, 1992; Soares de Lima & Hirst, 2006). This, in turn, has affected the relations with non-traditional external partners. Foreign policies have then been driven by the internal needs of development but based on different defnitions of the national economic model. As a result, even though the same external infuences operated over the South American states, foreign policy orientations were different, as well as their international insertion strategies. The chapter frst introduces the perspectives and concepts that allow one to articulate the analysis of the Philippines’ and South America’s foreign policies from a common developmental standpoint. Then, we focus not only on the political-diplomatic initiatives towards East Asia, and the Philippines in particular, but also on the economic-commercial links and their articulation with the political sphere.

Development, dependence, and diversifcation in foreign policy from the South As a starting theoretical point, we suggest that diversifcation of foreign relations – particularly of trade and political partners – is usually a foreign policy goal in less developed and medium to small countries, with strong asymmetric relations with central international powers. Numerous works on foreign policy analysis (FPA) of scholars from Latin America and Southeast Asia build on this premise as a key concern for governments and mainly related to economic development needs and models.

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According to Gill, Goh, and Huang (2016), economic and political diversifcation is crucial for the developing countries in Southeast Asia, even more so since economic interdependence with China consolidated during the 1990s. Goh (2008) and Ba (2008) also address diversifcation in Southeast Asia as a tool to lessen overdependence on great powers – mainly China and the United States – in the economic and strategic spheres. In their perspective, Southeast Asian countries’ foreign policy is embedded in the constant struggle to maintain a certain level of autonomy through diversifying dependence. As Goh (2008, p. 140) suggests, the prime example of such diversifcation lies in the economic realm. While the Southeast Asian states have enthusiastically embraced economic engagement with China and see greater regional integration as the only choice in coping with the rising Chinese economy, they fear being absorbed into a Sino-centric regional economic system. Hence, the economic realm has become a critical avenue of regional complex balancing. From a commercial perspective – a central dimension for Southeast Asia and Latin America relations – diversifcation became a central concern for developing countries during the last decades. According to the literature, the concept can refer to products and to markets. In the frst sense, diversifcation is attained by changing or expanding the existing basket of exported commodities. In the second, it refers to the expansion in the set of markets entered by a country’s exports. Some authors refer to it as geographic diversifcation (Shepherd, 2010; Hinlo & Arranguez, 2017) or territorial diversifcation (Vahalik, 2015). Developing countries beneft from both types, since they allow them to lessen the level of dependency on production or on partners. As Hinlo and Arranguez (2017, p. 3) argue, a high level of dependence of domestic exports on a narrow number of trading partners make countries vulnerable to future instability in the domestic market. Hence, countries could reduce dependence on a few sources of demand through geographic diversifcation which might then mitigate future risks. Latin American scholars have also developed a strong school of thought related to these notions.3 As Faust (2004) suggests, the consolidation of different multilateral schemes in the beginning of the 1990s – NAFTA, the European Union – combined with the rise of East Asia economies resulted in a perception of marginalization from the Latin American elites, who were becoming even more dependent on the United States in the neoliberal regional context. An increasingly competitive economic scenario combined with the need to pursue and implement domestic reforms allowed for a more open integration to world economy based on export-led growth strategies. Globalization, along with market liberalization and fnancial deregulation, were pushing developing countries to adopt international openness and liberal reforms in order remain competitive and economically

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viable in a changing world. As a response, market diversifcation became a central strategy for most Latin American governments. Diversifcation also turned into a tool to achieve greater margins of autonomy, diminishing economic and political dependence on a few selected partners. The main goal was to improve participation in the world economy in order to avoid falling into the periphery (Olivet, 2005). In this line, Vigevani and Cepaluni (2007) developed the concept of autonomy through diversifcation, which proposes that the more diversifed the external links are, the higher the margin of autonomy will be for a developing country. According to the authors, ‘autonomy through diversifcation’ refers to the adherence to international principles and norms through South-South alliances and agreements with non-traditional partners, in the belief that these strategies reduce asymmetries in the external relations with powerful counterparts and increase the national negotiating capacity. In this frst sense, diversifcation is a foreign policy goal aimed at widening the space for maneuvering in a regional and international environment in which lessdeveloped and small countries are subject to the vulnerabilities attached to asymmetric relations and changing external conditions. Moreover, as a foreign policy tool, diversifcation tends to contribute to the main domestic condition and need underneath international insertion strategies for developing states: improving national development. Latin American and Southeast Asian states belong mostly to the developing world. In both regions, foreign policy is determined not only by external conditions – such as the international and regional power distribution and the external economic variables – but also by domestic factors. In this second group, the development model stands as a determining condition on foreign policy, particularly for South America, given the fact that there are almost non-security or military international threats in the region.4 In the specifc case of South America, several studies address the debates over the development model and the link between this and the international insertion strategy, as well as the foreign policy. Bernal Meza (2005) sustains that the analysis of foreign policy is inseparable from the model of development considering this variable as a central domestic determinant, followed also by Coleman & Quiróz Varela (in Van Klaveren, 1992, p. 196) who suggests that ‘the elaboration of foreign policy is inevitably mostly a function of the demands of development policy.’ On this same line, but from a Brazilian perspective, Soares de Lima and Hirst assert that ‘the core of the Brazilian foreign policy agenda has been very heavily shaped by the prevailing economic model, and the evolution of foreign policy has been linked to critical junctures in the development of that model’ (2006, p. 22) Unlike economic and development issues, military/strategic threats are not considered a source of external or internal vulnerability and, therefore, do not entail a foreign policy concern for most South American countries. Hence, we support the premise that development emerges as the main domestic condition affecting foreign policy and international insertion strategies in Brazil, Argentina, and Chile, including relations with Southeast Asia.

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But what do we understand by development model or development strategy from a South American perspective? It is a concept that requires a political economy approach, since, as Busso (2016) suggests, it involves the articulation between the political and economic spheres, between the state and the market, in a determined historical context in search of the transformation of the productive and social structures and of the international insertion of the country. There are different types of development models, and to each one corresponds an accumulation scheme and a production and distribution of wealth system, as well as a strategy of international insertion. As a result, exchange rate patterns, foreign trade regulations, and demands in foreign negotiations will be different. Then, the infuence of the productive model must be considered as a central domestic determinant of South American countries’ external action towards East Asia and, within it, the role of the state and the market in the defnition of economic decisions. In the case of the countries under study in this chapter, the preeminence of the primary export-based model – either mineral or agricultural – has traditionally been a determining factor in the form of external insertion and in the defnition of partners. For Southeast Asia, and specifcally the Philippines, the domestic conditions affecting foreign policy are more diverse. Views on the national imperatives affecting Philippine foreign policy underline the following: confronting insurgent and separatist movements, responding to threats posed by international and domestic terrorism, and improving internal socioeconomic conditions (Cruz de Castro, 2010; Chiang, 2017). Within the realm of domestic development, the Philippines has implemented a sustained foreign policy. Under the name of ‘development diplomacy,’ which can be traced back to the Marcos administration in the later years of the 1970s, the country has sought to articulate domestic imperatives with foreign policy objectives and actions (Cruz de Castro, 2010; Baviera, 2012). As Chiang (2017, p. 9) explains, As an archipelagic state struggling fnancially to fund its infrastructure plans, improve its economic competitiveness, disaster preparedness, and also combat Muslim and Communist militant factions in Mindanao and beyond, the Philippines has constantly employed different diplomatic tools and postures to attract foreign assistance. ‘Development Diplomacy’ itself has been an indispensable pillar in Philippines’ foreign policy. This strategy builds upon the Philippines’ bilateral relations and seeks to open and consolidate access to external markets for its exports, as well as to attract foreign investment and fnancing resources through ODA grants and loans (Cruz de Castro, 2010). Thus, diversifcation of foreign markets and economic partners stands as a key element in Philippine economic diplomacy, closely articulated with national development. As a share element with Latin American foreign policy analysis, Macaranas (2004) points out that development diplomacy is the ‘harnessing and the

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management of all the available resources of the nation in active pursuit’ of opportunities abroad and that in the Philippines this policy goal is ‘heavily oriented towards socio-economic development.’ Development diplomacy has been a pillar of Philippine foreign policy for the last three decades, along with political security and the welfare of overseas Filipinos (DFA, 2018). In other words, for both the Philippines and South America, development is a central interest in their foreign policy, and diversifcation of partners has been adopted as a core strategy towards diminishing dependency on a few partners in the economic realm. Within South America, notwithstanding this shared foreign policy goal, the international insertion models have varied. Considering the countries under analysis in this chapter, there are two distinct models that can be clearly identifed: 1) a neoliberal development model, with a production structure strongly oriented towards the primary sector (extractivism) and a strategy of international insertion based on open regionalism through free trade agreements (FTA); 2) a neo-developmentalist model with a more diversifed productive structure – industrial and primary – and a strategy of international insertion based on a semi-closed regionalism. The frst is the case of Chile and the second the case of Argentina and Brazil (both members of Mercosur). In the following sections, we will examine the bilateral relations between these three countries and the Philippines, from the concepts introduced earlier, from 2008 to date, in the economic and political dimensions. The need for a descriptive approach emerges from the evident lack of studies in this feld, but the chapter will also consider the relation between the economic and political diplomatic efforts to evaluate their articulation and results in the bilateral links.

South American policies towards East Asia: economic models and diversifcation in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile As we have asserted, economic models function as frameworks for defning the foreign agenda in the cases of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. In the three cases, development emerges as a main driving force, but the strategies towards achieving this goal diverge. Their policies towards East Asia since the early 1990s should be understood within this wide vision of their own place in a changing world, the need to pursue development considering the national economic capabilities and resources, and the shared concern of being marginalized from an increasingly integrated and interdependent global economy. For Southeast Asia, Latin America emerged in the foreign agendas almost exclusively as a source of natural resources to sustain Asian economic industrial processes and, more recently, as food suppliers for a large and increasing population. This enormous resource complementarity was the major push behind East Asia’s rapprochement to South America, particularly the southern part, which is the most resource-rich portion (Asian Development Bank, 2012). Although the Philippines, compared to its East Asian neighbors, was a late comer to Latin America in terms of commercial relations and shows a marginal participation in the interregional trade (see Figure 9.1), the interests underpinning the bilateral relations are the same.

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35000 30000 25000 20000 15000 10000 5000 0

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Figure 9.1 Philippines and ASEAN trade with Argentina, Brazil, and Chile 2008–2017 (millions of US$). Source: Made by the author with data from ALADI (2018)

The focus of this section is on South American development models, which present differences within the Southern Cone countries. The aforesaid considerations contributed to shape foreign policy orientations and are still central variables to understand the current international relations of these states. Said conditions, combined with the geographical location and the previous economic policies that consolidated different productive structures in Chile on the one side and Argentina and Brazil on the other also shaped their foreign strategies. In the case of Chile, the economic and commercial insertion model is based on unilateral trade liberalization; fnancial and economic deregulation, which prioritizes open regionalism; and the signing of preferential and free trade agreements. In terms of geographic orientations, the successive Chilean governments maintained a tri-continental vision of foreign policy – American, Antarctic, and Asian – giving priority to relations with the countries of Asia Pacifc (Oviedo, 2000; Wilhelmy, 2010), both bilaterally and multilaterally. As a result, the country has consolidated a dense network of agreements with different Asia Pacifc countries to stimulate bilateral trade,5 and the density of the bilateral and multilateral agendas with most East Asian countries became gradually stronger. Unlike Chile, Argentina and Brazil have a more diversifed productive structure with a strong industrial sector. Therefore, their foreign policies and agendas are determined by two economic sectors with different, and even opposite,

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interests: the agricultural and the industrial. Thus, two regions became the main trade partners and targets for foreign policy initiatives since the early 2000s: 1) the Latin American region as a destination for industrial exports,6 and 2) East Asia, as result of its increasing demand for agricultural products and other raw resources. While Latin America was fundamental for consolidating the industrial export sector, East Asia – mainly China – became the main market for agricultural products, boosting Argentinian and Brazilian exports and revenues. Furthermore, two other conditions have affected Brazil’s and Argentina’s political actions towards East Asia: their geographic position on the Atlantic that has marginalized them from regional initiatives in the Asia Pacifc, such as APEC, and their commitment to regional economic integration through Mercosur, which has a protectionist orientation against unilateral FTAs. Diplomatic and political initiatives towards East Asia were relevant as a complement to an increasing trade relation that has become strategic for the international economic policy and for the development goals of the three South American countries. The tools they implemented were different and were mainly affected by their internal economic structure and previous international commitments. Economic relations between East Asia and South America have gone through an unprecedented intensifcation period since the beginning of the century. Trade relations with China were the engine behind this spectacular growth.7 Several conditions favored this process. In the external front, the main one was Asian demand of commodity products, as we mentioned before. Some of the South American products that saw a sharp increase in the demand from East Asia were copper, iron ore, soybeans, soybean oil, and crude oil. Another determining circumstance was the increase of commodity prices that started in 2002 and reached a peak in 2008. In the domestic realm, although there were differences within the South American region, there were also common conditions affecting the bilateral trade relations with China, such as the export-oriented reforms introduced during the 1990s, the signing of FTAs – particularly in the case of Chile – and the adoption of measures that favored agricultural and mineral exploitation, among others (Rubiolo, 2018). In this context, Southeast Asian states had a minimum presence as trade partners for South America until recent years. Bilateral trade started to increase slowly in 2002, mainly driven by the growth of South American exports to the Asian region. In the cases of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, ASEAN’s participation in total trade went from 2.35% in 2002 to 4.67% in 2017. In other words, ASEAN doubled its participation as a commercial partner for South American main economies in the last 15 years. But inside this last region, bilateral trade is not evenly distributed, since Argentina, and then Brazil, have the main share of exports to ASEAN, contributing the most to this interregional trade relation. The most outstanding case in this sense is Argentina’s exports to ASEAN, which grew from 3.3%/world in 2002 to 8.6% in 2017. We must highlight that exports to China accounted for 7.4% over the total in 2017, that is to say, ASEAN surpassed China as an export destination for Argentina. Meanwhile, Brazil’s exports to ASEAN grew from 2.5% to 5.1% in the same period, while Chile’s experienced a slight

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incremental increase from 1.2% to 1.7% between 2002 and 2017 (elaborated with data from ALADI, 2018). Then, Southeast Asian markets emerged as strategic partners mainly for Argentina. This phenomenon favored diversifcation of destinations, which is closely related to the country’s development model, underpinned by agricultural exports. It was a result of diverse variables, not mainly from a state-led policy, but rather from the articulation of decisions and actions from the private sector – namely agricultural multinational companies operating in the country, such as Bunge Argentina, Cargill, Louis Dreyfus, and AGD – that opened Southeast Asian markets to Argentina’s products. Although several discourses from Argentinian policy makers have underlined the relevance of this objective within economic diplomacy, partners diversifcation was not a result of a clear policy towards Southeast Asia. In the aftermath, even though East Asia was mainly regarded as an alternative to lessen trade concentration and, hence, dependency on a few traditional Western partners, since China’s presence consolidated in the region, there was a relocation of this pattern of dependency. The relevance for each country differs; it is especially intense in the case of Chile, where trade with China concentrates a quarter of the country’s total trade, generating a higher level of vulnerability (Rubiolo, 2018). In this context, Southeast Asia has been partly an alternative for the Asian giant in South America, mostly for Argentina. Within the region, the Philippines is the closest one in terms of culture, religion, and other Spanish heritage, but this has not been the case in the economic-commercial dimension.

Philippines and the Southern Cone diplomatic links, 2008 onwards Bilateral relations can have different levels of density depending on the frequency and volume of interactions between states. This means that the links between two states are dense insofar as their frequency increases, they have a bilateral agenda that includes multiple topics, and there are different types of interactions (Tulchin, 1996). Following this defnition, Philippines–South America relations fall into a low-density-level category, both in the political-diplomatic and the commercial dimensions. In this part, we address the former dimension, focusing on foreign policy actions from both sides between 2008 and today, to understand how the relations developed during this pivotal period in South America–East Asia relations. As a brief overview on recent background, during the nineties, in the context of the end of bipolarity and the interest in diversifying external relations, the Philippines was included in initiatives within a more active foreign policy towards East Asia, particularly from Chile and Argentina. Argentina’s President Menem visited Manila in 1995, and President Estrada returned the gesture in 1999 visiting Buenos Aires and Santiago (Chile). Negotiations over the Kalayaan Hydroelectrical project, involving the Argentinian conglomerate IMPSA were the focus of the high-level visits during this period. In this sense, Argentina’s foreign policy

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towards the Asian country functioned as a tool for private and circumscribed interests. In the case of Brazil, political relations with the Philippines were stagnant, with no bilateral agreements, offcial visits, or exchanges made through that period (Brandi Aleixo, 2010). Since the beginning of the 2000s, scant progress was made in conferring more density to the political links between the Southern Cone countries and the Philippines. In table 9.1, we synthesize the main foreign policy initiatives and the felds of common interest for each country. From the comparison of the preceding table against the backdrop of previous decades, it is notable that in the cases of Argentina and Brazil, there was a multiplication of political initiatives that shows a growing interest in the Philippines.

Table 9.1 Argentina, Brazil, and Chile–Philippines mutual foreign policy initiatives, 2008–2018

Bilateral Agreements

Argentina

Brazil

Chile

Agreement on Cultural Cooperation (2012, expired) Agreement on Remunerated Employment of Dependents of Diplomatic, Consular, Administrative, and Technical Personnel (2012). MOU on Sports Cooperation (2012) MOU between the Argentinian Foreign Service Institute and the Foreign Service Institute of the Philippines (2011, expired) Agreement on Technical Cooperation (2011)

MOU on Mutual Cooperation on Training of Diplomats (2014), on Technical Cooperation (2011), on Agrarian Reform (2011), on Cooperation in Agriculture (2009), on Bio-energy Cooperation (2009) Agreement on Remunerated Employment of Dependents of Diplomatic, Consular, Administrative, and Technical Personnel (2009) MOU on Technical Cooperation between PADCC and Embrapa (2009)

MOU on Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (2015) Letter of intent (LOI) for a joint study for free trade between Chile and the Philippines (2015)

High-level offcial visits (Executive)

Bilateral trade/ cultural/scientifc missions and cooperation

Fields of common interest/ cooperation

Argentina

Brazil

Chile

Offcial visit to the Philippines of the Minister of Foreign Relations, Héctor Timmerman (2012) Offcial Visit to Argentina of Foreign Affairs Secretary, Albert del Rosario (2011) Visit of experts from the Philippines to Argentina to exchange technical knowledge to reduce the use of phytosanitary products in horticultural crops (2016) Visit of experts from the National Agrifood Health and Quality Service (SENASA Argentina) to the Philippines within the project to transfer knowledge on pest management and use of pesticides (2014)

Offcial Visit to Brazil of Foreign Affairs Secretary, Albert del Rosario (2011) Offcial Visit to Brazil of President Gloria MacapagalArroyo (2009)

Offcial visit to the Philippines of President Michelle Bachelet (2015) Offcial visit to the Philippines of Undersecretary of Foreign Relations, Fernando Schmidt (2011)

Philippine Delegation of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) Biosafety Committee (2015) Philippine offcials visited Brazil to study the Fome Zero (Zero Hunger) (2015) Agreement between Embrapa (Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation) and IRRI (International Rice Research Institute, Philippines), on exchange of scientists on rice research (July 2012) Bioenergy Food Security Agricultural Research (Rice)

Energy Development Corporation (EDC) signs joint venture with Alterra Power (Canada) for geothermal energy project in Chile (2013)

Biotechnology Agriculture Medicine Renewable energy

Disaster relief and response Aquaculture Geothermal energy

Source: Own elaboration based on Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2018), Embassy of the Philippines in Brazil (2018), Embrapa (2012), Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2011), Philippine Star (2012, 2013, 2018), Argentinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2014, 2018a)

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This phenomenon was closely tied to the potential for technical and South-South cooperation, especially in the felds of agriculture, biotechnology, and food security, in which both South American countries are international referents. High-level offcial visits were limited, showing mutual low relevance in the Philippines and South American foreign agendas and refecting the insignifcant weight of trade in the bilateral links during the period. Following our argument regarding the articulation between political initiatives and trade volume with non-traditional, geographically distant, and non-central powers, it is unsurprising to see that although East Asia represents a major region for all South American countries, the Philippines has not been included as a target of such policy. Since commercial insertion is of utmost importance for the Southern Cone nations, the lack of a signifcant commercial relation had a demotivating effect on the political-diplomatic dimension. In the next sections, we focus on the economic aspects of these relations.

Trade relations with the Philippines: between stagnation and regional competition Economic complementarity and cultural proximity are clearly not enough to boost bilateral trade relations, as the case of South America and the Philippines shows. Even though trade exchanges between South American countries and most SEA economies have increased in the last two decades (Rubiolo, 2018), the Philippines falls behind most of its ASEAN neighbors in this respect. In this section, we will examine the bilateral trade relations focusing on import and export amounts and composition, participation over total trade, and a comparison with other regional partners for South America. The Philippines’ commercial relations with South America are, to say the least, irrelevant for the former. In 2017, exports to the region accounted for only 0.5% of the total, and imports represented 1.2% of the country’s world purchases. In other words, commercial exchanges with South America represented less than 1% of total trade for the Philippines in 2017. This level of participation remained almost unalterable since 2008, showing a stagnation in the exchanges, in sharp contrast with most of its Southeast Asian neighbors, as shown in Figure 9.1. The main partners in terms of total amounts of exchanges for 2008–2017 were Brazil, Argentina, and Chile, respectively, followed by Peru and Uruguay. With the three countries, the Philippines had a negative trade balance throughout the period. On the South American side, a surplus has favored Argentina to a greater extent.8 This market was also the Philippines’ main import partner in the region. Regarding composition, the Philippines is a net importer of raw materials and agricultural products from South America. The main products are: soybean oil residues (from Argentina), iron ore (from Brazil), and copper ore (from Brazil and Chile). These three commodities account for 72% of the total imports from these three countries, refecting the same concentration export pattern the South American region has with all East Asian markets. The concentration of the South American exports basket contrasts with the diversity of products imported from

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the Philippines – and the rest of East Asia – corresponding to industrial manufactures. This gives shape to an inter-industrial exchange pattern that, although it responds to the complementary logic of the economies of each side, contributes to a more vulnerable insertion for the South American countries. Vulnerability comes from the fact that raw materials and agricultural by-products are more dependent on exogenous conditions – such as international commodities prices, external demand, and climate – and are less knowledge-intensive and require a low-skilled human capital, perpetuating underdevelopment conditions (ECLAC, 2018). Furthermore, South America faces strong competition from other suppliers of raw materials to the Philippines, particularly the United States in the case of agricultural products. As an example, the Philippines imported US$820 million worth of soybean oil residues from the US in 2017, four times the value imported from Argentina the same year (ITC, 2019). Argentina exports most of its production of this item to other Southeast Asian markets, mainly Vietnam and Indonesia, which emerge as the two principal destinations for this commodity. In this sense, there is room for diversifcation, both of suppliers for the Philippines and of export destinations for Argentina, but there are no external or domestic incentives to do so since Manila already has a preferential relationship with the US, and Argentina has developed a strong bond with Vietnam and Indonesia through more constant foreign policy initiatives.9 Returning to the concept of diversifcation as a foreign policy tool, the data analyzed points to the fact that there are spaces for deepening commercial links. For South America, the growing dependence on the Chinese market raises concerns about the greater vulnerability it entails, and it highlights the need for an intraAsian commercial diversifcation. This can be achieved by strengthening exchanges with other countries of the region – particularly those in Southeast Asia – in order to promote a more symmetric and less dependent international insertion.

Conclusion The Philippines and South America share common external challenges and internal goals that are closely tied to their less developed status and the asymmetric nature of the international power structure. In this chapter, we explored and combined local concepts from both sides to contribute to a better understanding of the Philippines’ international relations with counterparts within the Global South, such as Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. The main conclusion in terms of bilateral links is the low density shown in economic and political relations. The paradoxical fact is that the Philippines, besides having a complementary economy with South America, is the East Asian country with the closest cultural, historical, and even social bonds. Although East Asian economies have emerged as central markets for South American products – many of them becoming strategic partners for Argentina, Brazil, and Chile – bilateral exchanges with the Philippines have remained stagnant, showing a sharp contrast with its neighbors. We underline that domestic factors were the main conditions affecting foreign policy and international insertion. In the Philippines, internal violence, economic

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and political instability, and bureaucratic and governmental discontinuity have generated a perception of insecurity that demotivated external confdence. In the Southern Cone countries, the relegation of initiatives towards smaller countries in the region by focusing almost exclusively on China and the disarticulation between private actors and foreign policy offcials were fundamental impediments. On both sides, the lack of mutual knowledge, geographic distance, and poor connectivity – logistics, academic, scientifc, cultural, among others – have also discouraged constant and progressive contacts. In this scenario, the articulation between economic and political relations becomes essential to strengthening bilateral trade, sustaining cooperation projects, and identifying new niches for collaboration. In this task, frontline diplomacy should play a leading role in the absence of a predefned foreign policy towards non-traditional partners. Finally, the Philippines and South America’s relations remain as a vacant area of study, with many lines to explore that go beyond the historic legacy, such as South-South cooperation, international investments, and sustainable use of natural resources. Common development challenges and the need to lessen dependency on great powers through diversifcation confgure a starting point for further interregional studies.

Notes 1 Contributions on the bilateral links come mainly from the historic perspective with the works of Calvo and Machuca (2016) and diplomacy-related documents, such as Brandi Aleixo’s (2010) compilation of Brazilian-Philippine diplomatic history. 2 Argentina and the Philippines signed the agreement promoting the diplomatic representations to the rank of embassy in May 1960. The Philippines embassy in Buenos Aires had jurisdiction over Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Perú, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Brazil’s embassy in Manila was established in 1965. While the Philippine embassy in Washington initially had jurisdiction over Brazil, it was later transferred to Buenos Aires and fnally to Rio de Janeiro – former Brazilian capital – in 1965. In 1973, the representation was moved to Brasilia (Embassy of the Philippines, 2018). Chile’s embassy opened in Manila in 1967. In previous years, the jurisdiction was exercised from the Chilean embassy in Tokyo. 3 Latin America’s broad academic literature on dependency and autonomy is closely related to the pioneer works of Raúl Prebisch and the core-periphery theoretical vision. According to Caldentey, Sunkel, and Torres (2012, p. 6): ‘In his logic of the Core-periphery vision, Prebisch argued that America lacked authentic autonomy and that its evolution and development economic conditions depended on external factors and more precisely on the events and policies of developed countries.’ It must be noted that Prebisch writings had, not only an economic perspective, but also, and most important, a historic one. For further analysis on Prebisch’s and Cepal’s perspectives, see Bernal Meza (2005); Caldentey et al. (2012). 4 The region has been characterized as a ‘zone of peace’ because of the absence of long-standing interstate military conficts in the region in the last 40 years. The only country that maintains a sovereignty confict with an external power is Argentina, over the Falkland (Malvinas) islands. Notwithstanding, as Battaglino (2012) and Kurtenbach (2019) underline, there are increasing internal and non-traditional security threats in the region, such as militarization in Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, political instability, political violence, among other issues.

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5 Chile is the Latin American country with the highest number of FTAs signed and in force with East Asian countries. Among them are South Korea (2003), China (2006), Malaysia (2012), Vietnam (2014), Hong Kong (2014), and Thailand (2015) and the negotiation of an FTA with Indonesia and an economic association agreement with Singapore (called P-4 in 2008). 6 Trade between Argentina and Brazil is the most relevant for their industrial exports – mainly vehicles and their parts; Mexico and Chile are the other two main destinations (ITC, 2019). 7 Chinese participation in Argentina’s world trade fgures increased from 4 per cent in 2002 to 13 per cent in 2017. In the case of Brazil the increment was stronger, going from 3.8 per cent in 2002 to 20 per cent in 2017. In the case of Chile – where commercial dependency on the PRC is deeper – it went from 7 per cent to 25 per cent in the same period (elaborated with data from ALADI, 2018; UNComtrade, 2018). 8 Argentina’s trade balance with the Philippines for the period 2008–2017 was US$2,877 million, Brazil’s reached US$1,698 million, and Chile’s accounted for US$467 million (ALADI, 2018). 9 The presidential visit to both countries in 2013 is a clear indicator of this trend. Furthermore, the recent declaration of the Argentinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MREC), defning Vietnam as an ‘integral strategic partner’ (MREC, 2018b) shows the relative higher relevance of this country in Argentina’s external relations.

References ALADI. (2018). External Trade Information System. Retrieved from http://consultawebv2. aladi.org/sicoexV2/jsf/home.seam Argentinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MREC). (2014). Filipinas: manejo efciente de plagas y uso de plaguicidas [Philippines: Effcient Pest Management and Use of Pesticides]. Retrieved from www.cooperacionarg.gob.ar/es/ flipinas-manejo-efciente-de-plagas-y-uso-de-plaguicidas Argentinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MREC). (2018a). Digital Library of Treaties. Retrieved from http://tratados.mrecic.gov.ar/busqueda.php Argentinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MREC). (2018b). Visita del Viceministro de Industria y Comercio de Vietnam, socio estratégico integral de la Argentina [Visit of the Vice Minister of Industry and Commerce of Vietnam, Integral Strategic Partner of Argentina]. Retrieved from https://cancilleria.gob.ar/es/actualidad/noticias/ visita-del-viceministro-de-industria-y-comercio-de-vietnam-socio-estrategico Asian Development Bank. (2012). Shaping the Future of the Asia: Latin America and the Caribbean Relationship. Philippines: ADB, Inter-American Development Bank, and Asian Development Bank Institute. Retrieved from www.adb.org/sites/ default/fles/publication/29748/shaping-future-asia-lac.pdf Ba, A. (2008). Between China and America: ASEAN’s Great Power Dilemmas. In E. Goh & S. Simon (Eds.), China, the United States and Southeast Asia: Contending Perspectives on Politics, Security, and Economics (pp. 107–127). New York: Routledge. Battaglino, J. (2012). The Coexistence of Peace and Confict in South America: Toward a New Conceptualization of Types of Peace. Revista Brasileira de política internacional, 55(2), 131–151. Baviera, A. S. P. (2012). The Infuence of Domestic Politics on Philippine Foreign Policy: The Case of Philippines-China Relations since 2004. RSIS Working Paper, No. 241. Singapore: Nanyang Technological University.

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Gill, B., Goh, E., & Huang, C. (2016, June). The Dynamics of US-China-Southeast Asia Relations. Sydney: United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney, pp. 1–49. Retrieved from https://www.ussc.edu.au/analysis/the-dynamics-ofus-china-southeast-asia-relations Goh, E. (2008). Great Powers and Hierarchical Order in Southeast Asia: Analyzing Regional Security Strategies. International Security, 32(3), 113–157. Hinlo, J., & Arranguez, G. (2017). Export Geographical Diversifcation and Economic Growth Among ASEAN Countries. MPRA Paper No. 81333. Davao: University of Southeastern Philippines, pp. 1–16. Retrieved from https://mpra.ub.unimuenchen.de/81333/1/MPRA_paper_81333.pdf International Trade Centre (ITC). (2019). Trade Map. Retrieved from www.trademap. org/Bilateral.aspx Kurtenbach, S. (2019). The Limits of Peace in Latin America. Peacebuilding, 7(3), 283–296. Macaranas, F. M. (2004, November). Economic Diplomacy for National Development. Presented at Conference on Philippine Diplomacy in the 21st Century, Foreign Service Institute and Han Seidel Foundation, Pasay City. Olivet, M. C. (2005, December). Unravelling Interregionalism Theory: A Critical Analysis of the New Interregional Relations between Latin America and East Asia. Paper presented in the Fourth Conference of REDEALAP, Buenos Aires. Oropeza, D. (2016). La migración asiática libre al centro del virreinato novohispano, 1565–1700 [Free Asian Migration to the Center of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, 1565–1700]. Relaciones. Estudios de historia y sociedad, 37(147), 347–363. Oviedo, E. (2000). La política exterior argentina hacia el Asia oriental 1983–1999: consideraciones y aspectos principales [Argentine Foreign Policy towards East Asia 1983–1999: Considerations and Main Aspects]. Working Paper Series, No. 3, CARI, pp. 3–20. Retrieved from www.cari.org.ar/pdf/argentina-asia.pdf The Philippine Star. (2012, September 15). Phl, Argentina Strengthen Ties. Retrieved from www.philstar.com/headlines/2012/09/15/849208/phl-argentina-strengthen-ties The Philippine Star. (2013, June 19). EDC Inks Deals for Chile, Peru Geothermal Projects. Retrieved from www.philstar.com/business/2013/06/19/955554/ edc-inks-deals-chile-peru-geothermal-projects The Philippine Star. (2018, September 6). Chile and the Philippines: Cooperation in Natural Disasters. Retrieved from www.philstar.com/opinion/2018/09/06/1849018/ chile-and-philippines-cooperation-natural-disasters Rubiolo, F. (2018). South America and East Asia: Dependency and Diversifcation Dilemmas within an Asymmetric Power Structure (2002–2017). PEOPLE: International Journal of Social Sciences, 4(2), 1118–1135. Shepherd, B. (2010). Geographical Diversifcation of Developing Country Exports. World Development, 38(9), 1217–1228. Soares de Lima, M. R., & Hirst, M. (2006). Brazil as an Intermediate State and Regional Power: Action, Choice and Responsibilities. International Affairs, 82(1), 21–40. Tulchin, J. (1996). La nueva política exterior Argentina hacia Estados Unidos. In F. de la Balze y E. Roca (Eds.), Las relaciones de la Argentina con Estados Unidos (pp. 231–242). Buenos Aires: CARI-ABRA. UNComtrade. (2019). Retrieved from https://comtrade.un.org/ Vahalik, B. (2015). Analysis of Export Diversifcation Development of the European Union and BRICS Countries. Ekonomická revue, Central European Review of Economic Issues, 18, 59–69.

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10 Religious actors in the international sphere The case of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines John Raymond Jison and Yvan Ysmael Yonaha Introduction It is not without truth that international relations (IR) theorists have marginalized religion in IR scholarship. For one, the role of religion in IR is not straightforward or clear. For another, religion is fundamentally divergent from the non-religious or the secular. After the Treaty of Westphalia was signed in 1648, ending the bloody Wars of Religion ignited by the Protestant Reformation in Europe, religion was relegated to the margins by the new secular states. The post-Westphalian international system used the state (and eventually, the nation-state) as the core unit of world politics. ‘If “religion” (which is essentially non-political and uninterested in power in this world) mistakenly becomes involved in “politics” (which is the worldly arena of rational action),’ as Fitzgerald (2001) claims, ‘then it ceases to be true religion and becomes a dangerous and unnatural hybrid’ (p. 78). The confuence of both spheres entails the problematic reconciliation of various binaries between the two dimensions: natural vs supernatural, empirical vs metaphysical, the present world vs the other world, the soul vs the physical body, among others. By the end of World War I, the preeminence of the state as unit of analysis in international relations (IR) remained unchallenged. Championing the application of science and rationality, secular societies would eventually disregard the role of religion in public affairs. The view that states constituted the essence of the international system enjoyed legitimacy for some time (Fox & Sandler, 2004). Sandal and James (2011, as cited in Haynes, 2013), observed that until the end of the Cold War, only a few international relations theorists were engaged in substantial analysis of the links between religion and ethnicity on the one hand and international relations on the other, despite the fact that a number of national and international conficts that ensued during this period had religious, cultural, and ethnic origins. Modernization theorists would later argue that in societies undergoing political and economic development, the infuence of religion will diminish and eventually decline; hence, the view that it assumes a mere subordinate role in international politics (Haynes, 2013). In any case, the deliberate neglect of religion as a central topic of discussion in IR does not give justice to its increasing importance in the feld. But frst, we need to defne religion, which is not without diffculty as, echoing what scholars

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have problematized (Bellin, 2008; Griffths, 2000; Sandal & James, 2010), there is no single defnition of religion inasmuch as it is a multifaceted phenomenon. Indeed, religion is ‘a scholarly enterprise without an identity’ (Sandal & James, 2010, p. 6). For the sake of our discussion, we rely on Haynes’s (2013) conceptualization, which is germane to our discussion: For purposes of social investigation, religion may be approached: (1) from the perspective of a body of ideas and outlooks – that is, as theology and ethical code; (2) as a type of formal organisation – that is, the ecclesiastical ‘church’; or (3) as a social group – that is, religious groups and movements. There are two basic ways that religion can affect the world: by what it says and by what it does. The former relates to religion’s doctrine or theology, the latter to its importance as a social phenomenon and mark of identity. This can work through a variety of modes of institutionalisation, including church–state relations, civil society and political society. (pp. 34–35) Most accounts on religion and IR draw from Western experiences and situate the analysis using mainstream IR theories. As will be gleaned from the next section, what is overlooked from these accounts is a nuanced discussion of the agency of religious actors. While religion can be analyzed as a formal social institution, it is more so a social group that adopts a set of beliefs and practices that help them make sense of the meaning and purpose of life, be it individual or collective (Haynes, 2013). Empirical evidence points to the relevance of religion in articulations of national identity and even in the formation of the nation-state. In the Philippines, the secularization movement which sought parity between Spanish and Filipino priests (Whittemore, 1961) is said to be part of the impetus for the 1896 Philippine Revolution, whose purpose is the overthrow of Spanish colonialism in the country. Later on, the Malolos Congress debated heavily on whether the new Philippine government should uphold unity or separation between church and state – separation would later be imposed through the American occupation of the islands (Aguilar, 2015). In this chapter, we seek to provide an alternative view on the involvement of religious actors in international politics. Our analysis explores the agency of a religious actor, the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP), as demonstrated by its courses of action on the US bases agreement. We begin by situating religion along the paradigmatic boundaries of mainstream international relations (IR) theories, such as realism, liberalism, and constructivism. We argue that mainstream IR theories do not fully encapsulate the nuances of the role of the NCCP in IR. Through an analysis of resolutions, communiqués, pastoral letters, and key informant interviews, we look at the interplay between ‘secular’ and ‘religious’ reasoning in the formulation of the NCCP’s stance on the US bases. This reasoning, we argue, is borne out of the various statuses and role positions the agents see themselves occupying. We conclude the chapter by offering theoretical refections for further studies.

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Situating religion in mainstream international relations theories: gaps and issues in analysis This section discusses how the role of religion in international politics is viewed through the lens of mainstream IR theories. We choose realism, liberalism, and constructivism as cases in point because these paradigms, in particular, continue to infuence IR scholars (Sandal & James, 2010). As a caveat, the succeeding discussion does not cover all forms of realism, nor does it claim to capture the emerging strands of liberalism and constructivism. However, we focus on typical vantage points and common themes in which religious actors and religious phenomena have been analyzed by these theories. Gleaning from the pertinent studies on religion vis-à-vis realism, liberalism, and constructivism shows that these theories are not able to offer a nuanced account of religion as a social institution, if not a group, composed of actors capable of understanding, or even creating, political and social realities that may go beyond the scope of the domestic. Incorporating religious phenomena in realism proves to be a challenge, as traditionally it goes outside the purview of the realist theory. More so, there has been a growing consensus in the feld as regards the pessimism of integrating religion in analyzing the conduct of relationships among states (Keohane & Nye, 1977; Zakaria, 1999). That realism underscores the role of states in shaping international order is inevitable, as it is inherently state-centric (Keohane, 1986; Waltz, 1979). Aside from its reference to states as the central units of analysis, rationality, self-interest, and the absence of an overarching international government (egoism in other accounts) lie at the core of the theory. The behavior of states is determined by the distribution of material capabilities present in the international system and by ensuring security primarily by building alliances, fortifying their military strength, or both. For instance, in neorealism, the analysis of religion-related phenomena can be an onerous task partly because any facet of human nature is considered of lesser importance in accounting for IR phenomena (Sandal & James, 2010). Whereas neorealism is not fully accommodating with religion and ethnicity in its analysis, there may be other possibilities for accommodation. Buzan’s classical security complex theory suggests that a state’s defnition of threat may be determined by religious differences (Buzan, 1993). Religion can also infuence how states build alliances, which may have direct repercussions on the distribution of material capabilities in the system (Davis, Jaggers, & Moore, 1997). In any case, in neorealism and even in classical realism, the state still is and should be the vantage point for any analysis involving religious actors. Can the liberal paradigm in IR provide avenues for further studies on religion and international relations? Known for its commitment to freedom in the economic and social sphere and emphasis on norms and rules for governance, liberalism begins from the premise that the state is no longer automatically the primary actor in world politics (Jison, 2014). Liberalists, particularly liberal institutionalists, posit that institutions can shape the characteristics of states in conducting international relations. While the realists underscore the anarchic nature of the international system and

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characterize international politics as an endless struggle for power and domination, liberalists emphasize the ‘potentially peace-promoting effects of domestic and transnational institutions’ (Dunne, Kurki, & Smith, 2013, p. 94). It appears that liberalism’s regard of non-state actors as well as international norms and institutions makes it a viable framework for analysis, especially for scholars who would like to investigate the transnational aspects of how religion infuences international relations. As Sandal and James (2010, p. 15) write, ‘with its emphasis on institutions and norms, the liberal tradition is the most appealing framework for scholars who investigate the transnational aspects and infuence of religion.’ However, liberalism as a framework only accounts for religious actors that have direct linkages with transnational and international institutions. It can be argued though that religious actors that have a profound impact on shaping foreign policy and international politics may not always be transnational. Lastly, the constructivist theory of international relations characterizes the various structures of international politics as ‘dependent upon the norms and the construction of reality by the participants in the international forum’ (Fox & Sandler, 2004, p. 170). ‘Material resources,’ as Wendt (1995, p. 73) contends, ‘only acquire meaning for human action through the structure of shared knowledge in which they are embedded.’ Indeed, constructivism underscores the infuence of shared ideas and values on how states behave. From this perspective, the role of religion in world politics can be interpreted in the following ways (Menchik, 2017): (1) religion as a tradition can be characterized as discursive and as embedded in a set of institutions; (2) the understanding of religion is not just a result of religious struggles but legal and political battles as well; and (3) the interests of religious actors need to be analyzed and understood locally. Constructivism has the potential to address issues such as the implications of religious governance for human rights and democratic consolidation, the role of public religious organizations in championing social solidarities and democratic politics, and the infuence of religious virtues in the struggle against political greed and economic inequality, among others (Menchik, 2017). Normative or ideational structures matter in constructivist analysis, as much as material capabilities in neorealism and cooperation and competition in liberalism do, because they are non-material conditions able to shape the identities, interests, and actions of political actors (Reus-Smit, 2005). Indeed, political actors and normative structures are mutually constituted, as the latter can shape and condition the former. But how exactly are these interests formed and identities shaped? Are these actors and ideational structures able to construct meanings only in the context of transnational politics? These issues remain to be addressed. To synthesize, both neorealism and classical realism are utterly fxated on states as vantage points for analysis. Liberalism, while offering avenues for incorporating non-state actors, such as religious actors in the analysis, overly emphasizes the transnational context of religious actors. Constructivism, while appearing to be a promising framework, as it accounts for the importance of constitutive/ constituted interests and identities of actors that realism and liberalism gloss over, has remained captive to the heavily state-centric analysis characteristic of realist accounts. As will be made evident by the next section, domestic religious actors

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that attempt to infuence IR, such as the National Council of Churches in the Philippines, have distinct ways of doing so, something that mainstream IR theories may not be able to holistically account for.

The NCCP and the US bases agreement The National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) is an ecumenical organization composed of Evangelical, Protestant, and non-Roman Catholic churches and various associate members dealing with a wide-range of societal concerns (Supetran, 1998). Its founding members, are the ‘Convention of Philippine Baptist Churches, the IEMELIF,1 the Unida Church,2 the Iglesia Filipina Independiente, the Philippine Episcopal Church, the United Methodist Church, and the United Church of Christ in the Philippines,’ but it has since expanded to include more member churches and associate members (Supetran, 1998, p. 61). As an ecumenical organization, the NCCP’s objective is to promote unity among Christian churches. The following are some of their objectives: [T]o foster among all Christians that unity which is God’s will, seeking to honor Him worthily and desiring to witness to Him more effectivelyy [sic] among all men. 1. To promote the growth of ecumenical interests in the study of Christian unity and cooperation among the churches and their members; 2. To serve as a channel for united witness and common action on matters affecting the moral, social and civic life of the nation; 3. To safeguard fundamental human rights and uphold the separation of the Church and State; 4. To foster closer relationship with Christian bodies in all lands; 5. To support cooperative work among Churches and Christian organizations as such may be agreed upon. 6. To undertake other work which may be referred to it and by any of the member bodies. (Supetran, 1998, p. 62) This chapter proposes that NCCP’s stance regarding the US bases agreement draws from both a Christian normative framework and from ‘secular’ reasons concerned with issues such as national security. The objective is not to reinforce the idea that secular and religious sources form an irreconcilable dichotomy. Indeed, what is proposed is that both sources are simultaneously and seamlessly drawn from by the NCCP evident in the way they frame their stance on US bases. Moreover, it is proposed that religious actors drawing from various sources should not be understood as attempts to subvert secular institutions for religious ends. Rather, this is best looked at as the result of these religious actors occupying multiple statuses and role positions. Viewed this way, actors who rely on religious reasoning to justify their anti-US bases are not naively insisting on utopian beliefs in an otherwise chaotic international arena but are instead using their unique lens in making sense of the issue at hand. In other words, this may be indicative of a new confguration in modernity instead of its rejection.

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In this section, the ‘secular’ considerations of the NCCP that led to its call for the rejection of the US bases agreement will be discussed. This will be followed by a discussion of their ‘religious’ reasons. The end of this section attempts to show that their stance is a function of multiple statuses and role positions and not necessarily of the desire to subvert the liberal order.

World War II and national dependence The experience of the Philippines in World War II serves as the historical context of the council’s statements against the US bases. In a communiqué released by the NCCP – International Affairs Desk (1988) after the National Consultation on the US Military Bases, it is evident that the actors were aware that these agreements were entered after the destruction experienced by the Philippines due to the war. Not only is this ‘unfair and unjust agreement imposed’ (p. 43) on the country, it is also detrimental to the country’s national security because the bases can may make the archipelago attractive as a target. In the same communiqué (NCCP – International Affairs Desk, 1988, p. 43), the Philippines is also presented as having developed an ‘economic and military dependence’ on its host country. The UCCP, one of the member-churches of the NCCP, has previously expressed similar sentiments. In its National Conference on Human Rights, the UCCP (1987) released a resolution decrying the unbalanced relationship between the Philippines and the United States made visible by the US bases. To them, this allows the US to exercise infuence over affairs on Philippine soil and serves as a complicating factor in making sure that American forces that have violated Philippine laws are brought into trial. The UCCP – Council of Bishops (1986, p. 36) has also raised as a concern about what they called the ‘colonial mentality’ of Filipinos. What is made visible here is that the NCCP is not seeing the issue from a purely moral perspective. Arguably, the analysis of the situation made here by the NCCP and the UCCP are reminiscent of arguments made by dependistas. In fact, the NCCP (1981, p. 39) released a statement On the Withdrawal of US Military and Economic Aid to the Philippines asserting that US aid policy ‘uses Third World countries/developing nations in Asia, Latin America and throughout the world to further US interests.’ This is repeated by the NCCP – International Affairs Desk (1988, p. 43) in the communiqué when it claimed that the ‘[US] military bases is [sic] primarily for the protection of the US economic interests.’ To counter this perceived dependence, the NCCP and its members invoked regional and national laws in preventing the continuation of the bases in the country. The United Methodist Church (1988) in its Resolution on Nuclear Ban relies on a constitutional ban on nuclear weapons and what it believes to be an agreement in the ASEAN to prevent nuclear development in the region. The Philippine Episcopal Church (1988a) in its Resolution for the Support of the Constitutional Declaration of a Nuclear-Free Philippines has also made similar references to the newly ratifed nuclear ban in the country. While the statements do not directly

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mention the US bases, they will have implications on the bases’ continuation because its sustained presence will make the implementation of a nuclear-free Philippines diffcult. Additionally, it shows the ease in some NCCP-affliated churches of drawing from legal sources to inform or justify their stances. The usage of legal sources, however, is used in conjunction with ‘religious’ reasons.

Fundamentals drawn from Christianity The NCCP is unique because fundamental to its stance is a Christian normative framework. This comes with a unique ontological assumption regarding how history is organized and governed. And yet, even with a departure from a purely secular perspective, the NCCP is able to seamlessly integrate this with the arguments discussed in the previous section. The NCCP interprets the US bases agreements from three principles drawn from Christianity. Drawing from NCCP (1991), this framework can be summed into three points: 1) ‘Vision of Shalom’ (p. 4), 2) ‘Stewardship of Creation’ (p. 5), and 3) ‘Churches’ Concern for Human Dignity’ (p. 5). In brief, these concepts posit that human beings are divinely ordained to care for creation, that human beings possess certain rights that cannot be violated by virtue of being creatures endowed with a divine likeness, and that human beings are commissioned to ensure a kind of peace so that conditions for human fourishing are met (NCCP, 1991). The United Methodist Church (1988) shows this clearly when they reiterated humanity’s mission to preserve the environment endangered by nuclear weaponry in consideration of the dignity acquired by creation because of the passion of Christ. The usage of these principles to create prescriptions for Philippine international relations seems to point to an implicit assumption that the Bible could be used as a guide for foreign relations and God’s active intervention in history. Capulong’s (1988) Military Bases and the Gospel of the Kingdom of God drew from a careful reading of Christian Scripture to juxtapose the experience of biblical Israel (as opposed to contemporary Israel) and foreign dominating forces with that of the Philippines and the United States of America. In his own words, And defnitely, this gospel truth . . . would take in the US military bases as symbols of an unequal power and a dominated people. As symbols of a foreign power’s own insecurity over its own domination of a weak nation. As symbols of a foreign nation’s idolatry of armed forces as the only means to survival, peace, power, and prosperity. (Capulong, 1988, p. 18) Using the Bible as a guide to foreign policy seems to also suggest perspectives that rely on supernatural help in issues relating to national security. In another Bible study by Capulong (1988) entitled A People’s Covenant with Death, he again made comparisons between the actions of biblical Israel and of the Philippines in relation to dominating foreign powers. He thought that relying on foreign military

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powers instead of God was a reason for the condemnation of Israel. According to him, It is sheer hypocrisy for leaders to appear so pious and religious in times of religious observances and yet practically run to other nations for refuge and socio-economic and military shelter. It is hypocrisy for leaders to continue to pay lip service to the ideals of nationalism under divine guidance and yet continue to allow the economy to be dominated by foreign interests. It is blasphemy for these leaders to practically insult and dishonor the name of Yahweh by looking for another savior and protector. (Capulong, 1988, pp. 5–6) These aforementioned Bible studies were cited as part of the preparation for NCCP – International Affairs Desk’s (1988) communiqué indicating the infuence of this view for the NCCP. This point can also be seen in separate statements issued by the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (1987) and the previously cited statement from the United Methodist Church (1988). In the former statement, the UCCP resolved in its National Conference on Human Rights to oppose any form of foreign domination in the country but not without affrming that God is our refuge and strength who helps us in resisting foreign domination/enslavement and that we believe in the capacity of the Filipino people in defending themselves from any foreign aggressions. (UCCP, 1987, p. 29) Meanwhile, the United Methodist Church (1988) warned that the use of nuclear weapons in the Philippines would raise not only security concerns but also possible transcendental repercussions. In their statement, We call upon pastors and all lay persons in the churches to study not only the physical dangers and crises . . . of nuclear weapons, nuclear warfare, and nuclear technology but more so remind people and ourselves of human accountability before God posed by any continued tolerance of the use or presence of such massively fatal instruments of our time. (United Methodist Church, 1988, p. 17) Statements like these show a difference that make religious organizations unique agents in international relations. Whereas secular organizations’ sense of security and responsibility end with human institutions, religious actors rely on a different ontological understanding of reality that may involve supernatural forces to support what they perceive as ethically correct action. This would have implications on the causes they take up, the debates they are willing to engage in, and the solutions that they are willing to propose. While secular organizations may be limited by an assumption of anarchy or chaos in the international sphere, religious

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organizations like the NCCP may be guided by security in the transcendental. Adiong (2016), drawing on Kubolkova (2000), makes similar assertions regarding the difference in the ontological assumptions of secular and religious groups and that an acceptable understanding of religion in international relations must take this into consideration.

Seamless integration The framework drawn from Christianity and secular criticisms of the US bases agreement can both fnd expression within religious organizations because their agents occupy multiple roles and statuses within their nation-state. For example, in the Pastoral Letter of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente – Supreme Council of Bishops (1988, p. 20, emphasis ours), they declared that [i]n our discerning, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we have, once again, rediscovered the richness of the heritage of the IFI. A heritage that is God’s call to us to be witnesses to Him in our people’s independence, identity and integrity. This is our nationalist charism – a gift to us by the Lord of History. The excerpt shows that the church’s struggle for national independence is not seen as distinct from its mission as a church, but instead, as an integral part of their identity as the Philippine independent church, whose historical development included a bent towards nationalism. The same can be said for the NCCP (1991) in its explanation regarding its call for the abrogation of the US bases agreement. The following excerpt appeals to two areas of belonging – citizen and faithful – to call for action against the US bases. In their own words, The NCCP believes that today the issue of the US bases can no longer be ignored. Each of us, as a citizen of this country, and as members of the larger community of faith, has a mission to help resolve this issue. (NCCP, 1991, p. 9) A similar appeal is made in the same document, again invoking multiple areas of belonging as believers, a people, and a nation. Indeed, we all need to act now, and to act together. As ONE community of believers, as ONE people, as ONE nation. (NCCP, 1991, p. 9) These show that the NCCP is able to seamlessly navigate between using ‘secular’ and ‘religious’ arguments against the continuation of the US bases agreement in the country. This is again made visible in the usage of nuclear weapons, which is seen as both a ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ concern.

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Nuclear weapons are one of the recurrent themes in a variety of statements from the NCCP and its member churches. In fact, various member churches have issued calls to disallow the use of nuclear weapons in the country, such as the Iglesia Filipina Independiente – Supreme Council of Bishops (1988), the Philippine Episcopal Church (1988a), the United Methodist Church (1988), and the United Church of Christ in the Philippines – Council of Bishops (1986). The Council of Bishops of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (1986), for example, called to ‘opt for not renewing the RP-US military bases agreement when it terminates in 1991, so that our nation may be free from the devastating US domination and probable nuclear annihilation’ (p. 36). While legal and secular principles were invoked to defend their position, the following examples would show that the churches saw their stance regarding nuclear weapons and their attendant impact on Philippine security and sovereignty as something that emanated from Christian principles. The United Methodist Church (1988) pushed for a nuclear ban in the country, seeing it as ‘not only a constitutional provision but is a peace and justice issue that is biblically traceable to God’s mandate for man to a [sic] steward of creation’ (p. 17). The Philippine Episcopal Church (1988a) made similar references when it expressed its support for a nuclear-free Philippines out of fear for a ‘nuclear winter that can bring about destructive effects not only to the human family but the whole of Planet Earth’ and resolved to ‘[r]e-affrm the sacredness of life and creation by supporting the Constitutional declaration of a nuclear-free Philippines’ (p. 18). These statements make clear references to normative Christian principles and show that the NCCP is able to draw from both secular and religious reasons to pursue their policy agenda. To promote their stance against the US bases, they have also engaged in lobbying and educational campaigns for their members (see Philippine Episcopal Church, 1988b). In NCCP (1991), it is narrated that the general secretary sent communication to the Philippine Senate and members of government to outline its position for the removal of the bases in the country. The UCCP (1987) has also lobbied to the Philippine Congress regarding the mode of approval for the extension of the US bases. The NCCP has also resolved to send communication to the Philippine president. During their 14th General Convention in 1989, a resolution was adopted to send communication to the then President Corazon Aquino to follow the constitutional provision regarding foreign bases in the country (NCCP-CDSC, 1989). The Iglesia Filipina Independiente – Supreme Council of Bishops (1986) also issued statements on the 1986 Draft Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines, where they reiterated their stance against the continuing presence of the United States in the country and how certain provisions of the Constitution allow for mechanisms to permit the continued presence of the bases. Their positions as domestic actors with a sizeable following may infuence government to consider their stance on issues that the NCCP fnds important. Interestingly, one path of lobbying they took involved fellow Christian communities abroad.

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Christian community and lobbying as vehicles of action In A People’s Covenant with Death, Capulong (1988) noted a seeming contradiction in the dominated-dominating relationship of the Philippines and the United States. He said that the unequal relationship between the two is problematic because both ‘claim to be God-fearing and predominantly Christian nations’ (p. 2). This, to him, is not simply a method of critique to what is taken as an action that contravenes Christian morality. Instead, it legitimizes the usage of the ‘traditions of faith . . . to see whatever theological and moral justifcation or condemnation as well as imperatives for action can be found in the Scriptures themselves’ (p. 2). In other words, the Christian heritages3 of the United States of America and the Republic of the Philippines allow it to be scrutinized from the ethical standards of Christianity. Christianity also serves as a community through which the NCCP can expand its campaign against US bases in the Philippines. For example, the NCCP and the National Christian Council of Japan (NCCP & NCCJ, 1986) released a joint letter entitled Appeal for Peace, Appeal for Disarmament addressed to US President Ronald Reagan and USSR General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. In it, they called on both leaders to begin a process of disarmament so that Asia and the Pacifc could begin the process of peace in the region. More important, their joint voices appealed to what they called a Christian community to join in this crusade of eliminating arms buildup in the region. They claim, We make special appeal to our friends in the Christian community to join us in our cause. For was it not Jesus Christ Our Savior who taught us, through his life, . . . to strive for shalom, the wholeness of life for all humanity and creation? To strive for peace is to affrm the life of our Jesus Christ in our midst. (NCCP & NCCJ, 1986, p. 97) The NCCP has also engaged with the National Council of Churches of Christ – USA. A call has been issued by the NCCP (1987) to the NCCC-USA ‘to consider joining the NCCP in the long-standing opposition to the continued presence of these bases and facilities as a threat to peace and security’ (p. 27). The UCCP – Council of Bishops (1986) made similar statements when they called on foreign churches to work towards removing impediments to complete sovereignty in the Philippines. The UCCP Council of Bishops (1986) has even called on Christian groups in the United States to assist Filipinos by interacting with their government. In their words, these foreign groups may be of assistance by ‘helping infuence in the re-shaping of their government’s policies towards respect for the sovereignty and independence of the Filipino people’ (p. 37). The shared normative assumptions may allow religious organizations to infuence foreign religious actors. Though this paper did not document the response of the US counterpart of the NCCP and the UCCP, these attempts to connect with them demonstrate the possible power of religion to create pressure for governments by mobilizing domestic constituents towards a particular cause. The existence of religious

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networks across countries is not new. Hermann (2014), in a research note, has argued that published IFI periodicals in 1903–1904 ‘can be explored as part of the emergence of a transregional and transcontinental indigenous-Christian public sphere around 1900’ (p. 560). Future studies related to this topic may want to measure the impact the actions of the NCCP had on their US counterpart or how early emergent Christian connections tried to infuence IR.

Conclusion and theoretical contributions This chapter has analyzed the role of the NCCP in Philippine politics and civil society to obtain a deeper understanding of its role and involvement in international relations. It has also provided an alternative perspective of looking at the role of religious actors in international relations. Sandal and James (2010) propose that understanding religion’s role in international politics can be accommodated by mainstream international relations theories. This remains to be a valid proposition, and as we have demonstrated in this chapter, there are some avenues forward on how religion can be analyzed through the lenses of the IR paradigms. However, we fnd the need to depart from these paradigms because they leave much to be desired in fully accounting for not just the dynamic role of religious actors but also the multilayered context from which these actors originate and permeate. Addressing the weaknesses of Western-centric IR theories may prove to be challenging especially if applied in non-Western contexts. One avenue that needs further analytical complexity is the connection between the actor, the institution this actor belongs to, and how that institution participates in the shaping of domestic as well as international defnitions of desirability. Building on the Sandal and James (2010) argument, based on their reading of Hans Morgenthau, that the dynamics of politics roots on how individuals make certain decisions, this chapter demonstrates the need to avoid dichotomous conceptions (religious vs secular) and be conceptually open to non-discrete ‘categorizations’ of identity especially for institutions with transcendental aims, such as religion. Cornelio’s (2016) work on the spirituality of young Catholics in the Philippines shows that they exhibit a kind of refexive spirituality manifested through a preference to action over rituals and a critique of religious authorities. Moreover, Yonaha’s (2016) work on the Youth of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente argues that service to God and service to the nation are not seen as distinct responsibilities but are integral parts of the IFI heritage. These kinds of developments in the sociology of religion require IR theorists to recognize tensions that exist not only across but also within religions and how these constrain or promote religious involvement in international issues. Instead of looking at the direct participation of the NCCP in the international system, we propose that the identity of religious actors and how they make sense of their reality is a compelling angle to consider. By understanding the NCCP’s stance and position in a particular foreign policy direction (in this case, the US bases agreement), we are able to provide a detailed and holistic understanding of a religious actor and how they interpret domestic political issues that may have

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ramifcations that transcend from the domestic to the international. For instance, through shared normative interpretations of a certain policy, religious groups can infuence other foreign religious actors or mobilize members of the same faith to support a political cause. We believe that this is an important vantage point in unpacking the dynamic interaction between religious actors and the international system. By exploring religious identities, we can understand the contribution of religious actors to international relations. It allows us to depart from a rigid understanding of religious actors by nuancing their motivations and courses of action because of the multiple roles and statuses they occupy. Following Woodhead (2015), there is no singular Christianity in contemporary times, so to understand Christian actors in IR, we cannot simply focus on large actors like the Vatican or World Council of Churches but must also look at smaller groups or even domestic actors that do not always engage with IR but do so when they believe it to be relevant to their religious position. Indeed, with the advent of globalization, the state can no longer be regarded as the only primary actor in the international realm. By looking into the dynamics of the NCCP and how it interacts within the realm of domestic politics, we are able to trace its behavior and involvement in international politics. This provides us signifcant vantage and take-off points as to charting future analyses of religious actors in the context of the international relations system.

Notes 1 Presumably the Iglesia Evangelica Metodista en Las Islas Filipinas. 2 Presumably the La Iglesia Evangelica Unida de Cristo. 3 This is, of course, an area of contention. The authors do not necessarily agree that the US and the Philippines are Christian nations. It is stated here to refect the views of the cited text.

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Geopolitics of Faith in the Twenty-First Century. Bristol, England: E-International Relations Publishing. Yonaha, Y. (2016). Pro Deo et Patria: Refexive Spirituality and the Youth of Iglesia Filipina Independiente. Philippine Sociological Review, 64(1), 139–164. Retrieved from www.jstor.org/stable/44211754 Zakaria, F. (1999). From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of America’s World Role. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

11 Religious expertise, public theology, and Philippine regime compliance Brian U. Doce

Introduction Approximately 15 years have passed since Thomas (2005) described the phenomenon of a global resurgence of religion; however, despite the reality that religious actors still play a signifcant role in Philippine public life, a great deal of work is still needed to unearth the different modes and channels the religious sector employs in shaping the country’s behavior, particularly in terms of its engagement in global issues. Such claims are not unfounded but based on the contemporary status of scholarship treating the role of religion in Philippine politics and international relations. One example is the Philippine Political Science Journal, which only published two articles inquiring about the agency of religious actors in political engagement.1 In addition, the lexicometric analysis employed by Cruz (this volume) among selected journals published by Philippine universities, where topics touch inquiries regarding the international, supports the claim as the tally of word frequencies shows three primary categories: the prevalence of major world powers; facets of hard power, such as military, economy, and trade; and aspects of people-to-people relations. Furthermore, in an article written by Doce (2018), he hypothesized that this scholarly neglect is due to the contentment of Filipino scholars and researchers to frame religious actors in terms of interest group politics. In a previous chapter of this volume, Jison and Yonaha (this volume) explored the opposition of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP), an ecumenical Christian organization, to the ratifcation of the US Bases Agreement. In light of the goal of this volume to locate Philippine international relations in the multiple modernities paradigm, the previous chapter argued that the NCCP simultaneously utilized religious and secular sources to justify their stance against the military bases agreement between the Philippines and the United States. Consequently, this chapter also replicates the attempt of the aforementioned previous chapter to bring to light the role of religious actors in shaping Philippine responses to global issues by examining how progressive Filipino religious leaders played a role in the institutionalization of reproductive health and divorce norms in the country. While this chapter agrees with the previous corollary that the dichotomy between the use of secular and religious discourses should be rejected, this part of the book situates this religious strategy in the context of

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religious actors behaving as members of an epistemic community. Specifcally, this chapter analyzes the role of religious actors in the Philippine decision to legislate reproductive health and marriage dissolution policymaking as actions of international cooperation to comply with the demands of two development regimes, namely, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), respectively. Commencing from the research puzzle concerning the passage of the reproductive health bill and the shelving of the divorce bill during the administration of Benigno Aquino III despite parallel situations of support both from the international and domestic contexts, this chapter argues that the internal consensus among progressive Christian religious leaders functioning as an epistemic community towards specifc policy proposals serves as one of the determining factors on the success rate of institutionalization of norms socialized by international actors engaging the Philippines. This chapter is divided into fve sections. The frst section will briefy discuss the regime literature and how the MDGs and CEDAW are qualifed to be treated as regimes. Similarly, the second section will also present the case of how progressive Christian religious leaders emerged as an epistemic community during the reproductive health and divorce debates from 2010–2016. The third section will narrate the operationalization of the religious knowledge authority of the progressive religious epistemic community through the uncertainty–interpretation–institutionalization causal mechanism of Haas (1992). Meanwhile, the fourth section will present the case of the public theology produced during the interpretation stage as a localization of global theological movements. Finally, the last section refects upon the predictive power of the framework of this chapter to replicate similar results, as the current Philippine situation is faced by continued foreign infuences and the contested situation of institutional religions in the sphere of public life.

MDGs and CEDAW as international regimes The concept of international regimes, or simply regimes, has been viewed both with optimism and skepticism from the liberal and realist standpoints of international relations theories, respectively. However, despite the looming suspicion and doubt concerning a regime’s ability to maintain international order, the continued existence and birth of several agreements, covenants, and formal organizations both at the global and regional levels serves as solid proof for sustained confdence towards international institutions. Reiterating the idea of Mitchel and Hensel (2007), international institutions affect compliance rates of states both in active and passive ways. However, conceptual ambiguity ensued as regimes and institutions are frequently used interchangeably. Although Stein (2008) reconciled this confict by arguing that terminologies of organizations, regimes, and institutions are connected to their respective historical intellectual turns in the feld, this chapter will focus on the usage of the concept of regimes as originally defned by Krasner

Religious expertise, public theology 197 (1983) as a ‘set of explicit and implicit principles, norms, rules and decisionmaking procedures’ to address a specifc problem or objective. Levy, Young, and Zurn (1995) enriched regime classifcation by presenting a two-level matrix to provide four types of regime based on the criteria of organizational structure and expectations, namely, dead letter regimes, full force regimes, tacit regimes, or no regime at all (See Table 11.1). Based on the criteria presented here, the MDGs and CEDAW are also considered regimes or at least sub-regimes of a more general and formal regime: the United Nations. Although both do not possess independent formal organizations for implementation, they exemplify three out of the four features of a regime from Krasner’s (1983) defnition, namely, principles, norms, and rules. For the sake of brevity, specifc provisions from the MDGs and CEDAW that qualify them as principles, norms, or at least a set of informal rules will not be elaborated on in this chapter. Suffce to say that both the MDGs and CEDAW consist of a set of guidelines states need to practice and implement by being members of the United Nations. While it is a reality that not all states adequately performed for the achievement of the MDGs and some selectively ratifed CEDAW because of domestic cultural and religious opposition, this partial acquiescence qualifes the two occupying the space between the tacit and full force regime categories. However, one issue salient in the regime literature is the aspect of regime compliance. Regime compliance literature is primarily composed of two categories based on the origin of the compliance decision: international (Chayes & Chayes, 1993; Mitchel, 1994; Downs, Rocke, & Barsoom, 1996; Tallberg, 2002) and domestic (Checkel, 2001; Kastner & Rector, 2003; Schimmelfennig, 2005; Morrow, 2007; Dai, 2007). International sources explored include enforcement issues using coercion and rewards, state motivation, and organizational features while domestic sources enumerated both agential actors (agent communicators, domestic veto players, political oppositions, and distributional consequences for civil society actors) and structural factors (domestic regime type particularly democracy and party affliations). Consequently, religion also serves as a domestic factor in compliance. As an example, according to Powell (2013) and Powell (2015), states following shari’ah law as constitution instead of civil law have different types of mechanisms and responses to the decisions of the International Court of Justice and peaceful resolution of territorial disputes, respectively. Meanwhile, the next section will discuss the conditions and ways concerning the emergence of religious actors into an epistemic community. Table 11.1 Classifcation of regimes (Levy et al., 1995, p. 272)

Low Expectations High Expectations

Formal

Informal

Dead letter Full force

No regime at all Tacit

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Intersections: compliance, expertise, and religion This section has two objectives: frst, to briefy introduce the concept and evolution of epistemic communities; and second, to outline the characteristics of a religious epistemic community. However, before proceeding to the discussion, it is important to note that the available resource knowledge of regime compliance and epistemic communities existed even before epistemic communities were introduced as a formal and distinctive approach in understanding international cooperation as Haas (1989) prefgured in his study about the link between the Mediterranean Plan and the scientifc communities present among its participant states in synchronizing their efforts to address seawater garbage pollution in the region. Haas (1992) defned epistemic communities as a group of experts performing a critical role in international cooperation because of their capability of infuencing policymakers through analysis of situations conforming to their respective expertise. Whether national or transnational, the distinguishing mark of epistemic communities compared against other state-level approaches are centered in the following ideational factors, namely, ‘a shared set of normative and principled beliefs, a set of causal beliefs, a set of notions of validity, and a common policy enterprise’ (p. 3). These four features refer to the normative underpinnings behind the expert group’s action, their analysis about the linkages and connections of variables regarding a phenomenon, their criteria to affrm the legitimacy of information, and their belief about their potential contribution to the improvement of human welfare, respectively. Epistemic communities function via the nexus of this causal mechanism, namely, uncertainty–interpretation–institutionalization. The uncertainty stage resonates with David Mitrany’s corollary that non-political problems must be addressed by non-political actors (Viotti & Kauppi, 2012). During this stage, epistemic communities view the technical nature of cooperation problems as opportunities to infuence decisions of policymakers who are assumed to be at least unfamiliar with specifc issues. Consequently, the interpretation stage enters when the epistemic community approaches policymakers to offer their analysis based on the aforementioned ideational features. Thereafter, the institutionalization stage commences when policymakers are fnally convinced and decide to accept the proposal offered by the epistemic community. Since its scholarly debut, the approach has been tested with several kinds of professions, such as trade experts (Drake & Nicolaidis, 1992), bankers (Kapstein, 1992), environmentalists (Peterson, 1992), nuclear scientists (Adler, 1992), lawyers, ambassadors and military offcials (Davis Cross, 2015), monarchs (Yom, 2014), and Islamic fnance experts (Sandal, 2019). Religious experts are also not excused in the categorization, as Sandal (2011) argued that religious actors can also become members of an epistemic community because of their expertise in the feld of hermeneutics and exegesis: the former refers to interpretation of sources of religious canon while the latter is concerned with translating theological knowledge into daily moral codes of behavior. She also added another advantage of a religious epistemic community against other secular professions: the direct access of religious actors to all social classes. Thus, for Sandal (2011), religious actors interpret social issues based on their theological and religious lenses to provide a

Religious expertise, public theology 199 public theology, which she defned in a separate article as a position of religious actors towards a specifc policy issue whether it is an institutional stand, agreement among religious leaders, or a consensus of a group of people who deviates from the dominant belief (Sandal, 2012), to provide their followers a set of behavioral guidelines in dealing with contemporary social issues. In relation to the preceding, the Filipino religious epistemic community analyzed in this chapter is a group of both Catholic and Protestant ordained and lay leaders who shared a different belief towards the morality of reproductive health and marriage dissolution. Unlike their fundamentalist counterparts, such as the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) and other religious denominations under the umbrella of Christianity, these religious actors are either willing to reformulate or compromise traditional religious credo to accommodate the necessity of these two policy proposals to address social issues (Doce, 2018). For conceptual clarifcation, this chapter will use the term ‘progressive’ to characterize this alternative group of religious leaders; however, it does not entail that the chapter failed to recognize the conceptual problematique of using the term progressive especially since this concept has been used in different historical periods of social movements. To reconcile this issue, the word progressive in this chapter utilizes the alternative accomodationist-preservationist binary offered by Chow (2011) in related research as the former refers to those religious actors who defed, modifed, or at least compromised the orthodox teachings of Christianity about sexual behavior and marriage conduct by deconstructing Christianity’s sacred scripture and providing an alternative interpretation and commentary. These religious leaders, whether ordained or lay, are considered experts constituting an epistemic community because of the following reasons. First, they possess a degree in, or at least a considerable amount of training and engagement with, the ecclesiastical sciences. Second, they are also holders of degrees from the secular sciences acquired based on the motivation to complement their initial academic degree. Third, aside from merely being degree holders, some of these leaders pursued further specialization in the ecclesiastical sciences as a number of them possess master’s and doctoral degrees in theology. Fourth, along with their secular academic training, these religious experts were also exposed to different mission areas and ministries that reinforce their expertise through the virtue of experience. Lastly, these religious actors own the privilege of having a direct infuence on their followers who are assumed to belong to all social classes through their respective ministries and affliated faith-based organizations.

Philippine response to norm socialization efforts The international dimension of reproductive health and marriage dissolution proposals In this section, the treatment for reproductive health and marriage dissolution as global norms being socialized to the Philippines will be located in Finnemore and Sikkink’s (1998) norm life cycle model. According to this model, the international acceptance of a proposed norm is divided into three stages. The norm

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emergence stage requires the presence and activities of norm entrepreneurs and organizational platforms proposing a new idea to address certain global issues. It is followed by the norm cascade stage, which primarily pertains to the condition that a signifcant number of states have accepted the legitimacy and necessity of the new norm. The last stage, called norm internalization, presents the processes where other states institutionalized specifc policies and activities as a manifestation of the state’s full agreement to implement the proposed new idea. Concerning the norm life cycle model, one part between the frst two stages specifcally indicates a phenomenon called the ‘tipping point’ (p. 895), a scenario involving a critical mass of states, specifed by the authors consisting of about one-third of the total number of states, having embraced the new norm. In terms of locating the reproductive health and marriage dissolution proposals in the norm life cycle, it is safe to assume that both are in the norm cascade stage, as the institutionalization of these policies was advocated by offcial international projects requiring participant states to positively respond, namely, the MDGs and CEDAW, respectively. Moreover, the socialization of these norms is not possible without the assistance of some international organizations. For the promotion of reproductive health norms, among them are the UN Population Fund (UNFPA, 2012), the World Health Organization (Rappler, 2012), and other transnational advocacy organizations, such as the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians for Population and Development (AFPPD) and the Inter-European Parliamentarians Forum on Population and Development (IEFPPD) (De Los Reyes, 2015). For divorce, the bill was proposed by GABRIELA, a women’s movement organization with linkages to other transnational advocacy organizations, such as the Asia Pacifc Forum on Women, Law, and Development (APFWLD). In relation, the period of 2010–2016 brings the Philippines to the tipping point threshold of the socialization history of the two norms since, during this six-year period (2010–2016), the Philippines is the only country in the world where laws on reproductive health and divorce are still absent.

Uncertainty: religious opposition and weaponization of fear Despite the presence of international organizations and civil society groups advocating for the legislation of an offcial law on reproductive health and divorce, the Philippines took at least two decades to successfully respond to this international persuasion because of opposition from religious groups, particularly from the Roman Catholic Church, as represented by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP),2 and other fundamentalist Christian denominations. This religious faction wields a considerable amount of political power to legislators as the majority of the Philippine population identifes themselves as belonging to the Catholic religion. Since the post-1987 years of Philippine political history, the Catholic hierarchy has been consistent in issuing pastoral letters against the reproductive health and divorce bills, urging policymakers and laypersons to cast unfavorable support against the two proposals. In terms of reproductive health, other methods employed by the CBCP include excommunication threats (Calonzo & Sisante, 2010), intensifcation of religious instruction about the immorality of the bill

Religious expertise, public theology 201 (GMA News Online, 2008), and framing of the bill as a form of corruption (Villegas, 2012). At the latter part of the debate, the bishops also threatened politicians with their ability to rally a ‘Catholic vote’ that would urge lay members to withdraw support for policymakers who approve the mentioned policy proposals (ABS-CBN News, 2012). Similar conditions were observed during the divorce proposal after the passage of the reproductive health bill in December 2012 as evident in the lack of public pronunciation of support among members of the Philippine Congress. Threats coming from the conservative religious groups enabled a confusing situation among legislators in the two houses of the Philippine Congress, namely, the Senate and the House of Representatives. This situation was affrmed by two instances. First, the lady Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago, a lawyer with a doctorate degree in Catholic theology, dedicated a whole Senate session to lecture about Catholic teaching on sexuality and how the reproductive health measure was compatible with Catholic morality through the perspective of liberation theology and doctrinal reforms instituted by the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) (Barua-Yap, 2011). In the case of divorce, proponents and supporters initially cited secular reasons, including abusive relationships, unhappy marriages, and the like (GMA News Online, Full text: Bill fled in Congress that would legalize divorce, 2011); however, Edcel Lagman’s version, although fled after Aquino III’s administration, possesses passages that deconstruct Biblical teaching in order to reconcile Christian morality to the institutionalization of marriage dissolution (Lagman, House Bill No. 116: Explanatory Note, 2016). In relation to the passage of the reproductive health bill in the Philippine Congress, a marginal faction inside the Christian religious sector, including both Catholics and Protestants, emerged as an epistemic community to preach an alternative public theology that served as a justifcation for policymakers to vote in favor of the said policy proposal. The progressive Catholic side was composed of individual priests and religious (specifcally nuns) and lay leaders while the Protestant counterpart belonged to an organized national coalition of churches and faith-based organizations called the Interfaith Partnership for the Promotion of Responsible Parenthood, Inc. (IPPRP).

Interpretation: an alternative public theology for political support Doce (2018) summarized the alternative public theology espoused by this religious epistemic community into nine theological discourse strands through an analysis of the published public statements of religious leaders and churches about the morality of reproductive health. The frst strand, the assertion of the primacy of individual conscience over religious doctrine, was shared both by the Catholic and Protestant sides. However, the second to ffth discourses were original progressive Catholic arguments, namely, •

Religious freedom argument: A reproductive health measure is necessary because not all Filipinos are Catholics. Other citizens belonging to other faiths will beneft from this policy.

202 •

•

•

•

Brian U. Doce Doctrinal fallibility argument: The teaching in the Humane Vitae is considered as a doctrine instead of a dogma. It is authoritative but open for re-interpretation. Complexity of reality argument: The institutional church should reconcile with what is happening since reality is not black and white. They argued that church teaching is short-sighted since it failed to account for other realities, such as how poverty affects sexual behavior and the issue of women’s choice. Argument from experience: Catholic bishops and priests are not authoritative to preach about sexual behavior and conduct since they are required to be celibate. Middle ground argument: Instead of total opposition towards the bill, the church should contribute to the development of this policy proposal and divert its efforts from demonizing the bill and its proponents.

Meanwhile, the remaining two discourses originated from the arguments offered by progressive Filipino Protestantism, including the repackaging of the Malthusian population theory anchored in the belief that unmanaged population growth is related to the occurrence of modern global problems such as war, poverty, and famine and the re-interpretation of Genesis 9:7 (‘Go forth and multiply’) as no longer applicable to the contemporary situation. The alternative public theology offered by these progressive Christian religious actors challenged and diluted the dominant paradigm offered by the Roman Catholic bishops. The theological strands mentioned served as a justifcation for policymakers who voted in favor of the reproductive health proposal during the second and fnal reading (Doce, 2018). In contrast, a different scenario occurred in the divorce debate fled after the passage of the Reproductive Health Law. The failure to offer an alternative public theology from the religious epistemic community in this study does not equate to the assumption that the progressive religious sector is totally opposed to the measure; however, the situation is due to the fragmented vocal support of the members of the religious epistemic community related to the criteria presented by Haas (1992) on the requirement of the presence of a consensus with regard to the expert community’s beliefs, notions of validity, and epistemology. In an interview with Sr. Mary John Mananzan, a well-known feminist Catholic nun in the Philippines,3 her analysis of this situation lies in the necessity of divorce since a number of religious leaders view the measure as benefcial only for the middle and upper classes, as those persons below the poverty line bracket do not even avail themselves of church or civil wedding registration (Mananzan, 2016). However, the Protestant coalition, IPPRP, which supported the passage of the Reproductive Health Law, lamented the lack of consensus among evangelical churches under their umbrella, particularly the fact that there were only four evangelical pastors who were supportive of the policy proposal (Tano, 2016).

Religious expertise, public theology 203 Institutionalization: tracing the impacts of the alternative public theology The institutionalization of the alternative public theology offered by the progressive religious sector, which this chapter treats as a form of an epistemic community, occurred in diverse channels, namely, via media platforms, home institutions, and organizations and direct engagement with policymakers. In terms of media platforms, Jesuit priests, and IPPRP-affliated pastors used newspaper columns, online platforms, and publications to disseminate their thoughts about reproductive health. Prominent among these were Jesuit priests Joaquin Bernas (https://opinion.inquirer.net/byline/fr-joaquin-g-bernas-s-j) and Joel Tabora (https://taborasj.wordpress.com/), where the former is known as an expert legal luminary. However, the IPPRP published two booklets serving as their theological exhortation regarding the issue entitled Having Sex Having Children: Biblical Perspectives on Family Planning and Higit sa Lahat ang Tao (Tano, 2016). Institutions affliated with these progressive religious leaders served as a resource for the dissemination of their stance. Groups of professors from theology and social science-related departments of two universities owned by Catholic religious orders, namely, Ateneo de Manila and De La Salle University, showed their support by releasing their respective manifestos (Fernandez, 2012a, 2012b). Meanwhile, certain Catholic faith-based organizations also joined the discussion, such as the Institute of Women’s Studies of St. Scholastica’s College (Mananzan, 2016), the John J. Caroll Institute on Church and Social Issues (JJCICSI) of Ateneo de Manila University (Genilo, Caroll, & Bernas, 2011), and the Catholics for Reproductive Health (C4RH), an independent non-governmental organization composed of lay Catholics who are members of the Reproductive Health Alliance Network (RHAN) (Chua, 2017). Meanwhile, aside from institutional initiatives, some progressive religious leaders conducted personal consultations and dialogue with policymakers themselves. Three examples are noteworthy. First, the explicit attendance, presence, and interaction of Sr. Mary John Mananzan, a feminist Benedictine nun, with staunch supporters of the bill inside the Congress, such as Pia Cayetano and Risa Hontiveros, projected the message that her expertise in Asian feminist theology served as an affrmation and moral validation for civil society leaders and some politicians to pursue their endeavor to legislate a reproductive health policy in the country (Mananzan, 2016). Second, Evangelical bishop Efraim Tendero speculated that there is a close collaboration between IPPRP pastors and lawmakers who are also members of the Philippine Legislators’ Committee on Population and Development Foundation (PLCPD) (David, 2016). Lastly was the initiative of Jesuit priest Eric Genilo (2017) and four unnamed bishops to engage in a private dialogue with Congressman Edcel Lagman (2017). Based on separate interviews with Genilo (2017) and Lagman (2017), the following revisions of the bill served as the outcome of their dialogue and consultations: •

alteration of the tone of the bill shifting from a population control measure to a focus on the maternal and reproductive health aspect of an individual;

204 • •

Brian U. Doce equal treatment and prioritization of both natural and artifcial family planning methods in the implementation of the law; and inclusion of the phrases ‘openness to life’ and ‘ethical provisions’ to act as safeguard clauses against cases that might threaten the religious freedom rights of practicing Catholics.

According to Lagman (2017), he allowed the proposed revisions since they were reconcilable to the objectives of their faction and RHAN. The presence and compromise showed by these accommodating bishops and clergy is a manifestation of the middle ground argument of the alternative public theology offered by the progressive religious sector. Concerning the impact of this alternative public theology, statements from President Benigno Aquino III and some Congress members have both directly and indirectly invoked the arguments offered by the progressive religious sector. As a graduate of the Jesuit-owned Ateneo, President Aquino III’s support of the reproductive health bill reveals an innate progressive religious basis as confrmed in his speech during the visit of Pope Francis to the Philippines last January 2015 as he mentioned the reforms brought by the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) and the existence of liberation theology, an indication that he also shares the ideals of progressive Catholicism (Doce, 2018): My understanding of the changes inspired by Vatican II, and of the infuence of liberation theology, was the notion that temporal matters affect our spiritual well-being, and, consequently, cannot be ignored. (Philippine Star, 2015) The claim is supported considering the context of the message since it is based on the expectation that the pope would understand him, as the current Pontiff was also a Jesuit and a citizen of Argentina, the birthplace of liberation theology. Moreover, lawmakers’ discursive examination4 reveals that these policymakers refect the alternative moral discourses offered by the progressive religious epistemic community. In a tally made by Doce (2018), members of the Senate and House of Representatives invoked the theological discourse strands with the exception of using the idea of re-interpreting the creation story recorded in the book of Genesis. Although Doce (2018) admitted that his tally comprises only a small portion of the total population of the Philippine Senate and House of Representatives, these small portions from both Congress houses are indicative of the impact of the progressive religious sector for two reasons. First, the other members of the Senate and House of Representatives argued not based on the traditional Christian arguments opposing the bill but on the grounds of secular morality as an adherence to the principle of church and state separation. This is parallel to Yonaha and Jison’s argument that religious groups in the Philippines both harness religious and secular arguments to remain relevant in modern Philippine society. Second, half of the members of the Lower House present during the second and fnal

Religious expertise, public theology 205 voting of the bill only uttered their votes and opted not to explain the rationale of their decision. In addition, Doce (2018) also added that the manner of rhetoric of some policymakers’ reasoning to justify their vote further proves the infuence of the religious epistemic community in their decisions since they used either one of the three observed rhetorical styles: a conditional statement,5 a public apology to the Catholic clergy,6 and the invocation of a name of a certain priest to justify his or her vote of approval.7

Alternative public theology as localization of global theological movements Although the mentioned religious leaders and groups were of national character, the idea fueling the motivation behind their advocacies was inspired by progressive theological ideas from abroad. While the emergence of heterodox Christian theologies contesting traditional Christian teachings such as those of Catholicism and other conservative Christian groups are not a novel phenomenon, the theological ideas behind the progressive religious epistemic community in the Philippines originated from the assumptions of liberation theology from Latin America. The reforms instituted by the Second Vatican Council, particularly of decentralization of power and enculturation inside the Roman Catholic Church, allowed certain religious intellectuals to attempt and experiment to depart from the orthodox theology of Catholicism. The results of these academic theological experiments led to the birth of gender-based and race-based theologies, which are frequently opposed to the patriarchal and Euro-centric character of Christianity’s orthodox religious teachings. These claims are evident by examining the academic background of some religious leaders present during the debates. For example, Benedictine Sister Mananzan is a graduate of the Pontifcal Gregorian University, while Jesuit father Genilo was a product of the theology program of the Catholic University of Louvain (KU Leuven). These two universities were described as having ‘accomodationist’ (Chow, 2011) leanings. For instance, the president of the Pontifcal Gregorian University remarked that theologians and the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (CDF) must enter into a dialogue since the church is not a dogmatic ideological machine (McElwee, 2013), while KU Leuven has been reported to be historically infuenced by leftists ideas (Gevers, 2016). However, Bishop Tano of IPPRP received his theological training from Baylor University, whose theology program pursues a contextual and historical interpretation of Christian doctrine compared to the ahistorical and dogmatic characteristics of orthodox fundamentalist theology (Baylor University Department of Religion, n.d.).

Conclusion Frequently, academics tend to treat public policymaking as an isolated domestic phenomenon. However, discussion in this chapter showed that public policy issues are also connected to several international efforts to address specifc global

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problems as evident from the contextualization of reproductive health and marriage dissolution from the perspective of regime compliance. This chapter provided a fresh perspective on how religious actors participate in Philippine international relations, particularly in the aspect of norm socialization. The cases explored in this chapter provided us possible points for refection as the country is currently facing two realities. First, the entrance of liberal ideas will continue because of globalization and people-to-people exchanges. Second, being greatly weakened by Aquino III’s defance of church leadership in his approval of the reproductive health bill, Roman Catholicism’s infuence will also continue to wane in the public sphere as the current president, Rodrigo Duterte, persists in stripping its reputation (Nery, 2019) and because of the drastic changes currently occurring in the religious landscape and perceptions of religious identity among Filipino youth (Cornelio, 2016). As the Philippines continues to become receptive of other norms, it poses the question as to how Filipino religious actors can still sustain their epistemic authority amidst the continually changing landscape of Philippine society as infuenced by foreign cultural infuences brought by ongoing regional and global integration and sustained multicultural and civilizational exchanges both from Asia and the West.

Notes 1 In a tally made by Teehankee (2014, p. 13), only one article involving the issue of religion was published in the Philippine Political Science Journal from 1974–2013. The list was updated by the inclusion of a review of Borja (2016) on the book entitled, ‘Ang Mga Ideolohiyang Politikal ng Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines: Isang Pag-aaral sa mga Piling Pahayag mula sa Limang Panahon ng Kontemporaryong Eklesiastiko-Politikal na Kasaysayan ng Pilipinas.’ 2 Catholicism’s opposition against the Reproductive Health bill is rooted in the encyclical of Pope Paul VI Humane Vitae, which only permits Catholics to use natural family planning methods. 3 Aside from publicly identifying herself as a feminist, Sr. Mananzan also participates in the women’s movement in Philippine civil society, particularly in GABRIELA. 4 The Philippine Constitution designated that the legislative department of the country shall consist of two houses: the Senate and the House of Representatives. Each house implements parallel deliberations of proposed bills undergoing three phases of readings among its members. 5 For example, Congressman Limkaichong expressed this statement: ‘As a devout Catholic and a practicing one, I always adhere and practice according to my faith and the teachings of the Church. However, I cannot in good conscience impose my personal religious beliefs on others inasmuch as I am also fully aware that we live in a society where various religious groups exist and have differing beliefs and opinions’ (Congressional Record Vol. 2 No. 39a, 2012, p. 59). 6 As proof, Congressman Go uttered this remark: ‘Mr. Speaker, if my religion fnds my vote erroneous, I pray that they will fnd a place in their hearts to forgive me’ (Congressional Record Vol. 2 No. 39a, p. 53). 7 Two Lower House members particularly ft this claim, namely, representatives Joson and Ledesma. REP. JOSON: There was a comment from a Jesuit priest that stayed in my mind through these years and this was when he told me that I have no problem

Religious expertise, public theology 207 with him because he believes in planned families and that the children have the right to be nurtured mentally, physically and emotionally, but most especially spiritually. The other thing that stayed in my mind was a comment by a Cardinal who told me that whatever we do in this Chamber, I just have to remember that it should promote discipline, self-control and sacrifce. (Congressional Record Vol. 2 No, 39a, p. 57) REP. LEDESMA: I would like to adopt the stand of Fr. Joaquin Bernas, S.J., with his indulgence on the RH Bill to support my affrmative vote, and with the indulgence of the Philippine Daily Inquirer as its source. (Congressional Record Vol. 2 No. 39a, p. 58)

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12 Securitization of the Global War on Terror and counterterrorism cooperation against the Abu Sayyaf Group Patrick Dave Q. Bugarin Post 9/11 securitization of the threat of terrorism In the advent of the 21st century, the entire world witnessed with unimaginable horror the sight of the 9/11 bombings. The event demonstrated what violent non-state actors were capable of doing to an iconic structure that stood as a metaphor for the US preponderance of power. Since then, various efforts at countering international terrorism have been mobilized and, to some extent, have functioned as an avenue for international cooperation. The unilateral declaration of the ‘Global War on Terror (GWOT)’ by President George W. Bush is, although broad and ambiguous, a set of policies and a powerful rhetoric that has informed the post 9/11 construction of the threat of ‘terrorism’ (Mustapha, 2011, p. 488). It has labelled al-Qaeda and its affliates as its primary target under the commitment to curb the rise of and eventually end terrorism. Interestingly, this has been extended indefnitely to include the renewed threats of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or, from here on, Daesh and other radical groups blurring the lines between counterinsurgency and counterterrorism. The 9/11 bombings elevated ‘terrorism’ as arguably the single most important security issue engendered among new anti-terrorism laws, agencies, doctrines, strategies, programs, initiatives, and measures (Jackson, 2007, p. 394). However, Kennedy-Pipe and Rengger (2006, p. 540) argue that 9/11 did not bring any fundamental change in world politics. Rather, it was instrumental in espousing a belief that there has been a signifcant change in the architecture of world politics, generating an unstable set of assumptions that results in greater insecurity. Buzan (2006, p. 1102) concurs and also considers the creation and maintenance of the GWOT as a part of this belief, a durable world-organizing macro-securitization by which the notion of US primacy is being attached and legitimized. Although 9/11 did not fundamentally change world politics where interests abound, it, through the GWOT, functions as a signifcant political frame that justifes and legitimizes certain practices. Buzan presents fve types of event that could affect the durability of the GWOT’s securitization (2006, p. 1106): • •

The impact of further terrorist plans or attacks; The commitment of the United States to GWoT securitization;

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Patrick Dave Q. Bugarin The legitimacy of the United States as a securitization leader within international society; The (un)acceptability and (il)legitimacy of both the GWoT securitization as a whole and particularist securitizations that get linked to it; and The potency of securitizations competing with the GWoT.

For almost two decades now, the GWOT remains a signifcant infuence on addressing the threat of terrorism. It has been persistent, and more so with the rise of Daesh, it signifcantly sustained the resources and attention to the security issue. The 9/11 bombings became an effective tool to rally the support of what was later known as the Coalition of the Willing (COW), the group of states allied with the US against international terrorism. The GWOT was instrumental in generating a host of extraordinary measures, such as the wars fought, including, but not limited to, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003, and other regional engagements. It has also informed American relations with Southeast Asia, where Mustapha (2011) has observed an increase in anti-Americanism and terrorist activities aimed at ‘Western’ targets, as well as the cooptation of Southeast Asian governments of the security issue, espousing anti-democratic and repressive behaviors. Among those which remain to be under the infuence of the GWOT is the Philippines with its struggle against Islamic terrorism represented by the ASG and its affliates. Mostly, the GWOT resonated well with the Philippines’ security concerns. From the administrations of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Benigno Simeon Aquino III, and Rodrigo Roa Duterte, the Philippines has been actively involved with the subsequent mobilization of counterterrorism, engendering varying levels of cooperation with the US and its allies on this issue. This has been characterized by various initiatives that are not limited to capacity-building measures, information sharing, and equipment transfer. This will be further elaborated upon in the succeeding sections. The invasion of Marawi in the southern island of Mindanao in the Philippines on May 23, 2017, by the Daulah Islamiya Wilyatul Mashriq (DIWM), or the Islamic State Province in East Asia, triggered renewed interest in the issue of confict and violence in Southeast Asia. It revealed that terrorism still remains a major security concern in the country. This has spurred joint operations and research with foreign counterparts, including the US and other international partner organizations, such as Interpol. According to Banlaoi (2017), the DIWM became the umbrella organization of armed groups sympathetic to the Islamic State, or Daesh, at least in the Philippines. The armed groups include but are not limited to the infamous Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF). According to Fealy (2017), the ASG sub-leader Isnilon Hapilon was designated as the emir of DIWM in mid-2016, implying that the ASG and its network remains active. Aside from local groups, there were reports that foreign fghters, particularly from Indonesia and Malaysia, participated in the siege, which further exposed the transnational nature of the security issue (Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2017). The fve-month battle displaced civilians, leveled the city, and resulted in casualties: 920 militants, 165 government operatives, and 47 civilians (Amnesty International, 2017).

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Efforts to curb terrorism remain marred with challenges coming from the nexus of domestic practices as in the culture of bureaucracy, competition, and the lack of inter-organizational trust and management of international relations as in the dependency on the US and its allies in the GWOT. I argue that these may be associated with the post-9/11 securitization of the threat of terrorism, which has empowered and constrained responses. The GWOT continues to evoke contradictions between the policies which are being implemented for its sake and the liberal values these policies are trying to protect. In the succeeding section, I present the conceptual framework that guides this chapter and then the means to proceed in presenting the case of the Philippines within the context of securitization.

Securitization in the non-West This chapter, in a way, answers Acharya and Buzan’s (2017, in Kapur & Mabon, 2018, p. 1) challenge to mainstream IR theories ‘to accept the ideas, experiences and insights from the non-Western world’ as well as ‘to give due recognition to the places, roles, and contributions of non-Western peoples and societies.’ Again, as in Kapur and Mabon (2018), this work aims to join research endeavors in securitization studies that explore issues beyond its Western domain. Acharya (2016) argues that going beyond the Copenhagen School’s limitation to address why securitization occurs makes it more insightful for the non-West in that it draws attention to (p. 247) a number of conditions that facilitate or impede securitization, including the nature and identity of securitizing actors, the concept of security which is assumed or used by these actors, the process of securitization itself (which remained underspecifed in the Copenhagen school) and the outcome of the process, which involves the degree of securitization and the impact on the issue area or the ‘threat.’ Acharya (2016) further identifes fve important lessons about securitization in Asia. First, it is fundamentally a state-centric project (p. 247). This means that the state has the fnal say on what gets securitized and governments securitize domestically for regime legitimacy. Second, the concept of ‘national security’ is often invoked with the addition of the concepts of ‘comprehensive security’ and ‘human security’ (p. 248). Third, ‘frames of reference,’ which is similar to the concept of security constellations, matter in the process (p. 249). Fourth, the normative dimension could diverge from its functional implications (p. 249). According to Floyd (2010, p. 56) the question ‘Whom or what is benefted by the securitization?’ is inseparable from ‘Why does a given actor securitize?’ as it suggests that not all securitizations are morally equal. This shifts the attention to the possible risks and consequences of securitization. Finally, as it has also been observed by Boyd and Dosch (2010, p. 217), the distinction between securitization and politicization is more fuid than defned (Acharya, 2016, p. 250).

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According to Emmers (2003), since 1996–97, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has already securitized transnational organized crimes, including terrorist activities, illicit drug traffcking, money laundering, illicit traffc in arms, aircraft hijacking, sea piracy, and hijacking on land among others, as major security concerns. Following the aftermath of the 9/11 bombings and Bali bombings in 2002, discourse heavily tilted on the threat of terrorism (Emmers, 2003, pp. 428–429). Responses against terrorism varied in Southeast Asia, and the traditional allies of the US – the Philippines, Thailand, and Singapore – compared with Indonesia and Malaysia, have responded with more enthusiasm (Febrica, 2010). Furthermore, while a favorable domestic audience made securitization possible, it similarly made the government cautious about repercussions during the war against Iraq in 2003 and war against Daesh in Iraq and Syria in 2015 (Febrica, 2017, p. 721). This represents gradual policy changes while maintaining terrorism as a security issue. The condition of the Philippines’ national security practices as a small state is having ‘political goals that are only partially attainable and of a security environment that will remain defned as “unsecured”’ (Peleo, 2015, p. 2). Although securitization was not specifcally fashioned to account for the experiences of the non-West (Acharya & Buzan, 2010, pp. 12–14), the theory fnds immediate application in cases in the Philippines where the security agenda had been subverted by political maneuvering (Peleo, 2015, p. 7). Previous research has indicated that the culture of confict in the Philippines is a paradox where securitization is maintained despite efforts to desecuritize (Peleo, 2007, p. 22). As this chapter joins the several contributions on accounting for securitization in Asia, I focus on the mobilization of counterterrorism measures in the Philippines after 9/11 until the invasion of Marawi. In order to frame the case of the Philippines within the context of securitization, I use the State of the Nation addresses of Presidents Arroyo, Aquino, and Duterte as sources of speech acts or rhetoric, as well as the practices they created to present the intentions of the political leaders and the success of the securitization. Mobilization of the issue may be found during the time of Arroyo and would be discussed in length. The succeeding administrations of Aquino and Duterte present the institutionalization and maintenance of dependency to the GWOT mentality. In addition to that, this work sheds light on some intended and unintended consequences of the post-9/11 securitization of terrorism. In the next section, I provide information on the Abu Sayyaf Group and its affliates that are considered as an existential threat.

The Abu Sayyaf Group Since 9/11, the ASG has been included as one of the targets of the GWOT. It’s offcial founding name is Al-Haratkatul Islamiyyah, but Khadaffy Janjalani and Adurajak Janjalani, its founders, would mostly use Abu Sayyaf in honor of Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a Wahabi theologian who greatly infuenced them (Banlaoi, 2008, p. 12). It is a splinter group of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), and akin to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), it was born out of

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dissatisfaction with the leadership and the deals made with the government in Manila. Banlaoi argues that the founding of the group may be traced to the late 1980s with visions of waging jihad against the Philippine government for the establishment of an independent Islamic state. Accordingly, the organization came from Jamaa Tableegh, which gained popularity because of its Wahabi teachings and was originally put under surveillance by the government (p. 12). Its ideological foundation has been established between 1984 and 1989 in Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Zamboanga City, and General Santos City (Ramakrishna, 2018, p. 3). Furthermore, scholars who studied in Saudi Arabia, Libya, Pakistan, and Egypt and were equally dissatisfed were recruited (p. 3). Needless to say, the existing accounts of the founding of the organization demonstrate that it was initially perceived and aimed to defy the state with a certain cause to pursue, by starting with the idea of secessionism employing terrorism as a strategy but later succumbing into the practices of criminality and banditry. Al-Qaeda’s Osama Bin Laden was greatly supportive of the former goal as may be seen in his ‘letter to America’ (The Guardian, 2002). The ASG has been continuously considered as an international terrorist group by the US State Department since 1997 and the United Nations since 2001 (Stanford University, 2015). It has so far been one of the most active violent extremist groups in the region, uniquely characterized by its social network that runs across borders, while perpetrating acts of terror in the form of orchestrating bombings, raids, and summary executions. The ASG has also been involved in other transnational crimes, such as kidnapping, money laundering, and drug traffcking, among others. It is representative of the crimeterror nexus/convergence, the meeting of terrorism and crime as a means for operational survival. Since ASG’s inception in the early 1990s, its perceived threat has haunted successive Philippine administrations. Among the worst attacks in the history of political violence at the turn of the century were the simultaneous blasts in 2000 known as the Rizal Day bombings that killed 22 people and injured hundreds more in Manila; the SuperFerry 14 bombing in 2004, leaving 116 people dead; the bombings in a public market in General Santos in December 2004, killing at least 15 people and leaving several others wounded; the indiscriminate fring among civilians that killed 11 people while they were sleeping in February 2010; the Davao City bombings in September 2016, which left 15 dead, and the Marawi Siege, which claimed a total of 1,200 lives; and a van bombing in July of 2018 that killed around ten people (Agence France-Presse, 2019). According to Banlaoi (2008, p. 13), the organization received funding from certain groups in Iran (Hezbollah), Pakistan (Jamaat-Islami and Hizbul-Mujahideen), Afghanistan (Hizb-Islami), Egypt (Al Gamaa-Al-Islamiya), Algeria (Islamic Liberation Front), and Libya (International Harakatul Al-Islamia). Further investigations would affrm ASG’s strong link with al-Qaeda, JI, and more recently Daesh. In Ressa’s account (2012, p. 61), Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-law, helped establish the fnancial network of the ASG in 1988 and is allegedly behind the Benevolence International Foundation (BIF) and International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO). This gives a wider

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context on the extent of ASG’s networks, without which the ASG is arguably nothing but a splinter secessionist group. Aside from this, the ASG is also considered as one of the most profound examples of a terrorist group that is engaged in other forms of criminality. In the span of ten years, the group engaged in 378 terrorist activities in the form of bombings, ambuscades, and raids resulting in the deaths of 288 civilians, and in the same period, a total of 640 kidnap-for-ransom cases were registered with a total of 2,706 victims (Banlaoi, 2008, p. 14). It remains active most especially in the area bordering Indonesia and Malaysia and is mostly involved in sea piracy. In the next section, I present the parallel securitization of the threat of terrorism mostly represented by the ASG in the Philippines.

The securitization of the threat of terrorism in the Philippines As a response to the 9/11 bombings, President Bush vowed to curb ‘terrorism’ worldwide (CNN, 2001). The offcial declaration of GWOT may be traced in his address to the joint session of congress in 2001: Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated . . . We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists . . . From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime . . . This is not, however, just America’s fght. And what is at stake is not just America’s freedom. This is the world’s fght. This is civilization’s fght. This is the fght of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom. (The White House, 2001) This particular declaration mobilized the GWOT. This is the speech act that makes it easier to trace the building blocks of securitization. Here, one fnds the existential threat that is terrorism exemplifed by al-Qaeda, its affliates, and other groups, including nations and regions that espouse and support the same thinking. The ‘othering’ identifes the referent object, the phrase ‘either you are with us or with the terrorists,’ as it divides the world between the civilized allies of the US that have to be protected at all costs from the barbaric other. Mustapha cites Jackson (2005) and Campbell (1998) and associates this construction with the revival of the American national identity and its ‘security project’ (2011, p. 489). The GWOT is being justifed for the sake of preserving freedom and survival. This call for action has been received differently worldwide with its corresponding risks and consequences. In the succeeding sections, I present how this was received and eventually also securitized in the Philippines.

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Arroyo administration 2001–2010 In the Philippines, the GWOT mentality would be received well among the elites. The following pronouncements and responses that followed are indicative of the role of political leaders in the Philippines in terms of becoming conduits of the post-9/11 securitization of the threat of terrorism. President Arroyo was among the frst heads-of-state to extend support in this campaign and on September 26, 2001, she presented the ‘Fourteen Pillars of Policy and Action’ against terrorism found in the Presidential Memorandum Order No. 37 s. 2001 (Aguirre, 2009, p. 52). This guided the initial responses against terrorism. Arroyo was also keen on wedding it to the country’s domestic problems: The President of the Philippines was the frst head of government to emphasize the interconnection between the war against terrorism and the war against poverty. Now, nations large and small now embrace this interconnection . . . We have gained powerful allies in our domestic war against terrorism. I am certain that our increased international visibility will continue generating capital infows for the Philippines. (Arroyo, 2002) The move was signifcant for the revitalization of Philippine-American relations, which had turned sour a decade earlier when the US had to leave its bases in Subic. Around late 2001 and early 2002, the US forces had already been providing military assistance, training, and intelligence to the members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines as part of Operation Enduring Freedom Philippines (Dunigan, Hoffman, Chalk, Nichiporuk, & Deluca, 2012). Around 600 US forces were initially deployed to assist Philippine forces in their fght against the ASG, and after failing to neutralize the threat, US assistance shifted mostly in the form of military and development aid at around $100 million per year (Rogers, 2004, p. 15). The Americans were back again in the Philippines through annual joint military exercises known as Balikatan or Shoulder to Shoulder. Although this was an opportune moment where interests in the fght against international terrorism coincided, Morada (2003, p. 237) warned that it was far from being mutual. In November 2002, the controversial Mutual Logistics Support Agreement was signed giving the US access in Philippine territory for logistical support in its war against international terrorism. Consequently, the following lines present the rationale for justifying actions (i.e., declaring war). According to Arroyo, not responding to these threats would undermine democratic values, the purge of civil liberties and of freedom. At stake in this war is the very life of society, the very possibility of basic rights and liberties, which have been under attack for too long . . . The right to work in peace is as basic as the right to life and liberty, and when both are in danger their preservation by all lawful means becomes not just a higher right but an overriding duty. And that duty I will discharge . . . This is a war we will wage

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Patrick Dave Q. Bugarin on behalf, and with the rage, of all the victims: those whose businesses were ruined by extortion, those held down by poverty in fear, those whose lives were snuffed out by addiction, and those taken hostage and killed. To them, I say: We shall redeem your pain; we shall redeem your loss . . . I endorse to the collective wisdom of Congress, with a great sense of urgency, a new bill that will strengthen our legal armory in this war: The Anti-Terrorism Bill. When passed into law, this bill will plug the loopholes by which crimes spread and democracy is undermined. Congress will also note a reallocation of resources in this year’s budget to enhance the Republic’s crime-fghting capabilities. (Arroyo, 2002)

The use of the term war provides a more serious, if not an extreme, treatment of a security issue that is associated with a military solution. With the use of the term, tougher responses are to be expected. The speech act is deemed necessary to condition perception, to infuence consciousness, to construct a way of thinking that the country is at war and in the case of the Philippines, the absence of a formidable resistance or opposition almost ultimately translates to passive acceptance. The survival of the Filipino society has been used to justify ‘war’ as a response. Parallelisms may be observed from this pronouncement and that of Bush as quoted earlier. Interestingly, it was also used to include domestic issues such as criminality and poverty. In Arroyo’s address in 2003, the ratifcations of UN conventions against terrorism as well as the passing of the Anti-Money Laundering Law were highlighted. These benefted not only anti-terror campaigns but those against other relevant crimes. In 2004, Arroyo controversially won another term and began emphasizing the importance of peacebuilding in Mindanao (Arroyo, 2004). This year marked a decline in the war on terror rhetoric in the succeeding national addresses after suffering from a few setbacks. For example, Angelo de la Cruz was held hostage and Arroyo was forced to withdraw Filipino troops supporting the GWOT. This, however, did not deter the creation of inter-agency organizations that were dedicated to preventing and suppressing acts of terrorism. Around this time, the Anti-Terrorism Task Force (ATTF) was created to formulate and coordinate strategies. The support in the global rhetoric remains, and the country’s operations against terrorism have been continuous, at least on the domestic level. The unintended consequences of supporting the GWOT could hurt the country’s interests abroad. From 2002 to 2004, Navera (2011, pp. 339–340) argues, the Arroyo administration was able to work towards sustaining its hold on power, on the one hand, and show its commitment to the Bush administration-led global war on terror on the other. In 2005, President Bush recognized the contributions of the Philippines in the GWOT since the JI and the ASG’s capabilities were signifcantly degraded around that time (Arroyo, 2005). At the very least, it opened up an avenue to tone down rhetoric that supported violence. In 2006, much focus would be given to the peace process in Mindanao. It was a signifcant shift from belligerence to the adherence to the peace process (Arroyo, 2006). This became more evident in 2007 as Arroyo

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invoked the congress to enact laws to transform the state response to political violence (Arroyo, 2007). This resulted in the Republic Act 9372 or the Human Security Act of 2007 that criminalized terrorism. It is the pinnacle of the construction of the security issue empowering the state with a law to counter terrorism. Terrorism would then be defned as acts ‘sowing and creating a condition of widespread and extraordinary fear and panic among the populace, in order to coerce the government to give in to an unlawful demand’ (RA 9372, 2007). The law replaced the ATTF with the Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC), which took over policy-making functions and conceived of the National Counter-Terrorism Action Group (NACTAG) (Aguirre, 2009, p. 54). During Arroyo’s term, the Philippine National Police’s (PNP) Task Force ‘Sanglahi,’ the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ (AFP) Joint Special Operations Group (JSOG), the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency’s (NICA) Counter-Terrorism Intelligence Center (CTIC), and the mobilization of other related agencies were all made possible by the Philippines’ adherence to the GWOT. These would eventually guide the succeeding administrations. It is possible to have signifcant policy changes and strategies when administrations change. With Barack Obama taking over from Bush and Aquino from Arroyo, they inherited the challenges from the previous administrations. While rhetoric has been toned down on counterterrorism, the employment of extraordinary responses against terrorists remained in place. GWOT still remained to be a signifcant pillar of Philippine-US relations (Arroyo, 2009).

Aquino administration 2010–2016 The Aquino administration focused on the peace process and negotiations with the MILF. This was highlighted in 2010: Our view has not changed when it comes to the situation in Mindanao. We will only achieve lasting peace if all stakeholders engage in an honest dialogue: may they be Moro, Lumad, or Christian . . . We will learn from the mistakes of the past administration that suddenly announced an agreement reached without consultations from all concerned. We are not blind to the fact that it was done with political motivation, and that the interest behind it was not that of the people. (Aquino, 2010) This was hoped to have a signifcant effect among ASG’s support base. In a way, rhetoric against the ASG had been toned down, the group was not quite mentioned among the pronouncements of Aquino and counterterrorism efforts threaded carefully as the government tried to negotiate peace. Aquino focused on the negotiations with the MILF and eventually came up with the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro, which has been crucial to achieving peace in Mindanao. This shows that the prioritization and handling of issues mostly depends on the government. This is not to say that Aquino desecuritized the threat of terrorism; in fact, the administration has been supportive. In 2014, the Aquino

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administration signed the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which is similar to Arroyo’s MLSA and supportive of closer cooperation against terrorism (Febrica, 2017, p. 710). This administration also dealt with the territorial issue regarding the West Philippine Sea which can be seen competing with the issue of terrorism. Since 9/11, the focus was mainly on counterterrorism. Priority was, in a way, shifted to sea disputes. In 2015, Aquino presented the achievements of his administration in the issue of peace and order. The following lines feature the list of apprehended enemies of the state coming from insurgent and terrorist groups: Also in the apprehended list are the notorious Tiamzon couple, Commander Parago, and other cadres of the CPP-NPA-NDF such as Ruben Saluta and Emmanuel Bacarra; there is also the elusive Jovito Palparan, as well as the leaders of the BIFF, namely Basit Usman, Mohammad Ali Tambako, Abdulgani Esmael Pagao, and the international terrorist Marwan. (Aquino III, 2015) The neutralization of Zulkifi Bin Hir (Marwan) was a signifcant milestone. Marwan was one of the US’ most wanted international terrorists with a $5 million bounty because of his involvement in the training of ASG troops and being a bomb builder. However, this was seen as controversial and almost derailed the peace process. The aftermath of the operation claimed the lives of 44 Special Action Forces. They were gunned down by suspected members of the MILF and BIFF. This could have been prevented, but as highlighted during the senate inquiry, lapses on the operation have been exposed. There was a failure to coordinate between the police and the military. For the most part, the operation was kept among superiors who were most likely competing for credit. This is probably the best example of bureaucratic culture that adheres to hierarchies preventing closer cooperation among agencies and breeding unhealthy competition and lack of trust. Nonetheless, this might have also been brought by the GWOT narrative too, considering that motivations to neutralize Marwan come directly from the US. This tells us how the securitization of the GWOT remains to infuence responses as it was institutionalized in practice and is continuously maintained.

Duterte administration and the Marawi invasion President Duterte has been famous for his strongman stance: The administration’s priorities have been geared towards peace and order and the resolution of the country’s drug problem, which featured prominently during Duterte’s campaign. Although this may be the case, the issue of terrorism remained high on his agenda. the full force of the AFP will be applied to crush these criminals who operate under the guise of religious fervor. The AFP shall enhance its capability to search and engage these rogue and lawless elements. (Duterte, 2016)

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Evidently, the military is given primacy as in his speech in 2017. Thus far, one of the greatest challenges the present administration faced was the invasion of Marawi by armed groups sympathetic to Daesh. Duterte’s initial reaction was to declare martial rule and suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus (Proclamation 216, 2017). This was probably the strongest response considering the capital’s sensitivity to martial law in the post-Marcos era. Just like his predecessors, Arroyo and Aquino, all-out war was declared against Daesh sympathizers. While Duterte was initially known for his aversion to the US, he still received US support for his anti-terror campaign. As part of the commitment to end terrorism, the US provided equipment, intelligence by fying drones and surveillance planes, and around $15 million for the displaced and for rehabilitation (Agence France-Presse, 2017). Aside from the US, assistance also came from China and Russia. Duterte’s actions were deemed justifed when the electorate had chosen his cohorts during the mid-term elections that saw a staggering defeat among opposition candidates. This shows the support he has among the majority of Filipinos that allows the securitization of the issue to be sustained. The Philippines offered some sort of legitimacy through statements in support of the US’ unilateral response against terrorism. At the ideational level, the Philippines conferred and maintains its alignment with the US anti-terror agenda. As has been discussed, Arroyo, Aquino, and Duterte adopted heavy-handed approaches in dealing with the ASG. The pronouncements were political exercises that chose to include matters of urgency justifying extraordinary measures. This confation was highlighted by Boyd and Dosch (2010, p. 217) and interestingly fts with Ayoob’s (1986) observations vis-à-vis the understanding of international security among developing countries as a function of intrastate problems (cited in Chong, 2010). Febrica (2017) considers the role of political dynamics in the Philippines on facilitating the GWOT’s securitization. From Arroyo, the mobilization of the threat laid down the foundation of succeeding discourses and future actions of the state. Since the Philippines embedded itself in the coalition against terrorism, it produced the intersubjective understanding of the security issue. Its social construction began until it fnally became institutionalized.

Conclusion In this chapter, I attempted to explain whether the post-9/11 securitization of the threat of terrorism has been instrumental in addressing Islamic terrorism in the Philippines. This chapter began by presenting how the GWOT has been presented as a form of ‘belief,’ an idea that informed responses against ‘terrorism.’ This work utilized the securitization framework and followed the deviation from asking ‘how’ to ‘why’ securitization occurs. Furthermore, to answer ‘why,’ the related question of ‘Whom and what has been benefted?’ by the GWOT mentality guided the analysis section of this chapter. This has been argued to be helpful to expound on non-Western experiences. Although the history of confict and violence in the Philippines predates the ASG, it became the target of the GWOT because of its more profound connection

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with international terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda and Daesh. The presence of this existential threat has been utilized by the administrations of Arroyo, Aquino, and Duterte to mobilize extraordinary responses within the overarching idea of the GWOT. Speech acts from these administrations were eventually translated and maintained into concrete practice. Arroyo fundamentally laid down the foundation for a deeper cooperation with the US, which was legitimated through rhetoric and expanded across measures which were implemented. As presented, the administrations of Aquino and Duterte did not necessarily differ so much in terms of approaching the threat of terrorism. Interestingly, continuity rather than change may be observed. This has benefted the political leaders who received support from the US and was often used to legitimize rule as well. However, this is not immune from producing unintended consequences as in the case of Angelo de la Cruz, the Mamasapano incident, and in a way, fnancing draconian measures. The goal of this chapter is not to oversimplify the understanding of the threat of terrorism and its corresponding responses in the Philippines. Rather, it highlights the ideational dimension of counterterrorism responses in the Philippines. This remains a particularly useful research area that provides an alternative outlook on certain security issues. In a similar and more meaningful way, the securitization framework may be utilized and further improved to account for different security concerns that abound in the Philippines. By following the rhetoric and the success of the securitization, in that something has been put to practice, a shared schema may be observed. There is an intersubjective understanding that exists during the process that is worth noting for the nuancing of the discourses on terrorism in the Southeast Asian region.

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Peleo IV, A. I. (2015). Secure in Insecurity: The Case of Threat Perception/ Acceptance in the Philippines. Cogent Social Sciences, 1(1). doi:10.1080/2331188 6.2015.1060687 Proclamation 216. (2017). Declaring a State of Martial Law and Suspending the Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus in the Whole of Mindanao. Retrieved from Offcial Gazette Website: www.offcialgazette.gov.ph/2017/05/23/ proclamation-no-216-s-2017/ Ramakrishna, K. (2018). The Radicalization of Abu Hamdie: Wider Lessons for the Ongoing Struggle against Violent Extremism in Post-Marawi Mindanao. Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs, 5(2), 1–18. doi:10.1177/2347797018783117 Republic Act 9372. (2007). An Act to Secure the State and Protect Our People from Terrorism. Retrieved from The LAWPHIL Project, Arellano Law Foundation, Philippine Laws and Jurisprudence Databank Website: www.lawphil.net/statutes/ repacts/ra2007/ra_9372_2007.html Ressa, M. (2012). From Bin Laden to Facebook: 10 Days, 10 Years. Mandaluyong, Philippines: Anvil. Rogers, S. (2004). Beyond the Abu Sayyaf: The Lessons of Failure in the Philippines. Foreign Affairs, 83(1), 15. doi:10.2307/20033825 Stanford University. (2015, July 20). Abu Sayyaf Group | Mapping Militant Organizations. Retrieved from http://web.stanford.edu/group/mappingmilitants/cgi-bin/ groups/view/152?highlight=al+qaeda The White House. (2001, November 21). President Declares “Freedom at War with Fear”. Retrieved from https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/ releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html

13 Sexploitative human traffcking in, out of, and beyond the Philippines A liquid problem in a cosmopolar international system Archill Niña Faller-Capistrano Introduction Fluidity characterizes much of the international in the contemporary wave of globalization. Flows of capital, commodities, information, ideas, culture, and people (Castles, 2003) become far-reaching with technological advances in information, communication, and transportation (ICT). Global fows and globalizing processes also tend to impact local developments. This ‘glocalization’ (Bauman, 1998a) may herald a more cosmopolitan world yet contrasts with the ‘solidities’ of a Westphalian international system of nation-states. At the intersection of fuidities and solidities springs the liquefaction of the international in a condition of ‘liquid modernity’ (Bauman, 2012). This liquid phase of modernity is manifested by intensifying mobility of people and the increasing porousness of erstwhile impermeable territorial borders along with concomitant security implications. This chapter pays particular attention to how polarizing dynamics of fuidity between human and other global fows impinge upon security in the context of traffcking in persons (TIP). Its impact on nation-states’ traditional role and capacity to secure borders and people amidst global fows makes it an unorthodox security concern. More important, the centrality of ‘sexploitation’ (Flowers, 2001) or sexual exploitation in TIP makes it a gendered issue. The Global Report on Traffcking in Persons by the United Nations Offce on Drugs and Crime (UNODC, 2018, p. 10) continues to register the highest victim statistics for sex traffcking as against other forms of human traffcking, with women and girls retaining the brunt of victimization, that is, 72% of traffcked persons worldwide. This global scale of ‘feminized’ and age-based victimization to sexploitation deserves attention, particularly in vulnerable regions. Philippine vulnerability to TIP presents a confuence of locational, socioeconomic, political, and international factors. The country’s geographic location in Southeast Asia (SEA), a reputed hotbed of traffcked individuals in the Global South (Jaya, 2018) is, in itself, a trenchant vulnerability. It is deepened by needinduced labor exportation and digital interconnectedness of Filipinos with the rest of the world. Given this context, this discussion departs from the TIP discourse’s pronounced attentiveness to countries of origin of traffcked persons and compliance with systematized anti-traffcking imperatives as against the slack attention

Sexploitative human traffcking 227 given to destination states and exploitative nodes across the globe. Instead, it traces the pervasive, polarizing, and commodifying attributes of globalization by provincializing the concept of liquid modernity in a framework of negative cosmopolitanism: cosmopolarity (Capistrano, 2014–2015). The cosmopolar perspective renders cynosure upon polarities of mobility that commodify and imperil humanity to TIP in the global cosmos. In this frame, TIP is deemed as a ‘liquid’ problem that requires solutions beyond the pale of ‘solid’ state-centric and supply-focused approaches to TIP in general and sexploitative human traffcking in particular.

An inveterate and ‘mul-TIP-lex’ evil TIP in its various forms may seem to be an emerging evil. However, its progenitor can be traced from the convergence of discourses on prostitution and ‘white slavery’ in 19th-century Europe (Samarasinghe, 2008). Consequently, the slave trade has been, and continues to be, its incubator: from transcontinental chattel slavery of the early 14th century (Jaya, 2018, p. 194) to the present-day global slave trade. The epochal distinction is that chattel slavery is predicated on legal ownership of a person by another for permanent enslavement, while TIP, as a contemporary form of slavery, dispenses with ownership in preference of profting from repeated commodifcation of people. As a transnational criminal business, it is composed of a product (victim), a wholesaler (traffcker), a retailer (slave owner/ exploiter), and a ‘consumer’ (Kara, 2009, p. 202). Currently, the corpus of guarantees against TIP is the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Traffcking in Persons (hereinafter, the Protocol) whose recognized ‘guardian’ and global observer is the UNODC (UNODC, 2018, p. 15). The Protocol dissects TIP three-fold: an act, a means, and a purpose (UNODC, 2020). As an act, TIP entails recruiting and transporting persons. As means, it involves coercion, deceit, or exploitation of vulnerability regardless of the victim’s consent. The purposes include traffcking for sex, labor, or removal and sale of organs and recruitment of child soldiers for war, with pornographic sexual exploitation, selling children, forced begging, and forced marriages (UNODC, 2016), and cyber pornography (UNODC, 2018) among recent forms. Other than being polymorphous, TIP is conceptually diverse. As a mobilityinduced phenomenon, it constitutes a migration problem (Asis, 2017). As a crime that spills over national borders, it exemplifes the globalization of crime (Shelley, 2010). Its victimization of persons, especially women and girls, makes it a human rights and gendered issue (Obokata, 2006; Samarasinghe, 2008). More important, its recognized implications on security makes it a ‘non-traditional security challenge’ (Natividad, 2005).

‘TIPping’ away from traditional security Beyond transgressing borders of destination states, locating victimization on traffcked persons is challenging traditional notions of security and has engendered attempts to unhinge the nation-state as the primary locus of security.

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These attempts include the expansion of security-related considerations towards more people-centered analytics as exemplifed by human security. Situated at the intersection between human development and security (UNDP, 1994), human security in the TIP discourse resonates with structural ‘pull’ factors for TIP that include ‘issues of economic deprivation and market downturns, the effects of globalization, attitudes to gender, the demand for prostitutes and situations of confict’ (Cameron & Newman, 2008, p. 21). Thus, the climate of economic need tends to trigger mobility among the fnancially disadvantaged for a chance to acquire wealth (Castles, 2003) only to be rejected by destination states that prefer skilled migrants. Consequently, unwelcome human fows are rendered vulnerable to TIP. This situation prognosticates the eroding capacity of nation-states to guarantee the security of moving populations. Outmigration from countries of origin and border control overheads in countries of destination tend to be economically deleterious to nation-states’ resources (Wheaton, Schauer, & Galli, 2010). Consequently, anti-TIP measures typically criminalize TIP and curb migration as exemplifed by the ‘3Ps and 1R’ strategy (Merry, 2011): 1 2 3 4

prevention of traffcking; protection of victims; prosecution of traffckers; and repatriation of victims.

Alternatively known as the punitive or prosecutorial frame, the criminalization of TIP has become the dominant frame in the TIP discourse and is entrenched in the US Department of State’s annual TIP Reports. Unlike the UNODC’s biennial Global TIP Reports that feature region-focused reporting based on the UN TIP Protocol, the TIP Reports provide a human traffcking profle per country along with tiers that refect countries’ compliance with US anti-traffcking laws (Figure 13.1).1 Entwined with the lowest tier are aid restrictions upon non-compliant countries for the succeeding fscal year. Consequently, this state-established standard has been criticized as a ‘carrot and stick’ strategy to pressure countries to subscribe to the criminalization frame (Guinn, 2008, p. 138) without necessarily ratifying the UN TIP Protocol. For instance, of the Protocol’s 117 signatories worldwide, only the Philippines, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Thailand have ratifed the Protocol from the SEA region. Thus, the TIP Reports impact the policy direction of states that have a stake in US assistance and engender a ‘criminalization bandwagon.’ Anti-TIP criminalization measures have been criticized for their tendency to direct and divert research and policy focus on TIP almost exclusively on the supply-side and marginalize the demand-side (Asis, 2008, p. 191) and other frames and approaches. Yet, the complexity of TIP transcends the nation-state considering how demand for TIP is enabled and sustained by fuid forces across the globe such as international crime rings and the dark web.

Figure 13.1 The Tiers (TIP Report, 2019)

Table 13.11 The ‘criminalization bandwagon’ among SEA countries Country

Year

Title

Philippines

2003 2012

Brunei

2004

Myanmar Indonesia

2005 2007

Malaysia

2007

Cambodia

2008

Thailand

2008

Vietnam

2012

Laos Singapore

2015 2015

R.A. 9208, Anti-Traffcking in Persons Act R.A. 10364, Expanded Anti-Traffcking in Persons Act The Traffcking and Smuggling Persons Orders (Dec. 22) The Anti-Traffcking in Persons The Eradication of the Criminal Act of Traffcking in Persons (Apr. 19) Anti-Traffcking in Persons Act (Jul. 18, by royal assent) The Law on Suppression of Human Traffcking and Sexual Exploitation (Jan. 18) The Anti-Traffcking in Persons Act, B.E. 2441 (Jan. 30) Anti-Human Traffcking Law w/ National Plan of Action on H. Traffcking (2011–2015) Penal Code 134 (revision) Prevention of Human Traffcking Act

1 Information sourced from Rappler, May 26, 2015. Accessed on December 24, 2018, from www.rappler.com/newsbreak/iq/94362-looking-back-ph-frst-anti-traffcking-law-asean

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Table 13.2 SEA countries in UN TIP Protocol (United Nations, n.d.) Country

Signatory1

Ratifed/accession (a)2

Reservations 3

Indonesia Philippines Laos Myanmar Brunei Cambodia Malaysia Thailand Vietnam Singapore

December 12, 2000 December 14, 2000 Did not sign Did not sign Not in list November 11, 2001 Did not sign December 18, 2001 Did not sign Did not sign

September 26, 2003 (a) May 28, 2002 September 26, 2003 (a) March 30, 2004 (a) July 2, 2007 September 28, 2009 February 26, 2009 (a) October 17, 2013 June 8, 2012 (a) September 28, 2015 (a)

Art. 5, par. 2 (c) Art. 5, par. 2 Art. 5, par. 2 Art. 5, par. 2 (c) Art. 5, par. 2 Art. 5, par. 2 Art. 5, par. 2 Art. 5, par. 2

1 Pp. 386–389 of the United Nations Treaty Collection. Accessed on October 6, 2017, from https:// treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=XVIII-12-a&chapter=18 &clang=_en. 2 Pp. 319–323. ibid. 3 Pp. 390–394. ibid.

Liquid modernity in a cosmopolar international system For Bauman (2012), modernity is a conficted bifurcation of solid and liquid phases. The solid phase is characterized by society’s struggle towards rule compliance, order, and stability that have impelled modernization. However, these solidities clash with the defance, change, and disruption that characterize modernity’s liquid phase. Population mobility, fuid identities, border porosity, and eroding sovereignty exemplify these fuidities in the context of the international. Concomitant of this ‘liquefaction’ is the rise of global fuids2 that cover market forces particularly world money, capital fows, technology, and the Internet, on the one hand, versus human fows of ‘tourists and vagabonds’ on the other (Bauman, 1998b). These global fuids either enable or augment capabilities or amplify the vulnerability of nation-states and their people and render overlapping polarities in the global cosmos (Figure 13.2). Intensifed mobility in globalization has greatly enabled both exploitative ‘tourists’ and exploitable ‘vagabonds’ in a global marketplace of commodifed supply and consumerist demand for sex. Transaction points not only include tourist destinations but also cyberspace with infrastructure intended for legitimate tourism co-opted by sex tourism (Barnitz, 1998, p. 15). Pertinently, the affuence and ease of tourist mobility from the demand-side of sex tourism attracts the need-induced vulnerability of vagabond mobility from the supply-side of sexploitative human traffcking. Worse, tourists’ facelessness and impunity in exploiting vagabonds through TIP contrasts markedly with the latter’s more visible mobility as part of irregular human fows. Nevertheless, the intersectionality of tourist capabilities and vagabond vulnerabilities in TIP reveals a liquid problem that is gendered

Sexploitative human traffcking 231

Figure 13.2 The cosmopolar approach to deconstructing mobility in globalization

and goes beyond the rigid solidities of the Westphalian international system of sovereign nation-states. Accordingly, it demands a de-centering of cynosure from nation-states to new players and networks in the international such as the global civil society (GCS).

‘TIP’-top vulnerability of the Philippines Contemporary Filipino mobility tends to be seen as a harbinger of wealth, a mindset that has bred a ‘migration industry’ (Castles, 2003, pp. 15–16) for Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs). This Cinderella Syndrome has afficted the country including the government given their share in the country’s earnings. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has announced that OFW remittances in 2018 are the highest to date. This fgure affrms the country’s status as the world’s third-largest recipient of remittances in dollar terms (McCarthy, 2018, citing the World Bank Migration and Development Brief 29). The treatment of labor as an exportable commodity for the accumulation of hard currency affrms the commodifcation of vagabonds in labor migration with a 60.24% vulnerability rating and an estimated 784,000 Filipinos living in modern slavery per Walk Free Foundation’s 2018 Global Slavery Index. Not only is labor migration commodifed, it is also feminized. Filipina workers fgure prominently in international migration and outnumber men among

232

Archill Niña Faller-Capistrano Table 13.3 OFW Remittances as of 2018 Amount | %

OFW Remittances in 2018

PHP 32.2 B 9.7% 8.1%

BSP-declared Total Share in the Gross Domestic Product Share in the Gross National Income

Source: BSP, 2019

Table 13.4 Philippine government stance on labor migration President

Administration’s highlight vis-à-vis Filipinos overseas

Ferdinand Marcos

Initiated the promotion of (sex) tourism and labor exportation (Guth, 2010; Bonnet, 2017) Recognition of OFWs as bagong bayani or new economic heroes (Encinas-Franco, 2015) Withdrawal from the US-led War on Terror’s ‘Coalition of the Willing’ to save Angelo de la Cruz from terrorist kidnappers in Iraq (Eadie, 2011) Rights protection and welfare promotion of Filipinos overseas declared as the third pillar of Philippine foreign policy (Del Rosario, 2011) Rescue of OFWs in Kuwait that triggered PhilippinesKuwait diplomatic crisis in 2018 (BBC, 2018)

Corazon Aquino Gloria Arroyo Benigno Aquino III Rodrigo Duterte

Table 13.5 Types of traffcking cases from IACAT1 Region

Types of Traffcking

Number of Cases

Entire Philippines Entire Philippines Entire Philippines Total

Labor Traffcking Organ Traffcking Sexual Traffcking

266 54 3,183 3,503

1 The Inter-Agency Council Against Traffcking reveals this data as of January 2019 from its website at http://iacat.gov.ph/types-of-traffcking-cases/.

international hires with domestic work as a top occupation (Asis, 2017). PSA’s 2017 Survey on Overseas Filipinos registers 53.7% female OFWs with more than half of them engaged in elementary occupation at 59%. Thus, with women and children consistently among the top sectors with the highest incidence of poverty (PSA, 2017) it is no wonder that they are also the most vulnerable to traffcking (2019 TIP Report, p. 383). The TIP Reports consistently categorize the Philippines as a country of origin, transit, and destination of traffcked persons with sex and labor traffcking as the

Sexploitative human traffcking 233 Table 13.6 Sexual traffcking by region from IACAT1 Region

Types of Traffcking

Number of Cases

ARMM CAR NCR REGION I REGION II REGION III REGION IV-A REGION IV-B REGION V REGION VI REGION VII REGION VIII REGION IX REGION X REGION XI REGION XII REGION XIII Entire Philippines

Sexual Traffcking Sexual Traffcking Sexual Traffcking Sexual Traffcking Sexual Traffcking Sexual Traffcking Sexual Traffcking Sexual Traffcking Sexual Traffcking Sexual Traffcking Sexual Traffcking Sexual Traffcking Sexual Traffcking Sexual Traffcking Sexual Traffcking Sexual Traffcking Sexual Traffcking Sexual Traffcking

19 35 1,032 104 132 384 250 63 162 81 359 84 159 110 99 32 78 3,183

1 Ibid.

most predominant forms of TIP. The preceding data indicate that 90.86% of the 3,503 documented cases of TIP in the Philippines as of January 2019 is due to sexual traffcking. Prostituted mobility is at the root of Filipinas’ notorious reputation of providing sex for male military presence in the Asia Pacifc since the US military bases’ operations in the Philippines. The War on Terror in 2001 and its concomitant increased deployment of US troops translated into an explosion in female sex traffcking to 600% (Samarasinghe, 2008, pp. 133–134). Indeed, this prostituted mobility of Filipinas has had a long history since the Spanish colonization of the country to the Marcos administration’s promotion of tourism and entertainment that sanctioned the outmigration of Yapayuki-san, Filipinas granted ‘entertainer visas’ to Japan (Bonnet, 2017, p. 51). The sex industry around the US bases in South Korea has also engendered a similar situation for Filipinas (Samarasinghe, 2008, p. 141). Indeed, male demand is at the core of Filipinas’ prostituted mobility. Sexploitative ‘I do’ is another perverse outcome of the Cinderella Syndrome. The allure of submissive, innocent, exotic, and virgin Filipinas that make a man happy in marriage has made the Philippines an export hub of mail order brides (MOBs). Although not all MOBs become traffcking victims, Filipinas, upon travel to the US on a ‘fancée visa,’ have fallen prey to exploitative demands of ‘consumer husbands’ for fear of marriage cancellation and deportation (Samarasinghe,

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2008, p. 149). In 2013, the Commission on Filipinos Overseas rescued 29 MOBs en route to South Korea on fake promises of instant wealth through marriage. Despite expanded legal protection (see Table 13.7), marriage brokering continues to be a feminized issue affecting more Filipino women (Asis, 2017). Technologized sexploitation constitutes another danger to Filipinos given the country’s ascent to the global top spot in Internet and social media use based on Digital 2019, a report from Hootsuite and We Are Social (pp. 40, 77). This level of digital engagement by 76 million Filipinos (p. 70 of Digital 2019) renders digital vagabonds vulnerable to TIP online. Combined with a low age of consent at 12 years,3 poverty, ease of Internet access, English language capability, tolerance of sex work, ubiquitous money transfer systems, and dysfunctional families that exploit their children (Batha, 2016), Filipinos’ ‘gadgetized consumerism’ is enabling online sexual exploitation of children (OSEC). Pertinently, UNICEF (2017a) identifed the Philippines as a top global source of child pornography and a ‘hub for the live-stream sexual abuse trade’ with eight out of every ten Filipino children at risk of online sexual abuse or bullying. UNICEF (2017b, p. 77) also affrms the cosmopolar concentration of demand for sex at the Global North with almost all identifed OSEC URLs being hosted in Canada, France, the Netherlands, the Russian Federation, and the United States. Meanwhile, paid sex providers now broker virtual or actual sex via social media and can disband or reactivate a closed or secret Facebook group or dating website whenever so desired (Plan International, 2017). The fuid operational dynamics of ‘cyberpimps’ epitomize the capacity of global fuids to disengage and reengage at will. Impregnation for money via international commercial gestational surrogacy (ICGS) is arguably an emergent species of technologized sexploitative TIP. Unlike traditional surrogacy that makes the surrogate both the child’s genetic and gestational mother, this ‘womb for rent’ arrangement entails transferring by in-vitro fertilization (IVF) into a surrogate’s uterus, a fertilized ovum that is not her own to engender a mere gestational motherhood (Caamano, 2016). The issue is polarizing the international and legal community between the view that parenthood by infertile and/or same-sex couples is a human right as against considerations

Table 13.7 Pertinent protective legislations in the Philippines Republic Act 6955 8353 9710 9775 10906 10175

Short title Anti-Mail Order Bride Act of 1990 (repealed by R.A. 10906) Anti-Rape Law of 1997 Magna Carta of Women Anti-Child Pornography Act of 2009 Anti-Mail Order Spouse Law (includes males and online acts) Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012

Sexploitative human traffcking 235 of bioethics, reproductive exploitation, and commodifcation of motherhood. This is because of lax regulation in the Global South where surrogate mothers are sought as against demand from the Global North where ICGS is generally illegal (Chamie & Mirkin, 2014). In the Philippines, the manifestations of ICGS as a new form of traffcking are gradually unfolding. In January 2017, Philippine offcials intercepted four women en route to Phnom Penh and allegedly ‘promised about US$10,000 ($13,800) to be impregnated with the sperm of would-be fathers from Australia, Germany, China and Nigeria’ at Manila’s international airport (Murdoch, 2017). However, an attempt to prohibit surrogate motherhood via Senate Bill no. 2344 of the 13th Congress was unsuccessful.

Defant but compliant The year 2016 saw the ascent of the Philippines to Tier 1 status in the US State Department’s TIP Reports for the frst time, followed by the ascent of Rodrigo Duterte as the 16th president of the republic. These developments have unfolded paradoxical implications on Philippine international relations (IR) concerning

Laos

Malaysia

Myanmar

Philippines

Singapore

Thailand

Vietnam

2W 2W 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2W

Indonesia

2

Cambodia

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Brunei

Year

Table 13.8 SEA countries in the US State Department TIP Reports

2 3 2 2 3 2W 2W 2 2 2 2 2 2W 2W 2W 2 2 2 2W

3 3 2 2 2 2W 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

2 2 2 2W 2 3 2 2 2 2W 2 2 2 2W 2W 2W 2W 3 2W

3 2 2 2 2 2W 2W 2W 2W 2W 2W 2W 2W 3 2W 2W 2 2W 2W

3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2W 2W 2W 2W 3 2W 3 3

2 2 2 2W 2W 2 2 2 2W 2W 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1

2 2

2 2 2 2W 2 2 2 2 2 2W 2W 2W 2W 3 3 2W 2W 2 2

2 2 2 2W 2 2 2 2 2 2W 2W 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2W

2 2 1 2 2 2 2W 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

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TIP. For one, the Philippines stood out among the rest of its SEA neighbors in terms of rankings. For another, President Duterte’s open defance to the US following human rights criticism of his anti-crime and narcotics offensive has been viewed as a setback in the Philippine-US bilateral relations (Cruz de Castro, 2016, pp. 149– 150). Thus, a Duterte-led Philippines that maintains its Tier 1 status in the TIP Reports for four consecutive years draws attention to the worldview upon which TIP is framed. As earlier pointed out, the TIP Reports constitute a diplomatic tool of compellence for countries to adhere to punitive anti-trafficking standards under the US TVPA of 2000 and TVPRA of 2003. Accordingly, key indicators in the TIP Reports are terms such as prosecution, conviction, and other words of similar import that outnumber words on assistance to, or care of, trafficking victims. Thus, when the Philippines reported no convictions of traffickers in 2005 and only four individual convictions with none for labor trafficking in 2009, the country plunged to Tier 2 Watch List status (2W). Contemporaneously, however, TIP-related convictions are steadily increasing in the Philippines. For a country whose justice system has been associated with delay, an improved conviction rate may indicate better administration of justice. Thus, defant though he may be of the international community’s broadsides on his ruthless crimebusting, President Duterte and his iron-fsted anti-crime reputation is in step with the punitive approach to TIP. Table 13.9 Convictions per year as of January 2019 from IACAT1 Year

No. of Convictions

No. of Persons Convicted

2005 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Grand Total

7 3 5 10 17 23 26 26 58 54 45 58 107 4 443

6 4 4 11 15 30 32 35 61 51 55 54 79 4 441

1 Accessed on March 10, 2019, from http://iacat.gov.ph/convictions/.

Sexploitative human traffcking 237

From the demand pole to framing TIP alternatively The centrality of quantifying convictions in tier assessments has been criticized in view of government complicity to TIP crime rings, a proximate factor4 for TIP victimization. Pertinently, the 2019 TIP Report5 continues to recognize the Philippine defcit in prosecuting offcials involved in TIP notwithstanding the country’s Tier 1 status. Meanwhile, this pervasiveness of the punitive frame upholds the nation-state’s privileged position in IR. Moreover, studies on sex tourism and traffcking have been criticized for skewed attention to countries of origin even when the exploitative impetus is ultimately sourced from countries of destination (Merry, 2011). Although the TIP Reports commenced requiring countries to report demand reduction efforts since 2006, addressing demand does not seem to hold much sway in the tier assessments. The 2019 TIP Report reveals that only 10 out of the 33 Tier 1 countries have reported demand reduction efforts without stating the specifc measures. Meanwhile, most country narratives reveal either no report of, or minimal to no compliance with, demand reduction. Global civil society (GCS) groups offer alternative ways of addressing TIP as a liquid problem. As the public sphere’s organized third sector of political association and action that is neither encompassed by the state nor the economy, the GCS usually includes non-governmental organizations (NGOs), particularly those having global reach (Castells, 2008, p. 78). Despite their typically nonproft nature and resource constraints, GCS groups’ capacities in addressing the fuid nature of TIP include their links with communities and in networking and infuencing states to take particular policy directions, a strategy known as the ‘boomerang pattern of infuence’ (Keck & Sikkink, 1998). For instance, ECPAT6 has been recognized for successfully lobbying for the US PROTECT Act that curbs male demand for child sexual services (Barnitz, 1998). Meanwhile, local NGO counterparts such as the CLB7 in Cebu, have initiated the critical initial steps in upholding the rights and welfare of child victims of sex traffcking. GCS networks and collaborative work match law enforcement and punitive measures with aftercare sensitivity for the victims (Capistrano, 2014–2015). This degree of sensitivity contrasts with the punitive approach whose state-centric border protectionism tends to be detrimental to traffcking victims across porous borders (Barnitz, 1998; Pearce, 2011). Indeed, the The victim protection frame directs attention upon TIP victims and makes a case for customized treatment according to their needs. Consequently, proper identifcation of victims is essential for eligibility to needs-specifc treatment. Unfortunately, this focal shift has encountered challenges in data collection with victims widely considered as ‘hidden populations’ (UNODC, 2018). Moreover, post-victim identifcation requires specialized and sustained treatment efforts that involve well-trained practitioners and facilities that tend to be resource-intensive (Pearce, 2011). Government support for OSEC victims is among the key recommendations of the 2019 TIP Report.8 Then again, the victim-centered approach’s focus still gravitates towards the supply side of the TIP equation considering the geographic origins of most TIP victims.

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The human rights frame situates the impetus for TIP on discrimination that intensifes vulnerability and drives demand for sexual services (Todres, 2010). Accordingly, in the face of sexploitative traffcking, borders are increasingly seen to be attached to individuals instead of locations such that policing borders now entails policing bodies. In this context, traffcking is seen as a form of violence upon women’s capacity and the right to cross borders (Pickering, 2011, p. 93). Meanwhile, human rights violations committed upon women and children within and by the family as demonstrated by OSEC is somewhat invisible in the international law discourse. Accordingly, international human rights law recognizes individuals as the holders of rights while nation-states are duty-bound to uphold these rights, unlike mainstream international law, which categorizes nation-states as its subjects and human persons as mere objects (Obokata, 2006). Women’s global entrenchment in elementary occupations and children sexually peddled for the beneft of the family underscore their commodifcation in a cosmopolar and liquid modern world. It demonstrates how an increasingly consumerist society enables consumption by individuals that recalibrate themselves as ‘products’ capable of marketing themselves. Accordingly, persons contemporaneously become marketers of commodities and the commodities that they market (Bauman, 2007). These identities are polarized, yet entwined, in the glocal cosmos of the sex market. Meanwhile, the perceived complicity of families and governments in this reality highlights the state’s inaction and encourages a market for family-based human rights violations.

Evolving solutions in an adapting public sphere The availability of alternative lenses in viewing the problem of TIP calls for a sustained de-marginalization of fuid solutions and actors beyond the nation-state and state-centric ‘solid’ measures against sexploitative human traffcking. Prominent fuid solutions include online sting operations, initiatives towards ‘informed mobility,’ and the coordinated involvement of the ‘fve pillars of justice.’ In 2013, a ten-year-old virtual Filipina developed by Terre des Hommes, a GCS based in the Netherlands, exposed over a thousand offenders in just two months. This innovation affrms the value of GCS groups in helping address the liquid problem of TIP. Informed by the dynamics of the virtual sex market, it weaponized the vulnerability of Filipino children against the sexual appetites that drive the demand for sex online without exposing would-be victims as bait. However, prevailing due process imperatives of lawful acquisition of evidence for admissibility in courts presents an issue of the propriety of GCS-initiated intrusive surveillance and its evidentiary merit (Crawford, 2013). Nevertheless, the juxtaposition of the complex reality of evolving crimes against established, if not archaic, legal principles exposes gaps in most criminal justice systems that need to be addressed to ensure the rights of both the accused and the victims. Moreover, the prevalence of ‘network criminality’ that includes infltration of government bureaucracies resulting in offcials’ complicity in TIP and perpetrators’ impunity proffers a collaboration challenge upon exclusivist claims to law enforcement.

Sexploitative human traffcking 239 Coordinative and multi-pronged approaches to TIP are increasingly becoming the norm in law enforcement. GCS dynamics in the Philippines emphasize the need to actively engage with the fve pillars of the criminal justice system – that is, law enforcement, prosecution, courts, corrections, and community. Of particular signifcance is linking access to justice and economic development with the community in humanizing the administration of justice as emphasized in the UNDP-supported study of the fve pillars for 2010–2016 in the Philippines (Mejia et al., 2011). Meanwhile, the creation of the Philippine Internet Crimes Against Children Center (PICACC) on February 27, 2019, heralds the further maturation of fuid law enforcement collaboration. Envisaged to be the SEA region’s ‘center of excellence’ in dealing with OSEC, this inter-agency hub9 fortifes law enforcement capacity without heavy reliance on victim testimony (British Embassy Manila, 2019). Meanwhile, Grab, Asia’s taxi and ride-hailing titan, has pioneered an app-based anti-traffcking training for its drivers in Cambodia and the Philippines. Cognizant that taxi drivers tend to be the frst point of contact for traffckers and victims alike at airports or bus terminals, Grab partnered with anti-TIP group Liberty Shared for this initiative (Yi, 2019). Indeed, in acknowledging the complexity of TIP, PICACC and Grab’s initiatives depart from a solid state-centric approach to a more ‘viscose,’ if not liquid, combat strategy against OSEC and TIP. They suggest how mobility-induced vulnerability transmutes to enlightened mobility that complements freedom of movement and work by non-state actors. They are becoming more attuned to the realities of TIP as a liquid problem in a cosmopolar international system.

Conclusion This chapter has presented human traffcking or TIP not only as an inveterate evil whose complexity fows from linked capabilities and vulnerabilities of human fows with market fows and those that exploit them within, outside, and beyond nation-states. Its fuid character necessitates further expansion of understandings of security given the dominance of state-centric and punitive approaches in the discourse. Accordingly, as a liquid problem, sexploitative human traffcking emanates from global fuids circulating in a global sex marketplace. Though polarized – that is, affuent sex tourists from the Global North as against fnancially challenged vagabonds from the Global South – global fuids meet at the junction of sex consumption and consumerism where vagabonds are traffcked as recyclable proft-generating commodities to supply tourists’ demand for sex. In this climate of commodifcation, Philippine vulnerability to TIP is not only situated in its geographic position in the SEA region but is chiefy driven by consumerist aspirations and the commodifed mobility of its people. Commodifcation is also gendered: from prostituted mobility to sexploitative intermarriages, to gadgetized consumerism resulting in technologized sexploitations that victimize Filipino women and children. The state of TIP in IR is predominantly associated with the US State Department’s TIP Reports and the UNODC’s Global Report on TIP. As a diplomatic

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instrument to engage other countries on traffcking, the TIP Reports’ placement of the Philippines at Tier 1 for four years since 2016 may seem paradoxical at a time when the country is under a president whose foreign policy pronouncements appear to be straining Philippine-US relations. Then again, President Duterte’s defant anti-crime stance and the rising trajectory of convictions and prosecutions of TIP-related offenses in the country are compliant with TIP’s prosecutorial frame. The entrenched punitive worldview of TIP despite defcits in victim protection and demand reduction has engendered discontents. TIP-related policies need to clarify and concretize measures to tip the demand pole that fuels human traffcking. As an alternative, the victim-centered approach to TIP offers a needssensitive treatment of TIP victims given their traumata. However, its resourceintensiveness post-delicto and leaning towards the supply side of the global sex marketplace reveals a need for a more proactive approach. This is asserted by the human rights approach that focuses on counterweighing TIP vulnerabilities by rendering duty-bearing governments from the Global North accountable for sex demand to rights-bearing human fows from the Global South. Indeed, the frames in viewing TIP have much bearing on anti-TIP measures (Simmons & Lloyd, 2010). Accordingly, GCS groups are playing an active role in humanizing the combat against TIP. Finally, emergent collaborative, multi-agency anti-TIP arrangements in the public sphere are generating ‘viscose,’ if not fuid, solutions to the liquid problem of sexploitative human traffcking in, out of, and beyond the Philippines and similarly vulnerable entities in a cosmopolar international system.

Notes 1 These include the Traffcking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000 and the Traffcking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) of 2003, which added the requirement for countries to provide data on criminal enforcement. 2 These include world money, automobility, global media, digitized information, the Internet, social movements, traveling peoples, and international terrorism (Urry, 2002). 3 Based on R.A. 8353, the Anti-Rape Law of 1997. 4 Proximate factors include “lax national and international legal regimes, poor law enforcement, corruption, organized criminal entrepreneurship and weak education campaigns” (Cameron & Newman, 2008, p. 21) as substantiated by the following: • Traffcking of girls from the Philippines to Malaysia reveals the involvement of Chinese syndicates and a Malaysian offcial’s denial of the issue. (Saat, 2009) • Organized crime groups such as the Yakuza and the Triads have infltrated the Philippine government and collude with offcials to facilitate and consummate TIP. (Guth, 2010) • Integral in the transport process of traffcking victims are bribery and extortion of border guards, customs, consular and diplomatic personnel. (Shelley, 2010) 5 See p. 381 of the 2019 TIP Report.

Sexploitative human traffcking 241 6 ECPAT stands for End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography, and Traffcking of Children for Sexual Purposes. 7 CLB stands for Children’s Legal Bureau. 8 P. 380 of the 2019 TIP Report. 9 PICACC is comprised of the following: a) b) c) d) e)

Women and Children’s Protection Center, National Bureau of Investigation – Anti-Human Traffcking Division, Australian Federal Police, UK National Crime Agency, and International Justice Mission.

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Sexploitative human traffcking 243 Murdoch, L. (2017). Philippine Police Arrest Surrogate Mothers-to-Be in Human Traffcking Crackdown. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved January 16, 2018, from www.smh.com.au/world/philippine-police-arrest-surrogate-motherstobe-inhuman-traffcking-crackdown-20170103-gtli45.html Natividad, I. S. (2005). Traffcking in Women as a Non-Traditional Security Challenge: Philippine Cases and Responses. In M. Curley & N. Thomas (Eds.), The China-ASEAN Project Occasional Paper Series (No. 9). Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies and The University of Hong Kong. Obokata, T. (2006). Traffcking of Human Beings from a Human Rights Perspective: Towards a Holistic Approach. In International Studies in Human Rights (Vol. 89). Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Pearce, J. J. (2011). Working with Traffcked Children and Young People: Complexities in Practice. British Journal of Social Work, 41(8), 1424–1441. Philippine Statistics Authority. (2017). Farmers, Fishermen and Children Posted the Highest Poverty Incidence among Basic Sectors: PSA. Retrieved January 16, 2018, from https://psa.gov.ph/poverty-press-releases/nid/120251 Pickering, S. (2011). Women, Borders, and Violence: Current Issues in Asylum, Forced Migration and Traffcking. New York: Springer. Plan International. (2017). Children and the Sex Trade in the Digital Age: A Study on the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Metro Manila. Psychosocial Support and Children’s Rights Resource Center. Manila: The Girls Advocacy Alliance. Saat, G. (2009). Human Traffcking from the Philippines to Malaysia: The Impact of Urbanism. South Asian Survey, 16(1), 137–148. Samarasinghe, V. (2008). Female Sex Traffcking in Asia: The Resilience of Patriarchy in a Changing World. New York: Taylor & Francis. Shelley, L. I. (2010). Human Traffcking: A Global Perspective. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Simmons, B., & Lloyd, P. (2010). Subjective Frames and Rational Choice: Transnational Crime and the Case of Human Traffcking. Retrieved from http://government.arts.cornell.edu/assets/psac/fa10/Simmons_PSAC_Sep10.pdf Todres, J. (2010). A Human Rights Approach to Preventing Child Sex Traffcking. In G. Craig (Ed.), Child Slavery Now: A Contemporary Reader. Bristol: Polity Press. UNDP. (1994). Human Development Report 1994. New York: Oxford University Press. UNICEF. (2017a, December 12). Make the Digital World Safer for Children: While Increasing Online Access to Beneft the Most Disadvantaged. Retrieved January 10, 2019, from UNICEF: www.unicef.org/philippines/press-releases/unicef-makedigital-world-safer-children-while-increasing-online-access-beneft-most UNICEF. (2017b). The State of the World’s Children 2017: Children in a Digital World. Retrieved January 16, 2019, from United Nations Children’s Fund: www. unicef.org/publications/fles/SOWC_2017_ENG_WEB.pdf United Nations. (n.d.). Chapter XVIII Penal Matters: 12. a Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Traffcking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. Retrieved October 6, 2017, from United Nations Treaty Collection: https://treaties.un.org/pages/ ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=XVIII-12-a&chapter=18&clang=_en UNODC. (2016). Global Report on Traffcking in Persons 2016. Retrieved January 10, 2017, from UNODC: www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/ glotip/2016_Global_Report_on_Traffcking_in_Persons.pdf

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UNODC. (2018). Global Report on Traffcking in Persons 2018. Retrieved February 15, 2019, from UNODC: www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/glotip/2018/GLOTiP_2018_BOOK_web_small.pdf UNODC. (2020). Human Traffcking. Retrieved January 25, 2020, from UNODC: www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-traffcking/what-is-human-traffcking.html Urry, J. (2002). The Global Complexities of September 11th. Theory, Culture and Society, 19(4), 57–69. U.S. Department of State. (2019). Traffcking in Persons Report. Retrieved August 8, 2019, from U.S. Department of State: www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/ Walk Free Foundation. (2018). Country Data: Philippines. Retrieved December 15, 2019, from The Global Slavery Index: www.globalslaveryindex.org/2018/data/ country-data/philippines/ We are Social & Hootsuite. (2019). Digital 2019: Essential Insights into How People around the World Use the Internet, Mobile Devices, Social Media, and E-Commerce. Retrieved August 15, 2019, from https://p.widencdn.net/kqy7ii/ Digital2019-Report-en Wheaton, E. M., Schauer, E. J., & Galli, T. V. (2010). Economics of Human Traffcking. International Migration, 48(4), 114–141. Yi, B. L. (2019, March 11). Asia Ride-Hailing Giant Trains Drivers to Fight Human Traffcking. Retrieved March 13, 2019, from Reuters: www.reuters.com/ article/us-asia-trafficking-transportation/asia-ride-hailing-giant-trains-driversto-fght-human-traffcking-idUSKBN1QS1E1

Conclusion Small statism and the non-issue of IR in the Philippines Amador IV Peleo

Introduction This paper re-examines the presumed absence of any signifcant contribution to international relations (IR) theory that is attributable to Southeast Asia and the Philippines. The use of IR concepts was introduced to Southeast Asian societies by non-Southeast Asians whose interests in the region did not necessarily match the material culture and normative beliefs of the peoples they encountered. But IR as a conceptual import has not had a harmonizing effect on IR scholarship in Southeast Asia and continues to be a minor feld of study in the Philippines. In particular, the analyses of cross-border interactions in the region that are based on extant IR concepts have been grounds for the widening debate on the preponderance of non-Southeast Asian ideas in the research projects of writers who are not based in the US or Europe. This chapter proposes that the project to formulate a distinctly Southeast Asian or Philippine IR theory as either an academic analogue for the ‘ASEAN Way’ of inter-governmental interaction or a conceptual hybrid that could be attributable to ‘schools’ of IR within the jurisdictions of Southeast Asian states may exceed the scope of IR and policy studies in their current form. This is because such a project confates the normativity of theory on the conduct of social scientifc investigation with the ideological normativity that state authorities expect to have over their constituencies. Without foregoing the need of the politically privileged to remain operable in their political geography, the project to thematize IR in Southeast Asia may be most effective if focused on patterns of cross-border inter-affectivity within the region in which non-Southeast Asian actors also participate. Although likely regarded as ‘pre-theory’ or ‘metatheory’ information, the dynamics of cases such as state corruption and infuence-peddling already have a normative effect on Southeast Asian societies regardless of the ability or willingness of the members of these societies to think of their experiences in terms of IR theories. Cases where the unoffcial conditions ‘on the ground’ have a normative cross-border infuence parallel to that of offcial state functions in the region indicate that IR scholarship on Southeast Asia would do well to shift its explanatory project away from the reifcation of the system of sovereign states. In its place would be the examination of the link between power asymmetries on the national and international levels, particularly in regard to how these asymmetries

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contribute to the persistent self-defnition of Filipinos and Southeast Asians as belonging to ‘small states’ and ‘weak states.’

Pre-theory, metatheory, and the nationalization of IR theory The conceptual problem derives from the uncertainty about how to manage the ‘quiet international importance’ (Stratfor Secretariat, 2014) of Southeast Asia. The term derives from the location of Southeast Asian societies in an area where great-power states have sought military and economic access as well as political and cultural infuence but have not consolidated total hegemonic control. The confdent rhetoric associated with the 2015 ASEAN community program (ASEAN Secretariat, 2015, p. 13) seems to imply that Southeast Asians are not, or are no longer, ambivalent about the importance of their governments, economies, and cultures to their region and the world. However, the existential condition in Southeast Asian societies does not appear to be underpinned by an unambiguous notion of ‘Southeast Asianness,’ which could counter claims that regional incoherence remains as a strong tendency in Southeast Asia (Dent, 2010) or that, paradoxically, non-normativity is the only normative feature of Southeast Asian regionalism (ADB Secretariat, 2015). The features traditionally ascribed to the developing societies of Southeast Asia – comparatively low wages and a high growth rate for large populations – now appear to be conjoined to comparatively high GDP growth rate and low production costs. This combination may be regarded as an advantage for international manufacturing and trade and has been the basis for the claim that the ‘workshop of the world’ term may eventually refer to Southeast Asia as well as China (Ho, 2015). This is not likely to be a burden-sharing arrangement, however, as improved economic performance in the Asia Pacifc has become linked to the upgrading and expansion of military, and thereby geostrategic, capabilities in the region, most signifcantly by China (The Economist, 2016). As the militaries in Southeast Asia are primarily concerned with internal security roles as well as socio-civic functions (Martinez, 2015, p. 7), Southeast Asian responses to shifts in military power in the Asia-Pacifc are likely to be muted by consideration of costs (Ribar, 2015) as well as for foreign inducements to deescalate military activities in general (Heiduk, 2014, p. 10). And as to whether the ‘ASEAN Way’ of ‘patient consensus building’ (Severino, 2001, p. 2) between state offcials who regard ‘loose’ regional integration as a natural consequence of the constant re-assertion of the sovereign right of ‘noninterference’ (Ewing-Chow & Tan, 2013, pp. 4–5) may be a form of ‘soft power’ remains disputable. Doubtless, ‘ASEAN Way’-values such as informality, non-confrontational behavior, and noninterference are regarded by Southeast Asian offcials as crucial to the attainment of ‘the end goal of ASEAN, (which) is globalization, not just regional integration’ (ACCA Secretariat, 2016). Nonetheless, the accommodating behavior of offcials from Southeast Asian states in confict resolution or other diplomacy-related environments may still be interpreted as the result of ‘structural’ limits of societies that are prone to political, economic, and social turbulence

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(Masilamani & Peterson, 2014) rather than as indicative of a viable template for regionalism for the Asia-Pacifc or elsewhere (Langhammer, 2016). An alternative approach to the conceptual ambivalence of Southeast Asia in IR theory is what Alan Chong terms as the default ‘Atlanticist’ framing of the international relations in the region. ‘Modernization has both categorized Southeast Asia’s international relations and crowded out original non-Western international theorizing of Southeast Asia’ (Chong, 2010, p. 117). This narrow claim is in alignment with a broader argument that the ‘parsimonious’ theorizing in IR is essentially a reduction of diverse societies to a few similarities that helps to actualize the epistemological and political goals of analysts based in ‘Western’ European and American states (Acharya & Buzan, 2010, p. 4). Chong attributes the failure of academic and political authorities in Southeast Asia to appreciate the ‘primordial nature’ (Chong, 2010, p. 120) of relations in their own societies to the modernist project of Western colonizers that transformed ‘swathes of pre-colonial territories into imagined communities’ (Chong, 2010, p. 118). Although the thoroughness of colonization and post-colonial Westernization in Southeast Asia does not appear to have resulted in the ‘discipline’ necessary for the widespread adoption of ‘scientifc’ modes of economic and socio-political behavior, authorities in Southeast Asia still defer to ‘Western categories of systems analysis’(Chong, 2010, p. 124) for guidance in policy-making and governance. This neglect of the indigenous, non-modernized and non-Westernized knowledge systems has caused the lack of distinctiveness in the practical and conceptual international relations of Southeast Asian societies. Analysts appear content to focus on ‘research for problem-solving purposes’ (Chong, 2010, p. 129) or ‘small picture’ indigenous studies (Chong, 2010, pp. 134–135) that qualify as IR scholarship presumably because such projects ultimately incorporate concepts of the universally valid IR in its current form. Even the ASEAN organization appears viable only because it is an Eastern analogue to the Western ‘Haas-Schmitter model of neofunctional integration characterized by the then-European Economic Community’ (Chong, 2010, p. 133). To gain clarity and originality in their practical and conceptual IR, Chong recommends that Southeast Asians engage in pre-theoretical analysis of indigenous ‘international relations based upon lateral contests for non-territorial loyalties’ with the goal to justify the ‘control of people rather than territory’ (Chong, 2010, p. 141). Only by ‘attempting the universalization of local concepts and practices’ will IR scholars in (or concerned with) Southeast Asia ‘serve the cause of democratizing the discipline of IR’ (Chong, 2010, pp. 141–142) and thereby gain epistemological parity with their Western counterparts. The goal to include the discourse of Southeast Asians in the canon of IR theory would appear to be achieved through the promotion of global discussions on issues that are predominant in the theorizing of non-Westerners. These include dependency theory, post-colonialism, the North-South divide (Acharya & Buzan, 2010, pp. 15–16), the epistemological and methodological differences in theoryrelated research (Qin, 2010, p. 27; Chun, 2010, p. 86) particularly in regard to the dominance of positivist knowledge-claims (Inogouchi, 2010, pp. 51–52),

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and the marginalization by Western-trained academics of knowledge-claims that are derived from non-Western ethno-cultural or religious histories (Behera, 2010, p. 95; Sebastian & Lanti, 2010, p. 152; Tadjbakhsh, 2010, pp. 176–177). Chong argues that an indigenous Southeast Asian IR theory could be derived from a primordial politics of ‘power and prestige’ amongst the ruling classes that was documented in the 15th-century Sejarah Melayu (Chong, 2006, pp. 3, 6, 19–20). His ‘Singapore lesson’ for other Southeast Asians is that ‘strategic statist mentalities appear compatible with objectives of extracting maximum beneft from borderless capitalism’ (Chong, 2007, p. 955). Although ostensibly referring to state-level economic management, the ‘lesson’ distinctly appears as a re-framing of the ‘power and prestige’ IR concept in present-day corporatist terms (Chong, 2007, pp. 958, 961, 972). The common theme in these claims is that the conceptual import of IR theory ultimately rests on the combination of several pretheoretical or metatheoretical factors: attributability or authorship, intelligibility, and subject matter or quality of evidence. All theories are based on epistemological and ontological assumptions, but the diffculty posed by Chong’s argument is that it obliges IR theorists to regard the pre-theoretical or metatheoretical features of their work as conceptual faws rather than explanatory limits. The argument could be taken as implying that any IR project by or about Southeast Asians may be regarded as inauthentic or intellectually suspect if it does not contain open criticism of the Western IR orthodoxy. Ironically, Chong, a Singapore-based academic, has himself written on how the superior ‘Singapore model of development’ was regarded by Singaporeans as an effective ideological hedge against ‘Western sermonizing on political liberalism’ (Chong, 2004, p. 104) but was regarded as a form of unwelcome ‘soft power’ infuence by citizens of other ‘misgoverned’ states in the Asia-Pacifc (Chong, 2004, pp. 114–117). There are two further reasons for caution when dealing with the theorymetatheory distinction. First, although pre-theorizing was intended as a means by which the ‘raw materials’ of theory relevant information are made ‘comparable and ready for theorizing’ (Rosenau, 2006, p. 171), the process by which ‘an explicit conception of where causation is located in international affairs’ (Rosenau, 2006, p. 172) is to be standardized has not become practical. The process of pre-theorizing, as frst described by James Rosenau in 1966, does not appear to be very different from an extended description of concepts and categories upon which research projects are based (Rosenau, 2006, pp. 172–176). Although he would later claim that ‘the essential thrust of pre-theory involved estimating the relative “potency” of the different types of variables for any country’ (Rosenau, 2006, p. 200), he also argued that ‘much about the way the world works can be explained without resort to foreign policy explanations’ (Rosenau, 2006, p. 202). Essentially, Rosenau, the originator of the pre-theory concept, does not confer any epistemological superiority or authenticity on the knowledge derived from pre-theorizing and admits that his own pre-theoretical typology, like any theoretical typology, ‘must be largely arbitrary’ (Rosenau, 2006, p. 193). Steve Smith has written at length about the conceptual and practical diffculties associated with the global

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applicability of a methodological pre-theory approach and of a notional general theory of foreign policy behavior (Smith, 1981, p. 123). But the most direct criticism of pre-theorizing came from Rosenau himself. At the core of the Pre-Theory’s failure was a static conception of authority structures, both within and between societies . . . it treated the world as frozen into a structure comprised of nation-states which had governments that interacted through an activity called foreign policy. (Rosenau, 1981, p. 251) When applied to the notion that a normative Southeast Asian IR ultimately rests on a fundamental ontology of Southeast Asians, this criticism of pre-theory exposes a controversy that is reminiscent of the ‘Asian Values’ debate of the mid-1990s. That is, any claim concerning (Southeast Asian) homogeneity always occurs in an environment where the claimant gains normative authority over those who acquiesce to the claim. The attractiveness of a normative Southeast Asian ‘school’ of IR or of a notional Southeast Asian-ness is understandable as a diversion from the potential for political, economic, and environmental volatility within and across the borders of the states in Southeast Asia. But to argue for the primacy of statist ideology as a pre-theoretical resolver of trans-border issues in Southeast Asia only highlights the ongoing struggle of the politically privileged in Southeast Asia to gain soft power from, or even uphold, the sovereignty and legitimacy of their governments. Persons in Southeast Asia already engage in observable and theorizable international relations regardless of whether or not these relations, or the patterns in which these relations occur, are defned as distinctly Southeast Asian by government or academic authorities in Southeast Asia or elsewhere.

Storm in a cup: unsettled Southeast Asian regionalism A second consideration is an analogue of the ‘thick signifer’ problem associated with the ‘region’ concept in Southeast Asia. Developed by Jef Huysmans to refer to the concept of ‘security’ (Huysmans, 1998, p. 232), a thick signifer is a self-referential concept that, although appearing to correspond to an external, material reality, actually functions as an ideational reference to which reality is to be moulded. The idea of Southeast Asian regionalism has been in the technocratic orthodoxy since the founding of the SEATO in 1955 (Buszynski, 1981, pp. 287–289). The creation of the ASEAN in 1967 broadened the engagement of the member states beyond security-related cooperation and linked the formation of the regional order with the goal to ensure ‘economic and social stability and security from external interference in any form or manifestation’ (ASEAN Secretariat, 2016). The ‘constructive engagement’ of intergovernmental interactions conducted under the ASEAN framework, the latest iteration of which is the ASEAN Community project, collectively constitute an ostensible reference for the ‘ASEAN Way’ by which the collective is defned (Masilamani & Peterson,

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2014). These intergovernmental interactions have been variously interpreted as a particular set of procedural norms (Nischalke, 2000, p. 90) formed in response to historically specifc circumstances, an ambiguous sense of solidarity amongst the politically privileged in Southeast Asian states (Katsumata, 2003, p. 111), or part of an intentional plan to enmesh powerful states in Asia into a structure of linguistic-diplomatic commitments without the use of military or economic sanctions (Tamaki, 2006, pp. 25–27). The national technocracies of Southeast Asia cohere under the conditions of either the spill-over effects of neo-functionalist cooperation (McGowan, 2007, p. 5) or the close coordination of intergovernmental operations (Bale, 2005, pp. 47, 51). But this cohesion is not an assurance that regionalism in this case refers to much more than bureaucratic compatibility. Closer regional integration has been predicted to highlight the structural weaknesses of governance and diplomacy in Southeast Asia, which have been linked to problems such as the diminution of nationalist infuence, the neglect of social welfare, the worsening of socio-economic inequality, and the continued treatment of Southeast Asia as a source of cheap resources (IBON International Secretariat, 2015, pp. 9–13). Conversely, the benefcence of the ASEAN Community regionalization is premised on the complete acquiescence of all Southeast Asians to the program (AEC Connect Secretariat, 2016) that has been described as ‘more political than economic’ (Rappler Secretariat, 2012). This condition wherein Southeast Asian regionalism has become linked to practical ambiguities notwithstanding ostensible political certainty is at the core of what Taku Tamaki refers to as an ASEAN epistemic fallacy: ‘explanation of the concept through the use of international norms confating its mode of representation with its ontology’ (Tamaki, 2006, p. 10). A region may be referred to as either created, persistent, or transforming but not as all three categories simultaneously. Amongst Southeast Asians, this ambiguity is refected in the ‘association up, dissociation down’ trend in their attitude towards the region. That is, ‘wherever one’s own nation falls in terms of socioeconomic status, one associates “up” with countries more affuent and dissociates “down” vis-à-vis less affuent nations’ (Thompson & Thianthai, 2008, p. 24). A regionalist identity and freer movement within the region represent political progress, but the informality, consensus, and nonintervention core of the ASEAN ideology is largely irrelevant to Southeast Asians who prefer the statist ‘self-help’ doctrine and expect to beneft from extant asymmetries of power and wealth. An alternative approach to account for the IR signifcance of Southeast Asia is to examine the interests that are already being fulflled in Southeast Asia despite the debate on whether ASEAN offcials might eventually reconfgure their societies into a homogenous political, economic, and cultural entity. Because the term ‘Southeast Asia’ was, and still is, indicative of operable interests that originated in the industrial societies of North America and Western Europe (Fifeld, 1976, pp. 151–152), it becomes possible to acknowledge that Southeast Asia is already a signifcant IR construct prior to, or even distinct from, any formulation of ‘Southeast Asian-ness’ from within the ASEAN member states. Crucially, this approach allows for the acknowledgment of the basic lesson in IR: all attempts

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at internationalism and international organization are affected by the pursuit of power and the attempts at the universalization of ideals (Carr, 1945, p. 38). This admission need not necessarily be taken as an uncritical acceptance of epistemic hegemony, considering the large volume of academic and intergovernmental work into the creation and assertion of a hegemony-free ASEAN identity (Narine, 2009, pp. 85–87). Nonetheless, even if there is an ‘interrelatedness of industrialization, change in forms of state, change in ideas, and change in world order’ (Cox & Sinclair, 1996, p. 27), there is no assurance that the conditions conducive to the development of a different political identity will be beyond the control of the current holders of political privilege (Cox R., 1996, pp. 31–32). Although ASEAN has been described as a political system that has been penetrated by powerful non-Southeast Asians (Rosenau, 2006, p. 183) or a collection of small states (Hey, 2003, p. 5) at the periphery of great power politics, its contribution to IR is not solely in the operationalization of functionalist cooperation in a particular geographic setting. Southeast Asia is distinguished by a form of IR in which ‘post-colonial elites and regimes (that) have often been attributed to the colonial experience’ (Case, 2018, p. 225) play pivotal roles. This is particularly evident in the adoption by these elites of non-Southeast Asian inputs in order to retain material power and ideational infuence in their respective political geographies.

The Filipino and the international Thus, if a Filipino framing of IR is to be found, it will be in the analysis of the processes through which international links are formed with Filipinos other than those in political offce, big business, and the religious establishment. But the path of ‘democratizing the international’ would eventually encounter the conceptual fork described by Robert Cox from which problem-solving and critical theory diverge (Cox, 1981, pp. 128–129). By proposing ‘a coherent picture of an alternative order,’ proponents of this new conceptual tool are likely to reveal their constrained ‘comprehension of historical processes’ (Cox R., 1981, p. 130). A re-framing of IR from a Philippine perspective, or a reassessment of Filipinos’ participation in cross-border activities, may be useful as a means to draw attention to such issues as ‘third-worldism,’ post-colonialism, neo-colonialism, underdevelopment, and other international imbalances-of-power that the Philippines has faced since its independence in 1946. However, this re-shaping of a nationalist agenda in the mould of IR theory would also obliquely affrm certain aspects of the international power status quo, particularly since alignment with gain-seeking foreign powers has been an effective tactic even for recognition-seeking scholars. The chapters in this volume demonstrate the diffculty of the task, described by Jeanne A. K. Hey, to ‘capture the essence of small state foreign policy behaviour’ when given a list of ‘numerous and sometimes contradictory behaviours’ (Hey, 2003, p. 6), presumably of internationally aspirational Filipinos. More directly, the subtext of this volume is that the authors have laboured to resolve a doublelayered problem. That is, although each chapter must present a compelling case for a distinct, if not defnitive, account of Filipinos’ engagement with the

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‘international,’ each of the chapters also represents the struggle of the authors to avoid ‘foreign’ analytical categories that would dilute the novelty of their work. One approach was to delimit original Philippine concepts from those that were merely incidental to the penetration of the Philippines by foreign and exploitative interests. For Alan Chong, Jose Rizal is the ultimate anti-imperialist iconoclast, whose life and works may be a template for a truly nationalist foreign policy for the Philippine state. Not only was Rizal able to re-package his affuent Chinese mestizo identity to allow him to disassociate himself from the oppressive Spanish colonizers and to present himself as a paragon of the progressive ‘Filipino’ to the indigenous Philippine indios, but also, his widely publicized Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo novels were written in a style that was useful both for motivating Philippine nationalist provocateurs and for gaining support from non-Philippine believers in a revolutionary Enlightenment. Chong also describes what appears to be Rizal’s ambivalence about linking the promotion of nationalist fervor with violent retaliation against violent and unjust foreign imperialists. In contrast, Erickson Calata, writing on historian Renato Constantino, emphasized a link between the horrifc Philippine-American War and the subsequent ‘benevolent’ American colonization of the Philippines, on the one hand, and the education of Filipinos who would eventually staff a pro-American government, on the other. This carrot-and-stick indoctrination was so effective that it created a ‘false history’ narrative of the Philippines that Filipinos continued to believe even after the Philippine-American commonwealth ceased to exist at the end of the Second World War. Constantino sought to advance a ‘true’ history of Filipinos and a nationalist system of education to subvert the ‘benevolent assimilation’ doctrine and thereby clearly demarcate the independent Philippines from its colonial past. Conversely, Ricardo Roy A. Lopez showed that the demarcation of the epistemic Philippines can also be in the assertion of defnitive values that are, in this case, essential to the interaction amongst the Philippine elite. The point is not so much that pagdamay (care for others) or palakasan (power beyond the rule of law) are unique to the Philippines but rather that Filipino offcials invoke these norms as justifcation for behavior that would be regarded as objectionable from a functionalist perspective. Adonis Alumbre, in his account of the attempts by Filipinos to conceptualize their ‘foreign relations’ with the peoples of other countries, emphasizes that Filipinos consider themselves as ethnically, linguistically, and therefore existentially distinct from foreigners and therefore as deserving of recognition and preferential relations. This emphasis on distinctiveness, however, also conveys a sense of resignation that ‘foreign relations’ are inherently unfair. To express their distinctiveness to foreigners, Filipinos seem obliged not only to gain functional knowledge of the local and foreign ‘vernacular’ but also to accept that arguments for ‘democratic’ parity amongst peoples are not likely to dissuade powerful Filipinos and foreigners to surrender their prerogatives. Another approach was to demonstrate that authoritative behavior in the Philippines indicate Filipino alignment with other states and societies. Rather than originality, the key concept would be the distinctive Filipino support of what they perceive as widely accepted, or even universal, values and norms. The Roman

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Catholic clergy was described by Brian Doce as a collective of technocrats and social mobilizers who are capable of threatening government offcials into compliance with its sectarian interpretations of public policy. Working perhaps with the assumption that the Spanish colonization of the Philippines would have been impossible without the support of the Catholic clergy, he may have chosen to emphasize its persistent infuence in the post-colonial period rather than interpret this infuence as interference by the Vatican in the governance of another state. The effectiveness of morality and religious doctrine as tools for exerting political pressure on Filipinos is widely known. What is not generally told to, or about, religious Filipinos is that all mainstream religions in the Philippines have their doctrinal and, in many cases, administrative and funding centers elsewhere in the world. This theme of the Philippine religious as belonging to a universal, benevolent, and unassailable moral police recurs in the work of John Raymond Jison and Yvan Ysmael Yonaha on the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP). The NCCP claimed a theological basis for its opposition to the American military bases in the Philippines. But the social acceptability of doctrine-based subversion that is based on a non-Philippine theology is not problematized, notwithstanding a ‘separation of church and state’ principle in the current Philippine constitution. The importance of socio-cultural solidarity as a key determinant of international relations is likewise detectable in the work of Florencia Rubio on Philippine relations with Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. She contrasts the relative insignifcance of the economic and political links between the Philippines and these countries with the expectation that a shared religious and cultural heritage may yet be the basis for the improvement of relations. A third approach was to assess the foreign infuences that caused policy responses or other social adjustments in the Philippines. Aliya Peleo traced the origins of the seemingly interminable Philippine land reform to a program introduced by American colonists who wanted to appear concerned with the wellbeing of tenant farmers but who were also intent on gaining the support of the landlords and also possibly beneftting from the ‘patronage’ norm in their new colony. The input-dependent ‘Green Revolution’ introduced during the Cold War appeared to offer technical means to raise the productivity of small farms and thereby the proftability of small-scale farmers. However, the high costs of these inputs kept the agricultural economy fully within the control of the wealthy landlord-technocrats, who were predominant in the Philippine government and determined the direction of Philippine foreign policy. The function of social elites as benefciaries and conduits of foreign infuence was apparent even during the pre-colonial period, as described by John Harvey Gamas in the case of the Rajahnate of Butuan. In the 11th century, the Rajah sought inclusion to the tributary system of imperial China in order to have access to goods that enhanced his prestige and reinforced his status amongst his subjects. This may have been perceived as a means to reduce the threat and risks associated with sea-faring and slave-raiding, which were widespread activities at the time. Patrick Bugarin, writing on the social construction of war and terrorism, described how the alignment of the Philippine government with the American Global War on Terror (GWOT)

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not only elevated the status of the insurgencies from local subversion to terrorist threats but also demonstrated that counterterrorism rhetoric as a convenient means to initiate international cooperation. Counterterrorism remains as a pillar of Philippines-US relations even if, ironically, insurgent groups that use antiAmerican propaganda continue their operations to the present day. Archill Niña Faller-Capistrano emphasizes that problems such as sexploitation and human traffcking require relations that are closer and more functional than inter-state cooperation to resolve. This is because the transportation and communication links developed through these links have become overlaid by such ‘liquid’ problems that the presumably ‘solid’ legal protocols are not able to adequately resolve, to the detriment particularly of Philippine women.

The non-issue of Philippine IR The troika ‘defance, alignment, and adaptation’ may be a succinct summary of Filipino responses to forces beyond their national borders. But it is less of an indicator of a Philippine perspective on international affairs in general, and rather more of an admission that Filipinos are largely beholden to forces that are beyond their ability to infuence. This powerlessness is not unique to the Philippines. However, a case may be made for the peculiar ability of Philippine government offcials to use foreign resources as props for regime survival and personal enrichment whilst appearing to promote the interests of the Filipino people. Although it may not qualify as a positive contribution to IR scholarship, such a case builds upon what sociology and political science researchers have known for decades. That is, whether or not foreigners approve of Philippine patronage politics, their operations in the Philippine state will eventually be channelled to the support of one or the other patron-politician. Recent events may suffce to show that, in the Philippines, the appropriate slogan is not so much ‘the personal is political’ but rather ‘the international is personal.’ At a press conference on April 11, 2016, candidate Rodrigo Duterte delivered his infamous ‘jet ski’ remark to defy the Chinese claim over territories in the South China Sea. He also made a pledge that he may have hoped would resolve issues of foreign policy, infrastructure development, and electoral approval when he became the 16th president of the Philippines. To clarify his position on the territorial dispute between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea, Duterte claimed that the Chinese would only need to ‘build me a train around Mindanao, build me a train from Manila to Bicol . . . build me a train [going to] Batangas, for the six years that I’ll be president, I’ll shut up’ (ABS-CBN News, 2016). He timed this remark just ahead of further comments on the inability of the Philippine military to win a war against China and on his ambition to be perceived as a hero or martyr by marginalized Filipinos. He was subsequently praised as a ‘geopolitical realist’ whose ‘pragmatic streak is most evident in his foreign policy outlook’ (Heydarian, 2016) and as a politician who sees the value of a ‘pro-dialogue position’ despite being ‘mercurial and inexperienced in foreign relations and therefore somewhat unpredictable’ (Valencia, 2016).

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The foreign policy-development agenda link soon appeared to become knotted with local politicking. Allegations were made by Department of Transportation Assistant Secretary Mark Tolentino in May 2018 that ‘higher-ups’ in the Duterte cabinet insisted that the Mindanao rail project be funded entirely by loans from China despite initial plans for the frst phase of the project to be partially funded by local sources, chiefy from an allocation in the 2018 Philippine national budget (Rey, 2018a). The claims were almost immediately denied by Department of Transportation Undersecretary for Railways Timothy John Batan, who also condemned Tolentino for holding an unauthorized press conference (Rey, 2018b), and Tolentino was swiftly removed from offce by Duterte, who disapproved of his supposed dealing with one of Duterte’s sisters (Ranada, 2018). By October 10, the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA), the government agency responsible for overseeing the railroad project, had not received any confrmation on the status of the funding for the project (Sarmiento, 2018). On October 18, Adrian Tamayo, public relations head of MinDA, appeared to confrm the information released earlier by Tolentino. At the Davao Business Forum, he said that the 126 billion peso cost of the initial Tagum-Davao-Digos (TDD) section of the Mindanao Railway System (MRS) would be partially funded by the Department of Transportation and the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) of the Philippine government (Banzon, 2018). By December 11, the feasibility study for the MRS of the Department of Transportation was still withheld from the public ‘on the basis of the confdentiality of the project’s ongoing bidding process’ (Ateneo Policy Center, 2018). However, on December 30, Department of Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade stated not only that ‘the plan really is that the funding is from China’ for the TDD but also that ‘bidding documents for the project have already been made, but actual bidding has been delayed due to changes he introduced: the railway project is now being envisioned to be a two-track, electric, and standard train system, instead of a previously single-track system with diesel trains’ (Mercurio, 2018). For all of the opacity and confusion surrounding the project, two key facts belie the pragmatism with which the MRS was framed. First, interest rates for Chinese ODA-funded projects in the Philippines range from 2% to 3% per annum, compared to only 0.25% to 0.75% for Japanese ODA-funded projects. Second, 50% of the procurements for projects funded by ODA coursed through the Export-Import Bank of China will be provided by Chinese contractors and will almost certainly be more expensive than procurements by Philippine contractors (Oplas, 2018). Inevitably, Duterte would eventually claim, ‘when I said I would go to China on a jet ski, that’s nonsense. . . . It’s just talk. I’m surprised you believed it’ (Morallo, 2018). He would also claim that sorting the China-funded development projects, as well as ‘the most urgent issues for Filipinos . . . wages, infation, and poverty,’ is ‘best left to the clever guys in his cabinet’ (Lema, 2018). These remarks appear to indicate a belief in the notion that the survival of the Philippine ‘small state’ depends on the ability of shrewd leaders to extract economic aid and other dispensations from more powerful states that, like China, are able to exercise prerogatives that deprive other states of theirs. Duterte has emphasized that an

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armed confict with China over South China Sea territories ‘will be a massacre’ of Philippine troops, because the Chinese ‘have money, . . . have weapons that we can’t compare ours with if we ever go to war, . . . (and) I would lose all of my police and soldiers in just one day’ (Romero, 2019). Conversely, his other comments on the idea of an unwinnable war, such as ‘the [Filipino] people will execute me right at the Luneta [park, in Manila],’ and ‘either I am inviting trouble within my country or the military and police will oust me’ (Placido, 2018), indicate his belief that the survival of his regime is indistinguishable from the well-being of the Philippine state. He appeared to have declared this openly at least once. At a press conference after the Boao Forum in Hainan on April 8–11, 2018, Duterte implied that he received the full support of China for both the Philippines and his incumbency. ‘The assurances of [Chinese president] Xi Jinping were very encouraging . . . we will not allow you [Duterte] to be taken out from your offce, and we will not allow the Philippines to go to the dogs’ (Esmaquel, Duterte says China’s Xi vowed to protect him from ouster, 2018). Apparently, he prevailed upon Xi’s ‘ego’ by remaining ‘meek and humble’ and thereby gained ‘something basic like mercy’ from the Chinese government (Esmaquel, Duterte: ‘Remain meek, humble’ to get ‘mercy’ of China’s Xi, 2018). This assurance of Chinese protection has been suspected by Philippine senator Francis Pangilinan as a key support for Duterte’s ‘iron-clad grip on power,’ which had been defned by his populist-authoritarian style of governance, and the violent anti-drug campaign that has killed thousands in the Philippines (Batino & Calonzo, 2018). But Duterte was frst to formally accuse his critics of ‘treason’ in his endorsement of a lawsuit against Senator Antonio Trillanes IV and former president Benigno Aquino III fled on May 6, 2018, on the grounds that both created conditions for the Chinese to commit ‘aggression by occupying the country’s territories, an act tantamount to waging a war’ (Lacorte, 2016). The lawsuit was dismissed by the offce of the ombudsman on June 18, 2018, as there was no ‘probable cause for treason and espionage, and there was no evidence to prove that there was conspiracy between Aquino and Trillanes’ (Senate of the Philippines, 17th Congress, 2017). But this was not before Duterte questioned the impartiality of the ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales and of the ombudsman’s offce that had been investigating claims that he and his family sought to illegally conceal their substantial wealth (Esmaquel, 2017). Morales, who retired on July 26, 2018, delivered, on November 24, 2018, a thinly veiled condemnation of Duterte’s ‘treason’ of refusing to enforce the ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in the Hague, which favored the Philippines over China in regard to territorial claims in the South China Sea (Buan, 2018). Another treason accusation was levelled against Duterte by Jose Mara Sison, founder of the outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines, on November 24, 2018, after a memorandum of understanding between the Philippines and China on ‘oil and gas development,’ presumably in the disputed South China Sea territories, was made available to the public (Golez, 2018). Salvador Panelo, spokesperson for Duterte, was dismissive of the accusation and vaguely described the memorandum as ‘just an agreement to agree’ (Placido, No ‘treason’ in PH-China deal – Palace,

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2018). Duterte appears to be of the opinion that involvement in the illegal drugs trade, rather than alignment with Chinese interests, constitutes ‘high treason’ (Aurelio, 2018). However, he strongly opposed proposals to look into allegations that his son, Paolo, received ‘grease money’ bribes from suspected drug traffckers and claimed that the allegations were merely ‘black propaganda’ from Trillanes and other critics (Gutierrez, 2019). The implication of Philippine presidents and other offcials of the national government in schemes that involved foreign interests and funds is a recurring theme in Philippine international relations. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was described as having effectively used ‘her presidential powers and executive privileges that shielded her Cabinet and military offcers from congressional investigations’ to survive such scandals (Inquirer Research, 2018). Two of the most notable were the Northrail and NBN-ZTE controversies. The planned 80-km US$503 million Northrail train project in 2003, which was to be funded by Chinese aid, was cancelled in 2012 because of the anomalies related to the award of the project to Chinese contractors (Calica, 2012). In particular, the contractor China National Machinery and Engineering Group (CNMEG) was, in 2011, paid US$210.489 million for ‘accomplished work’ that was worth only US$81.474 million (Rappler, 2013). The US$ 329.5 million Philippine National Broadband Network (NBN) project in August 2007, which was to be awarded to ZTE Corp. of China, was cancelled in September 2007 following a widely followed congressional inquiry, during which allegations emerged that Macapagal-Arroyo’s husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, interfered on behalf of ZTE by telling rival contractors to ‘back off’ the project (GMA News Online, 2009). Prior to his presidency, Joseph Estrada was alleged to have received funding from Dante Tan, owner of the little-known World Gaming and Entertainment Corporation (BWGE), whose BW Resources company received licenses in December 1998 to operate online gambling franchises through an endorsement of Estrada after he became president in June 1998. The endorsement was also linked to a loan of 600 million Philippine pesos (US$ 15.5 million) from the Philippine National Bank to BW and BWGE (del Monte, 2016). Soon after Chinese gambling tycoon Stanley Ho was elected chairman and director of BW, the price of BW stock at the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) spiked from 0.80 pesos (US$0.0166) in October 1998 to 145.00 pesos (US$3.01) in October 1999, an increase of about 18.025%. An investigation into the irregularity found Tan and other BW staff guilty of insider trading and stock manipulation of BW (Jonas, 2017). State prosecutors also discovered that Estrada was a shareholder of BW and received testimony that he was ‘involved in the manipulation of the stock market at the time’ (Porcalla, 2001). Fidel Ramos was implicated in a scandal involving the Italian-Thai Development Corporation Ltd.–Amari Coastal Bay Resources Corp., which would have bought reclaimed real estate at the Manila Bay for 1.8 billion pesos (Coronel & Tordesillas, 1998) but was halted by the Philippine Supreme Court on grounds of unconstitutionality (Calica, SC rules with fnality PEA-Amari deal is null and void, 2003). And perhaps the most famous case in recent history was the massive embezzlement by Ferdinand Marcos and his family worth at least US$ 10 billion, regarding which

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the governments of the US, Japan, and the UK refused to disclose information because Marcos’s ‘political infuence was too big to beat’ (Davies, 2016).

Conclusion This critical analysis of IR-related subject matter regarding the Philippines emphasizes that the derivation of new knowledge from cases is epistemologically prior to the categorization of this knowledge into convenient ‘isms,’ including those of IR that allow considerable multi-disciplinal or post-disciplinal latitude. The examination of cases such these from the Philippines likewise indicate the inadequacy of parsimonious theorizing. What becomes of ‘international anarchy’ if IR can be shown as largely determined by what Alfred McCoy terms as ‘an anarchy of families’ (McCoy, 2009)? Where are the narratives of the technocrats who, although schooled in the values of liberal ‘international society,’ were compelled to operate in societies whose members believe that the illiberal bossism, warlordism, and political dynasties (Sidel, 1999) are defnitive of their socio-political systems? If, in the course of communicative action, a space is created for the expletive-laden discourse of ‘Janus-faced nationalism’ (Teehankee, 2016, p. 88), then the notion of ‘emancipation’ becomes associated with accumulation of resources necessary for the aggrieved to prevail in their ‘fght to be heard.’ The Philippine social construct, like the ASEAN regional order to which it is aligned, conceals a range of socio-political and economic diffculties beneath the offcial doctrine of consensus, non-intervention, and inter-governmental informality. IR in this environment is not unlikely to be regarded as the reserve of the elite even by internationallymobile Filipinos, whose troubles are not resolved by alignment with the powerful, sympathy for the reformists, adulation for the famous, or even their own personal engagement with the intimidating international. If indeed ‘the prospects of counter-hegemony lie very largely in the future development of state structures in the Third World’ (Cox, 1981, p. 151), then Philippine counter-hegemonists should expect to be very busy for a very long time.

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Index

1987 Constitution of the Philippines 91 Abu Sayyaf Group 212, 214 Acharya, Amitav 4, 86, 88, 117 Agamben, G. 125, 126 Agpalo, Remigio 68, 82, 86, 89, 91 agrarian reforms 8, 123–125, 133–136 Agricultural Land Reform Code 133–134 Agusan 23, 25, 27; Agusan Valley 27 Alatas, S.F. 112, 117 al-Qaeda 211, 215–216, 222 Ambangan 23 American colonialism 59, 102 American exceptionalism 127 Americanization 61 American governmentality 126, 128 American hegemony 57 American relations 54, 60, 61, 212, 217 American Revolution 53 anarchy 18, 30, 148, 186, 258 Anderson, Benedict 34, 47, 91 Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC) 219 Anti-Terrorism Task Force (ATTF) 218 anti-traffcking 226, 228–229, 236, 239 anti-West 155–156 Aquino, Benigno C. III 92, 94, 135– 136, 150, 152, 188, 196, 201, 204, 206, 212, 214, 219–222, 232, 256 Arab Spring 156 Araling Kabanwahan 8, 102–105, 112–118 archaeology 22 Area Studies 104, 113 Armed Forces of the Philippines 254, 256 Arroyo, Gloria Macapagal 136, 150, 212, 214, 217–219, 221–222, 232, 257 ASEAN 9, 74–76, 80, 152, 167–168, 172, 184, 214, 245–247, 249–251, 258

Asian Center 67, 153–154, 156 Asian Forum of Parliamentarians for Population and Development (AFPPD) 200 Asia Pacifc Social Science Review 3, 68, 71 assimilation 52, 62, 148–150, 252 asymmetric relations 162, 164 Ateneo de Manila University 71, 203 autonomy 41, 130, 163–164 Ayoob, Mohammed 79–80 Bagong Kasaysayan 102–103, 112 balance pragmatism 155 balangay 25, 26 Balikatan 62, 217 Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) 212 banwa 104 Barangay Libertad 22, 23, 25 Basilan 28, 215 Basilio 44, 46 Battle of Manila Bay 150 Bauman, Zygmunt 226, 230, 238 Bayanihan 90 beeswax 23 Bell Trade Act 62 Benedictine 203, 205 benevolence 52, 58 bilateral agreements 162, 170 bilateral relations 94, 149–150, 152, 161, 165–166, 236 biological metaphors 124 biopolitics 123–124, 126, 135 biopower 125, 132 black people 50 Bonifacio, Andres 107–108, 113 Borras, S. 135 Brazil 75–76, 146, 161–162, 164, 166–168, 170–175, 253

Index Brunei 22–23, 153, 229–230, 235 Bugbung Humansanun 22, 29 Butuanon 16, 22–23, 28 Buzan, Barry 3, 7, 15, 30, 66, 88, 117, 181, 211, 214, 222, 247 Cabesang Tales 44–45 Calamba 45 California Packing Company 129 camphor 21, 23 capitalism 4, 51, 248 Capitan General 42, 44–46 Carlos Maria de la Torre 38 Catholic Bishops 199–200, 206 Catholic Church 127, 200, 205 Catholicism 37, 42, 204–205 Cavite Arsenal 38 CBCP 199, 200 Cebu 27–28, 237 CEDAW 196–197, 200 ceramics 24 Cham 19, 25 Champa 19, 21, 24 Chatterjee, P. 2, 67 child pornography 234 Chile 161–162, 164, 166–175, 253 Chong, Alan 4, 15, 17, 247, 252 Christianity 2, 185, 187, 189, 191, 199, 205 Cinderella Syndrome 231, 233 civet musk oil 23 civil society organizations 94 clergy 37, 204–205, 253 cloves 21 Colambu 25 coloniality 53 coloniality of power 53 colonial legacies 35, 149 colonial matrices of power 53 colonial mentality 53, 55, 57–60, 63, 184 colonial projects 51, 62 colonial psyche 50, 58, 60, 63 colonization 25, 34, 50–53, 55, 57–58, 60–61, 63, 108, 149, 233, 247, 252–253 Combes, Francisco 28 commodifcation 227, 231, 235, 238–239 Commonwealth 90–91, 108, 130, 252 communist countries 151 communist insurgents 132–134 complementarity 166, 172 Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) 135–136 concordances 70

265

consciousness 40, 55, 60, 105, 115, 218 Constantino, Renato 8, 53–54, 252 constructivism 1, 3, 180–182 Contemplacion, Flor 95 contrapuntal readings 81 copper ore 172 corpus 8, 71, 76–77, 80, 103, 115, 117, 227 corruption 201, 245 cosmopolar international system 226, 230, 239–240 cosmopolarity 227 Cox, Robert 251 ‘Crazy African’ 50 criminalization bandwagon 228–229 criminalization frame 228 criminal justice 238–239 criollos 57 critical theory 251 crude oil 156, 168 cultural hegemony 147–148, 156 cultural imperialism 52, 59 cultural relations 76 curriculum 154 cyberspace 230 Daesh 211–212, 214–215, 221–222 darker side of modernity 53 Datu Ali Dimaporo 93 Datu Sumanga 22, 29 Daulah Islamiya Wilyatul Mashriq (DIWM) 212 Davao City 95, 215 Davao Death Squad 94 decoloniality 53, 63 decolonization 53, 55, 67, 102, 149 De La Salle University 71, 203 Del Monte Philippines 129, 134 delicadeza 90–92, 96–97 de Lima, Leila 94 Demafelis, Joanna 96 demand for sex 230, 234, 238–239 demand pole 237, 240 democracy 56, 59, 73, 88, 134, 150, 152, 155, 197, 218 dendritic system 24 Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) 36, 91, 95–96, 150, 153 dependency 163, 166, 169, 174, 213–214, 247 destination states 227–228 developing countries 9, 59, 82, 124, 131, 145, 163, 221 development diplomacy 165–166

266

Index

development model 136, 162, 164–167, 169 diaspora diplomacy 95 Digong 93 diplomatic approach 156 diplomatic relations 94, 146, 162 discretionary powers 92 distorted information 154 divorce 195–196, 200–202 Dole Philippines 134 domestic factors 164, 173 domestic politics 35, 88, 191 Doña Victorina 40 Doongan 23 drug-traffcking 94 dynasty 2, 17, 19, 24, 28 economic development 67–68, 74, 95, 162, 166, 179, 239 economic diplomacy 152, 165, 169 El Filibusterismo 35, 39, 252 elites 5, 6, 9, 60, 92, 125, 127–128, 131, 149, 151, 163, 217, 251, 253 encomiendas 36–37, 42 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) 62, 220 enlightenment 37, 41, 51, 149, 252 epistemic communities 71, 198 epistemology 5, 53, 69, 202 Esperanza 25 essentialism 16, 81 Eurocentric 6, 9, 53, 148 Eurocentrism 5, 16 European Union 75, 94, 163 exceptionalism 16, 117, 127 existential threat 214, 216, 222 export-led growth 163 extrajudicial killings 93–94 extraordinary measures 212, 221 Fanon, Franz 50, 57, 59, 63 feminist theology 203 feminized 226, 231, 234 Filipinization 38, 60, 108 Filipino experts 157 First World War 102, 124 Five Dynasties 24 fuidity 21, 27, 226 foreign agenda 161, 166, 172 foreign policy orientation 157, 162, 167 Foreign Service Institute (FSI) 153, 170 Foucault, Michel 123, 125 Freemasons 40

friar lands 127–128 Fujian 27 GABRIELA 200, 206 gadgetized consumerism 234, 239 Garcia, Carlos P. 132 Garuda 25 Garvan, John M. 27 gatekeeping 66, 71 Gaud, William 130, 133 gendered 72, 226–227, 230, 239 geopolitics 108, 116, 124, 153 gestational motherhood 234 ghost projects 92 global civil society 231, 237 global cosmos 227, 230 global fuids 230, 234, 239 global international relations 87 globalization 71, 73, 77, 102, 138, 163, 191, 206, 226–228, 230–231, 246 Global North 53, 234–235, 239–240 global power 6, 145, 149 global resurgence of religion 195 Global South 3, 6, 41, 53, 66, 68, 115–116, 145, 148, 173, 226, 235, 239–240 Global War on Terror (GWOT) 9, 211, 213, 215, 217–219, 221, 253 glocal 238 Golden Tara 25 graduated sovereignty 91 great power(s) 79, 108, 113, 145–146, 157, 163, 174, 246, 251 Greek poleis 15 Green Revolution 130–135, 253 Greg Hontiveros 16 Guardia Civil 39, 43, 46 Hall, Kenneth 29 Henry Scott, William 19 hierarchy 17–18, 21, 30, 50, 59, 129, 148, 200 high-level offcial visits 171–172 historical writing 54–55, 57, 61–63 historiography 15–16, 30, 54, 57–58, 62–63, 81, 102–103, 112 homo œconomicus 125 House of Representatives 92, 94, 201, 204, 206 House Speaker 92 Huk 132–133 Hukbong Magpapalaya Ng Bayan (HMB) 132 human labor surplus 156

Index human security 3, 71–72, 123, 213, 219, 228 human traffcking 226–231, 233, 235, 237–240, 254 Huysmans, Jef 249 hybrid 69, 81, 150, 179, 245 Ibarra, Juan Crisostomo 39, 46 ideology 53, 67, 131, 249–250 Ikugan 27, 29 ilustrado 8, 52, 57, 105, 106 Imperial Manila syndrome 87 indigenization 68, 81, 88, 112 indigenous culture 54 indigenous knowledge 57–58, 87 industrialization 123, 135, 138, 251 institutionalization 66, 195–196, 198, 200–201, 203, 214 intellectual gulf 153 intellectualization of imperialism 46 interconnectedness 115, 226 Interfaith Partnership for the Promotion of Responsible Parenthood, Inc. (IPPRP) 201 international commodities prices 173 International Criminal Court (ICC) 94 international norms 182, 250 international organizations 1, 124, 200 International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) 133, 171 iron ore 168, 172 ISIS 156 Islamic studies 153, 156 Islamic terrorist 152, 155 Islamophobia 150 Italian city-states 15 Jacinto, Emilio 107 Java 25 Javanese 25, 90 Jesuits 37, 127 John J. Caroll Institute on Church and Social Issues 203 Joint Special Operations Group (JSOG) 219 Jolo 28 Junker, Laura 19 kabihasnan 104–105, 114–115 kabuuan 104–105, 113–114 kafala 96 Kasarinlan 3, 68, 71 Kaundinya 29 Kinnari 25

267

Kjellén, Rudolf 124 knowledge creation 57, 112 labor exportation 95, 226, 232 labor migration 76, 95, 146, 150, 231–232 labor traffcking 232, 236 Lagman, Edcel C. 92 Lanao 93 land authority 134 Land Bank 134 Land Registration Act 129 Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) 70–71 Laurel, Jose 41 Laurel-Langley Agreement 62 legal authority 90 legitimacy 90, 179, 198, 200, 212–213, 221, 249 Lemke, T. 123–125 Liberal Party 94, 132, 134 liberation theology 201, 204–205 Lincoln, Abraham 93 liquid modernity 226–227, 230 liquid phase 226, 230 literary production 148, 157 little brown brothers 58 Li Yuxie 21 local knowledge 54, 88, 104 Magellan, Ferdinand 25, 27 Magroyong 25, 29 Maguindanao 26, 90, 108 mail order brides (MOBs) 233 Malthusian 131, 202 Mamasapano 222 Manifest Destiny 126–127, 148 Manobo 25, 27 Mao Zedong 46 mapping 5, 7, 66, 70, 157 Maranao 86, 92 Marawi 212, 214–215, 220–221 Marcos, Ferdinand E. 95, 232, 257 marginalization of interests 146 marriage dissolution 196, 199–201, 206 martial law 134–135, 152, 221 Marx, Karl 110, 113 Masonry 40–41 Matobato, Edgar 94 Mawuhele 21, 25, 29 McKinley, William 52 media reporting 147, 154 Mendoza, Lily 104 mestizo 36–40, 57, 73, 252

268

Index

Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995, 95 military bases agreement 62, 188, 195 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 196 miseducated diplomacy 59–60, 63 miseducation 53, 55, 60–61 misinformation 154 Monroe Doctrine 126 morality 107, 189, 199–201, 204, 253 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) 72, 77, 214 Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) 214 mother of pearls 23 multiple modernities 4, 7–8, 195 Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) 62 Mutual Logistics Support Agreement 217 Nacionalista Party 132, 134 national dependence 184 National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) 95, 255 National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) 219 national interests 63, 146, 149–150 nationalist historiography 15–16 National Resettlement and Rehabilitation Administration (NARRA) 130 national security 132, 183–185, 213–214 natural resources 62, 166, 174 Navarro, Atoy 102–105, 109, 113–114, 116, 118 negotiation 2, 9, 87–88, 90–91, 151, 156, 165, 169, 219 neo-colonial hegemony 62 neocolonialism 59 neorealism 123, 181–182 New Bilibid prison 94 Nograles, Prospero C. 92 Noli Me Tangere 35, 252 non-state actors 9, 72, 77, 182, 211, 239 non-textual sources 16, 18–19, 28, 31 non-traditional partners 164, 174 non-traditional security 9, 174, 227 non-Western international relations 116 non-Western voices 16 normativity 245–246 norm internalization 200 norm life cycle 199–200 norm socialization 199, 206 NSC-68 report 124

Obama, Barack 94, 219 OIC 146, 153, 156 ontology 5, 15, 53, 67, 69, 76, 249–250 open regionalism 166–167 Operation Enduring Freedom 217 oral history 29 oral tradition 22–23, 25, 27–28 orang laut 26 Orientalism 51, 81, 147, 149, 154 OSEC 234, 237–239 othering 58, 216 ‘out of Africa theory’ 50 Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) 95–96, 138, 231 pag-ibig 89 pangulo regime 86, 89 Pansilang Pananaw 104 Pantayong Pananaw 68, 81, 103–104, 112–114 paradigm shift 152 Parftt, T. 123, 126 parity provisions 62 patronage 37, 59, 89, 91–93, 253–254 patronato real 37 Payne-Aldrich Act 129 pedagogy 2–4 Peloponnesian War 28, 148 pensionados 56 people-to-people relations 72, 195 perception(s) 9, 87, 89, 149, 156, 161, 163, 174, 206, 218 Persia 24 Philippine-American War 52, 252 Philippine Bill 129 Philippine Congress 135, 188, 201, 204 Philippine Federalist Party 128 Philippine National Police (PNP) 93, 95, 219 Philippine Packing Corporation (PPC) 129 Philippine Political Science Journal 3, 68, 71, 195, 206 Philippine Senate 188, 204 Philippine Studies (PS) 71, 86, 97, 153 Pigafetta 25 pillars of justice 238 Pi-she-ye 27 policy of attraction 52 political realism 35, 147 politicization 213 polygenesis 50 popular anger 45 population control 203 populist 86, 93, 256

Index pork barrel 92 positionality 4, 7–8, 70 post-modernism 69 pre-colonial 2, 15–17, 22, 28, 31, 34, 149–150, 247, 253 primary export-based model 165 primordialism 16 Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) 92 propaganda 36, 41, 91, 254, 257 prosecutorial frame 228, 240 prostituted mobility 233, 239 prostitution 227 Protestantism 202 public information 154 pueblos 36 Pulse Asia 94 punitive approach 236–237, 239 Pu-po-luo 21 Pye, Lucian W. 87, 90 Pye, Mary W. 87, 90 Qi Ling 20 quasi-Darwinist ideas 127 Quezon, Manuel 41, 109 Qulan 21 radical 86, 155, 211 Rand Corporation 133 rational rules 90 Ratzel, Friedrich 124 realist school 145, 147 referent object 216 refexive spirituality 190 regime compliance 195, 197–198, 206 regionalism 166–167, 246–247, 249–250 regional organization 151 religious identity 206 religious organizations 182, 186–187, 189 religious phenomena 181 Reproductive Health Alliance Network (RHAN) 203 retentionists 60 revolutionaries 46, 52 Rice Share Tenancy Act 130 Robles, Rufno 111 Rockefeller Foundation 131, 133 Rome Statute 94 Rosenau, James 248 Rosenberg, Justin 4, 69–70, 81–82 Sabio, Jude 94 Said, Edward 81, 149

269

Sakay, Macario 90 Sakdal 109–111 Salazar, Zeus A. 104 Sama-Bajau 27 Samals 27 Samar 27 San Antonio, Juan Francisco de 28 Sanskrit 17 SEATO 249 Second Image 88 Second Vatican Council 201, 204–205 Sejarah Melayu 15, 248 semantics 113 Senate Committee on Human Rights 94 sexploitation 226, 234, 239, 254 sex tourism 230, 232, 237 sex traffcking 9, 226, 233, 237 Sikolohiyang Pilipino 68, 88, 115–116 silk 23, 35, 110 silver paleograph 25 Simoun 39, 43–46 slavery 227, 231 slave trade 227 small state(s) 79, 156, 214, 246, 251, 255 social construction 51, 221, 253 social media 154, 234 societal multiplicity 69–70, 82 sociogeny 50 Soekarno 41, 46 soft power 145, 246, 248–249 solid phase 230 Song Dynasty 19, 24 Song hui-yao ji-gao 19 Songshi 19, 21–22, 25, 27, 29 South China Sea 94, 254, 256 Southern Cone 167, 169–170, 172, 174 Southern Philippines 67, 156 Southern Thailand 25 soybean oil 168, 172–173 Spanish-American War 52, 126 Spanish colonialism 42, 90, 180 Spanish colonial period 162 speech act 214, 216, 218, 222 Sri Bata Shaja 21 Srivijaya 23–24, 26 state-centric 102, 181–182, 213, 227, 237–239 state-centrism 16 State of the Nation Address 93, 214 stereotypes 154–155 stoneware 24 strategic options 146

270

Index

St. Scholastica’s College 203 subaltern 5, 53, 80 subnational analysis 87 Sugar Cane Tenancy Contract Act 130 Sultanate of Malacca 15 Sulu 2, 27–28, 215 summary killings 95 Sun Yat-sen 46 Surigao 25, 27 surrogacy 234 surrogate mothers 235 survival 124, 185, 215–216, 218, 254–256 Tagalog 90, 103, 107, 109–110 Tago 25 Tandag 25 Tausug 28, 89 technology of governmentality 125 territorial diversifcation 163 territory 8, 17, 51, 62, 126, 217, 247 Third Image 88 Third World 68, 123, 126, 131, 133, 136, 184, 251, 258 Thomasites 55 Thucydides 28, 147 tipping point 200 TIP Protocol 228, 230 Toktok Hangyo 93 Torrens System 129 tortoise shells 23 tourists 230, 239 ‘Toward the Conquest of Hunger’ 131 trade concentration 169 trade liberalization 152, 167 trade network 21, 24–25, 30 trade relations 168, 172 traffcking in persons (TIP) 226–227, 229 transnational organized crimes 214 treason 256–257 Treaty of Paris 52, 126, 150 Treaty of Westphalia 15, 179 tributary chiefs 17–18, 26, 29–30 tribute mission 19–21, 24–25, 29–30 tribute system 19, 22 tulisanes 45 Tydings-McDuffe Act 108, 129, 151 Tydings Rehabilitation Act 62

Underwood-Simmons Act 129 United Methodist Church 183–186, 188 United States of America 108, 185, 189 University of the Philippines 54, 56, 71, 113, 153 UNODC 226–228, 237, 239 USAID 130–133, 135 US bases agreement 180, 183–185, 187, 190, 195 US military bases 77, 184–185, 188 US Pivot to Asia 94 vagabonds 230–231, 234, 239 ‘V for Vendetta’ 45 victimization 226–227, 237 victim protection 237, 240 Vietnamese 19, 24, 62 Visayas 21–22, 27, 104 Visiting Forces Agreement 62 vulnerability 131, 164, 169, 173, 226–227, 230–231, 238–239 walang delicadeza 90 Waltz, Kenneth 30 war of aggression 62 war on drugs 87, 91, 93–94, 96–97 Wawa River 25 weak power 145–146 weak states 145–147, 149, 153, 246 Weber, Max 90 West Asia 153–154, 156 white mask psychology 59 whiteness 50 Wolters, O. W. 16–17 womb for rent 234 word frequency 74–76 World Food Problem report 131 World Health Organization (WHO) 200 World War I see First World War World War II 41, 130, 184 Wuxun 21 Yongle Encyclopedia 22 Zhao Rugua 27 Zhenzong 20 Zubu 27