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Unsolicited advise for Macapagal
Posted:4:17 AM (Manila Time) | Feb. 06, 2003
By Letters to the editor
The best way for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to protect our 60,000 OFWs in Kuwait is not to give them misleading assurances of moral support and promises of so-called contingency plans (final details of which are not even clear) but to definitively ascertain for herself, as our head of state, what our "genuine national interest" actually is and what our "enlightened foreign policy" should be in the midst of the impending US-led war on Iraq, an unfortunate phenomenon that will surely expand into a destructive "global war of civilizations" that will, in the process, surely impoverish and debilitate our nation.
Our national interest and the collective interest of the international community lie in zealous promotion and preservation of the fundamental international law principle of "exhaustion of peaceful diplomatic remedies" to resolve the question of alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and nuclear weapons, with the use or threat of force serving merely as the "last resort," in which war is declared to be factually and morally justified and inevitable as collectively expressed in a requisite resolution adopted by the Security Council, pursuant to the Chapter I in relation to Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter and the preemptive norms of public international law (jus cogens).
Ms Macapagal must wake up to the reality that the Philippines is no longer a colony of the United States; that, as a nation-state, the Philippines must independently base the nature, direction and content of its foreign policy on its "national interest" and the shared world vision of its people; and that it must harmonize its international behavior as a member of the community of nations with the letter and spirit of the doctrine of "pacific settlement of world conflicts," in accordance with the express provisions of the UN Charter and existing international treaties, norms and jurisprudence.
If indeed Ms Macapagal believes, that by having expressly renounced her political ambition to run for president in 2004, she would be truly free in her heart to unite the country and lead its people to the great path of genuine prosperity, then she must follow her Christian conscience, diplomatically delineate the pro-peace Philippine national interest from the pro-war American interest as pushed by President Bush and the United Kingdom, and courageously work for genuine world peace, the pacific settlement of world conflicts, and the promotion of international unity and cooperation, all of which have been the urgent subject of the repeated exhortations of Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Jaime Sin, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, the World Council of Churches, the National Conference of American Bishops, and the international civil society.
MANUEL J. LASERNA JR., professor of law, Institute of Law, Far Eastern University, Manila
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