The Spratlys and China question: More commerce, less military spending

Tuesday, 07 June 2011 05:34

Written by Nonoy Oplas

It is the dynamism of the economy, the entrepreneurial ability of the people, not land area and width of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), that matters most. The Spratly islands controversy is a huge potential racket by certain sectors in the government, especially the military establishment and the corporate military suppliers.

Consider the following data of land area from wikipedia:

1. Singapore, 710.2 sq. kms, 1.44% water; 5 million people (36 percent foreigners), per capita nominal GDP $40,336.

2. Hong Kong, 1,104 sq. kms, 4.58% water, 7 million people, per capita nominal GDP $31,590.

3. Basilan, 1,358.9 sq. kms., 8.8 percent water, 0.5 million people. Philippines per capital nominal GDP $2,007, Basilan’s would be at most one-half of that.

4. Sulu archipelago, 4,058 sq. kms,

5. Spratly islands, less than 5 sq. kms. over 425,000 sq.kms. of sea.

Sulu archipelago alone has almost 6x the land area of Singapore, and almost 4x that of Hong Kong. Basilan island alone has almost 2x land area of Singapore and larger than that of Hong Kong. And yet observe the big discrepancy in per capita income between the Philippines and that of Singapore and Hong Kong.

Now there are lots of political and media noise for the Philippines to add more military spending, to tax more, to borrow more, for what -- to help “check” China in the Spratlys? We cannot even develop economically existing islands like Basilan, Sulu archipelago, Tawi-tawi archipelago, and now the vested interests in the military establishment want more money from us taxpayers, to “defend and protect” those far away islands, islets and atolls? It’s as if we have lots of resources to develop those areas even assuming that China and other Asian countries would stop their claim over those far away areas.

I think that the existing military establishment is already bloated. The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has an engineering brigade, because the DPWH and local government engineering divisions are either underfunded or corrupted. The AFP has social work projects, even medical missions, because the social work and health departments are either underfunded or corrupted. If the military and the police are efficient, all they can do is provide security protection to the DSWD, DPWH, DOH, DepEd, etc. personnel to do their real work even in far flung areas.

So, how to “check” China in Spratlys and other islands given China’s repeated “intrusion” in territories claimed by the Philippines?

The first option is diplomacy. The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has the mandate and expertise for this job. There are plenty of existing avenues and forum where such issues can be taken up with the governments of China, Vietnam, Malaysia, etc. Like APEC, ASEAN + 6, the UN, other bilateral and regional meetings.

The second option is more trade, commerce, investments, tourism. If China is richer now, that is partly because Filipinos have been patronizing thousands of ships and containers of cheap toys, shoes, clothes, appliances, electronic products, etc. from China. That country is now the 3rd biggest export market of the Philippines., soon to displace or overtake the US as the country’s 2nd biggest export market. And China did not send a single tank, a single battle ship, a single fighter jet, a single soldier, for this to happen.

China will not antagonize an economy that has tens of billions of dollars per year of already existing trade and business deals, to the point of sending many tanks, battleships fighter jets and soldiers, just to settle those far away areas with far out business potentials.

There will be better appreciation if we use of tax money to buy hardware for disaster preparedness especially with the global cooling trend. Like civilian choppers, small fastcrafts, to rescue by air and water, flood-stranded people. Whatever additional funding for such hardware will have nothing to do with military spending for Spratlys. The military establishment is one huge bureaucracy that can create fictional monsters, just to appease their hunger for more tax money.

Finally, let us keep in mind these three facts when entertaining that “more money for Spratlys and the military.” One, our public debt, utang ng gobyerno, now is almost P5 trillion, that’s P5 billion x 1000. Two, about 1/5 of all tax collections yearly are spent on interest payment alone, to pay for past wastes, inefficiencies and corruption in the government. And three, all other sectors in the government are also begging for “more money” – education, healthcare, housing, environment, agriculture, public works, credit, pension, social work, CCT, justice, police, local governments, etc.

Let us have more entrepreneurship, more trade, more commerce, more investments, more tourism, more economic globalization. And let us have less unproductive spending in the bureaucracy, including the military.

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