Australia slapped us, and now wants to become the regional bully: It’s time we hit back

While President GMA is in Japan, trying to sweet-talk the Japanese with her begging bowl held out, let’s not forget our most important and urgent problem. It's to prevent our fight against Islamic terrorism expanding into a struggle against the new Australian "terrorism".

Can you beat it? Having insulted and humiliated the Philippines all over the world by announcing unilaterally – without a by-your-leave from our government – that it was closing down its Embassy in our country owing to a "credible" and "specific" threat (on which the Aussies did not bother to enlighten us), Canberra now wants to become the Asian region’s policeman and bully.

Aussie Prime Minister John Howard has raised hackles all over Southeast Asia by threatening to launch preemptive strikes in neighboring Asian countries to prevent terrorists from attacking Australia and Australians. All over Southeast Asia, this outrageous declaration by Howard (who must think he’s a reincarnation of Ned Kelly, the bushranger, though he looks more like some squat Victorian, with due apologies to the Pommies) has provoked angry condemnation in all the capitals.

For what Howard proposes is for Australian forces and policemen to punch into sovereign Asian countries to attack suspected terrorists – and the hell with national boundaries and respect for the territory and sanamagan the feelings, sensibilities, and rights of others.

I won’t dignify Mr. Howard by comparing him to Adolf Hitler, but what he’s mouthing is beginning to sound eerily like "Australia über alles", or "today we own Australia (not Deutschland?), tomorrow the world!" Sieg heil, Führer John! I don’t think Secretary Blas Ople, even as he leans over backwards, and too mildly describes Howard’s gross statements as "bizarre" or, salamabit, "exhuberant", should sign any anti-terrorist agreement with the Australians. They’re becoming terrorists themselves. No wonder that isolated continent "Down Under" sometimes glories in being called the Land of Oz. Howard must fancy himself the local Wizard, and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer his "familiar".

Imagine it, though: A nation less of than 20 million Australians trying to bully more than 600 million Southeast Asians. A generation ago, Australia was hated in our region for its "White Australia" policy. On the masthead of one of its leading periodicals, there was even a published slogan: "Two Wongs do not make a White." Today, it’s Australia’s "Bash Asia" policy that seems to be emerging.

As a journalist who's covered Australia for many decades, travelling from Darwin to Cairns, New South Wales to Perth on the other side, and done "walkabouts" over much of that sunburned continent, including such Outback places as Alice, Cooper’s Creek, Tipabarra and Eromanga, I’ve come to appreciate what’s good and bad about Aussies – and the differences between Ockers, Diggers, Larrikins, Whindgers, dinkum Pommies, the proud descendants of the 160,000 convicts and the First Fleet, and the Pure Merinos. In Hobart, I’ve held a Tasmanian Devil in my arms – a small one, of course, otherwise I might have lost bits and pieces of my anatomy. But there’s no exorcising the devil that still seems to lurk in the racial memory of that lost tribe of whites marooned between Asia and the Antarctic: That somehow the "heathen Chinee" and other Asian hordes (like the Indons lusting for "South Irian" on the northern doorstep) are to be mistrusted. (All this angst perhaps even reinforced by the massive Asian – and, worse, Muslim – immigration into Australia in recent years.)

But why, to express that scorn, did the Australians have to pick on us in the Philippines? It’s because we’re perceived to be a soft target. Is it possibly because we Filipinos are unique; i.e., uniquely spineless? Is it the impression abroad that we have the tendency to lick the hand that slaps us? To brown-nose our oppressors and detractors? I think it’s time to shrug off politeness, and prove them wrong.

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Let’s face it. The declaration by Australia and Canada (never mind the teensy-weensy European Commission) that they were shutting down their Embassies in Manila owing to terrorist threat here humiliated us and blackened our name all over the planet. When a country shuts down its Embassy, this means that all faith has been lost in the capability of the host government to safeguard and protect its diplomats and diplomatic premises, and their dependents. (Is the GMA government so dense it doesn’t see this?)

The unilateral and highly-publicized action of Canberra and Ottawa caught not only our government by surprise, but other foreign Embassies and governments also by surprise. What was even more insulting was that neither the Australians nor the Canadians shared with our government agencies and intelligence agencies the "intelligence" they received regarding this Islamic "threat".

In short, they didn’t trust us – and told the world we were not to be trusted.

Their timing couldn’t have been worse. The move came at the same time as the bombing last Thursday in Mombasa (Kenya) in which 15 died – including the three Islamic suicide-bombers – when an Israeli-owned hostelry, the Paradise Hotel, was attacked, while an aircraft belonging to Israel’s Arkia charter airlines was narrowly missed by two missiles near the Mombasa airport. The Mombasa attacks and carnage, and the closure of the Canadian and Australian Embassies in Manila, were announced on the same worldwide telecasts like BBC and CNN, making the Philippines appear like an archipelago awash with "terrorists". The Aussies went further: They issued a travel advisory warning that there was "civil disorder" in the streets of the Philippines – when the only disorder was that between Mark Jimenez and Nani Perez, and this wasn’t even civil.

I hope that the term "Australian intelligence" is not an oxymoron. In any event, Canberra subsequently withdrew its claim about "civil disorder" but the damage had been done. What surely lingered in the awareness of televiewers overseas were those TV sequences of Australians rushing off to the airport to evacuate from the Philippines.

The Financial Times of London put it very succinctly in yesterday’s (Monday, December 2) issue: "Last Thursday, the country’s (Philippines) battered image suffered another blow when Australia and Canada closed their embassies in Manila to avert possible terrorist attack. Apart from scaring away tourists and investors, the embassy closures have also made it more difficult for Filipinos to apply for work in those countries."

Oh, well. If they don’t want us, we don’t want them.

Canada is making noises about "reopening" its embassy in two weeks, while Australia says it will reopen when it is assured of "security". I’m tempted to say, "Don’t bother". But, alas, I’m not the guy who sets policy.

I wish we had the gumption to stand up and tell the Australians and Canadians where to get off. What we ought to do is close down our embassies and consulates in those arrogant countries, and have the President and Ople call home our Ambassadors and Consuls for "consultation".

Next, let’s examine trade between our countries. Maybe we’ll discover that the Australians, while we’re no big economic power, need us more than we need them.

Here’s what we buy from Australia. In the year 2000, the Philippines imported US$882,490,830 worth of stuff – from milk, crude petroleum, copper, live animals, to bovine meat – from Australia. In the year 2001, we imported US$644,533,655. In the current year, 2002, thus far, we’ve already imported US$341,381,277. This is just between January and August.

In contrast, Australia’s imports from the Philippines declined by 4.7 percent to Australian $507.6 million, or merely US $298 million. Who needs whom?

Investment? Philippine investments in Australia have increased from Australian $429 million in 1995 to Australian $1.4 billion in 1999-2000, while Australian investments here stood at only Australian $642 million as of 1999-2000.

And they won’t even buy our bananas.

Let’s look closer. In the year 2000 alone, Australia exported 224,000 head of live cattle to the Philippines. Then Agriculture Secretary Edong Angara (now Senate opposition leader) accused the Australians of even smuggling in thousands more head of cattle into the country in connivance with their local clients.

Look at our supermarket and grocery shelves. Forty-four percent of all dairy products on sale here were imported from Australia – including value-added dairy products such as UHT milk, cheese, butter, yogurt etc.; bulk processed dairy products such as cheese; industrial ingredients, including milk powders, milk fat and cheese curd, which are all imported by bulk.

We import confectionary and snack food, non-alcoholic beverages, wine, health foods, convenience foods – Sus, even lettuce, broccoli and cabbage!

Why not cancel all these – and import everything from New Zealand instead? At least New Zealand (the home of Kiwis and the Lord of the Rings) didn’t close its Embassy here!

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As for the Canadians, what can I say? Are they on a rampage of insulting allies and "former" friends? A senior aide of Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, a lady at that, had to step down from her post last week – forced by a widespread media outcry and public outrage to resign – when she literally called US President George W. Bush a "moron".

The controversy blew up when Francoise Ducros, Mr. Chrétien’s communications director, was overhead making that disparaging remark about Bush at last month’s meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Prague in the Czech Republic.

Even the Canadian Press erupted in anger at the discourteous and intemperate assertion, while Chretien sputtered that Bush "is not a moron at all". Whatta thing to say!

When Chrétien initially rejected Ms. Ducros’ proferred resignation, the media tore into him for this. The National Post, a leading Canadian newspaper, asserted her remark was "steeped in cheap and wrong-headed anti-American senti-ment". The incident was soon being dubbed Morongate. Finally, Chrétien had to let Ducros go.

As Ken Warn said in FT: "Canada is the US’s biggest trading partner, the largest single supplier of US energy needs, a participant in the US-led anti-terrorism operations in Afghanistan and a likely partner in any military action against Iraq." But the writer pointed out that all is not well between Bush and Chrétien, or between Ottawa and Washington, DC.

All’s not well between Ottawa and Manila either.

If you ask me, I’ve never heard more anti-American remarks elsewhere than I’ve heard in Canada. As for Prime Minister Chrétien, the only time I saw him in action was during a session of Parliament in Ottawa, some four years ago. It was during the "Question Hour", which (I was told) he usually dodges. This time, however, he was caught in the chamber and was being peppered with questions by the backbenchers and the opposition.

There, I witnessed him squirming, while trying to reply "no comment" and "I don’t know" in twelve different ways – in either French or English. They have two languages in Canada, but sometime they sound more like a Tower of Babel.

However, their Embassy closure exhibits a single attitude. They despise our government, and belittle us. They’ll discover we’re selfish. We reserve the right to despise our government ourselves, but resent the insult inflicted on us by the unjustifed act of Ottawa closing down its Embassy – without this having been provoked by a single anti-Canadian terrorist attack.