What issues Obama will raise with GMA

German airport builder Fraport has lost another legal battle over the contentious NAIA-3. Germany’s Supreme Court has rejected the firm’s plea to prevent citizen Georg Wengert from disclosing documents about sleaze in erecting the Manila terminal. The accountant is now free to publicize the papers. That would expose the bribers and bribees in the deal that spans three Philippine administrations. It would also show how millions of dollars were laundered into accounts of Filipino and German officials.

Fraport is partly owned by the German federal government, the state of Hesse, and the city of Frankfurt. Wengert had received the papers from unnamed sources, and at once had some pages published to make Fraport executives explain their misuse of public money. Initially the German High Court stopped him from further exposés. But on appeal it ruled that Fraport had the duty to be truthful in its dealings. Too, that only disclosure of the documents would prove Fraport’s claim that its corporate reputation might be injured. Reportedly Philippine authorities have received the same set of papers, but sat on it because high officials are named.

Last June, German Chancellor Angela Merkel issued an ultimatum to Gloria Arroyo to pay Fraport once and for all for constructing the NAIA-3. Malacañang has been mum on the matter.

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Gloria Arroyo’s political foes will be disappointed. Barack Obama is unlikely to open his July 30 White House meeting with the Filipino leader with his oft-quoted line. “To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history” was fit for an inspirational inaugural seven months ago. Obama has since turned more pragmatic. Realities have forced him to break some campaign promises and his backers to lower expectations. Sweeping tax cuts, swift pullout from Iraq, or health-care overhaul is easier said than done even by the world’s most powerful man. Same in dealing with leaders like Arroyo tarnished by bribes and blood. Obama has to play ball with them, as in his recent visit to Medvedev and Putin to “reset” ties with Russia. Otherwise, he’d be unable to push US interests.

What can Obama gain from inviting a lame-duck Philippine president to his Oval Office? Arroyo, in announcing the meeting, has said nuclear reduction and terrorism would top their agenda. The Non-Aligned Movement summit in Egypt earlier this month nominated RP to chair the upcoming review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The 190-country event in New York jibes with Obama’s vision of a nuclear-free world. The lead role of RP, America’s staunch ally, can help Obama exact Russian compliance with last week’s covenant to cut their nuclear arsenals by a quarter in seven years. There’s just one tiny hitch, though. The review doesn’t start till May 2010, on Arroyo’s penultimate month in office. So no-to-nukes doesn’t seem like a big topic to table with a departing president after all.

But there’s still the matter of Islamist extremists. Although Arroyo was the first and only member to drop out of America’s Coalition against Terrorism, US war technicians have been helping RP troops battle jihadists in Mindanao. Joint martial games in the Philippine south also have fortified the two nations’ historic ties. RP has been getting some war materiel, while America’s young GIs have been learning jungle fighting. Her political party mates are egging Arroyo to ask Obama for more military aid. Then again, CIA chief Leon Panetta was in Manila only two weekends ago precisely to discuss closer cooperation against terrorism. And that naturally includes increased supply of modern warfare gadgetry. Obama need not make Arroyo fly 8,500 miles to repeat what his sub has told her.

Maybe there’s more in Obama’s mind. The US is bent on brokering a peace pact between the RP government and Moro separatists in Mindanao. But the details bedevil Filipinos. Washington’s solution is the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity, which Malacañang was set to ink in Aug. 2008 with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. It would cede to the secessionists authority over mining, logging and naval patrols in Mindanao, plus Christian towns without benefit of plebiscite. When the RP Supreme Court stopped the signing to study the BJE’s constitutionality, three MILF units rampaged. Dozens of civilians perished, half a million were displaced. Seven former US envoys to Manila blamed the Court, not the murderous renegades that the MILF leadership was disowning, for the killings and pillage. Obama might revive the BJE, for it is in the US interest. The pro-American MILF will let US troops base in Mindanao, which in turn will let the US confront Beijing’s expansionism in the South China Sea. At present it can only set up portable bases in predominantly Muslim Sulu, Basilan, Tawi-Tawi and southern Palawan. Arroyo had better be ready when Obama brings up the matter.

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“God sends us burdens as a way of helping us deepen our trust in and relationship with Him.” Shafts of Lights, Fr. Guido Arguelles, SJ

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