RRD-FVR: Divorce or just separation?

ARE WE witnessing a mere separation or a severing of political ties between President Rodrigo Roa Duterte and former President Fidel V. Ramos – a question analogous to the issue over Duterte’s weaning away the Philippines from the United States.

There are limp attempts on both sides to play down the apparent parting of ways: Ramos expressing readiness to give advice as an older brother and Malacañang saying that the former president would always be part of the Palace team.

Plastering the cracks may not save the mortar that binds them. It looks like basic irreconcilable differences have started to ruin the short-lived role of Ramos as a special envoy to Beijing, especially now that Duterte is riding high as China’s BFF (Best Friend Forever).

We started to doubt the ideological compatibility of the two strong-willed leaders as Duterte continued to build bridges to communist China while collapsing channels to the United States, an ally of long standing.

Ramos asked in his Manila Bulletin column last Oct. 8: “Are we throwing away decades of military partnership, tactical proficiency, compatible weaponry, predictable logistics, and soldier-to-soldier camaraderie just like that? On PDu30’s say-so?”

In a recent press interview at the family mausoleum in Davao, Duterte may have given a candid explanation for his not seeing eye-to-eye now with the man whom he credited for convincing him to run for president last May.

He said of Ramos: “He’s a product of western education, he’s graduate of West Point. Me? I am just a local boy.”

General Ramos, 88, is a graduate (1950) of the US Military Academy in West Point, New York. He is identified with various US and global institutions. He was the 12th president of the Philippines from 1992 to 1998.

Duterte, 71, is a law graduate (1972) of the San Beda College in Manila. Before becoming president last June 30, he was Davao City mayor for 22 years. He describes his political orientation as socialist.

• Frays seen in Duterte-Ramos ties

WE GOT a hint that something was amiss last Oct. 12 when, in an overseas call Ramos told us among other things that he was not joining Duterte in his Oct. 18-21 state visit to China.

Finding his skipping the trip odd when he was Duterte’s emissary who broke the ice preventing direct dialogue with China, we asked him why. He said lightly (better said in Tagalog) that Beijing might be too small for two presidents present during the visit.

We did not mention this in our Postscripts that week as we were afraid such a remark was likely to be misunderstood and unnecessarily foul up matters during the visit.

In the same call, we also noticed Ramos’ stress on “interdependence” as a universal principle – instead of the “independent” foreign policy that Duterte has been espousing which appears somewhat inward-looking rather than reaching out to all men of goodwill.

A week before Duterte was to fly to Beijing, Ramos was already talking of the need to ratify the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change, a treaty that Duterte not only refused to endorse but even assailed as not to the best interest of developing countries like the Philippines.

On the scramble for strategic positioning in the South China Sea, Ramos said the real enemy of China and the US is not each other but Climate Change, which has been triggering natural disasters, large-scale loss of lives, wiping out of entire communities, and the ruining of the world’s food supply.

Is their rift beyond repair? Ramos has not let up on his tirades after his Oct. 8 column where he said: “We find our Team Philippines losing in the first 100 days of Du30’s administration – and losing badly. This is a huge disappointment and letdown to many of us.”

He deplored Duterte’s getting “stuck in unending controversies about extrajudicial killings of drug suspects” and his “using cuss-words and insults instead of civilized language” that distracted him from such goals as “poverty alleviation and enhancement of national security.”

• Du30, Ramos differ only in style?

RAMOS said in a follow-up column last Sunday that Duterte is “unwittingly shooting himself (and the nation) in the mouth” because of his refusal to ratify the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

The Philippines signed the agreement last April 21, but the new administration sat on it. Ramos noted that while then President Noynoy Aquino pledged to cut the Philippines’ carbon emissions by 70 percent by 2030, Duterte has refused to ratify the Paris pact.

There will be the Climate Conference in Marrakech, Morocco, on Nov. 7, where representatives of countries that have ratified the agreement will meet for the first time. The Philippines and other countries that have not ratified it will attend only as observers.

But Presidential Communications Secretary Martin Andanar said Ramos actually “agreed in principle” with Duterte. He added: “It is only in the approach or method the two leaders differ. Each has his own style and we have to learn to respect the difference.”

To illustrate, Andanar quoted Ramos saying in his last column: “President (Duterte) maybe is correct in saying that developed countries who are responsible for the majority of historical emissions should carry the larger burden of limiting emissions and that developing countries, such as the Philippines, who contributed little to historical emissions, should be allowed to continue to grow their economies, especially if such is done in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication.”

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