Saturday, 30 December 2000

Washington taking a closer look at RP political crisis
By Manny Mogato
courtesy www.CyberDyaryo.com.ph

As President-elect George W. Bush prepares to assume power next month, Washington has started to take a much closer look at the three-month-old political crisis in the Philippines.

A member of President Bush's incoming foreign policy team has initiated contacts with various anti-Estrada forces in the Philippines to get a "feel" of the situation on the ground.

The incoming Bush State Department official is a retired senior military official and expert in Asia-Pacific affairs. He is very close to Secretary of State-designate Colin Powell, whom he had served with in the US military establishment.

The incoming Bush administration has taken strong interests in the Asia and Pacific region, particularly in trouble spots in East Asia, including the South China Sea and Taiwan Straits. A warming to the military.

The incoming senior State Department official said the Bush administration would only support efforts to unseat President Joseph Estrada through a peaceful and democratic means. The official warned the military not to take a lead role in either propping up the unpopular Estrada regime or grab power.

"If the public must force the resignation, I do hope that you can keep the military from playing a prominent role. If the military is seen leading the charge, there will be great criticism out of Washington and the legitimacy of the government to follow, even if it's Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, will be brought into question," said the incoming State Department official. Military and police involvement only for stabilizing

"Military and police involvement must be seen as a stabilizing force-one that contains social strife," the retired US military official said. .....He said the military would only be allowed to intervene to stop the country from falling deeper into anarchy and chaos. He said the Bush government would never recognize any government in the Philippines won through the barrel of the gun. More active US involvement in conflict resolution?

There is a widespread perception that the United States would be more actively involved in resolving conflict in various parts of the world with Bush's ascension to the White House.

Washington has been heavily criticized, even by its allies, because of the perception that the Clinton administration took the US out of its role as the global policeman. The US was blamed for the debacle of United Nations peacekeeping operations in the Sierra Leone, Somalia, and even in neighboring East Timor.

With Bush's election, the US military is expected to return to its "interventionist" role in preserving peace and stability in any parts of the world. The Philippines is one area where the US has taken keen interest because of the current political crisis.

In 1986, former US president Ronald Reagan, also a Republican, played a role in ending the four-day civilian-backed military mutiny against the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos. With another Republican in power, the US is expected to intervene and help resolve the debilitating political crisis in the country. Exit Mark Jimenez?

The Clinton administration adopted a hands-off policy regarding the political crisis because Estrada has shielded businessman Mark Jimenez, who is wanted in the United States for campaign fund fraud involving illegal contributions to the Democratic National Committee in the 1996 elections.

Estrada has protected Jimenez from a request by the US Government to bring back the fugitive Filipino-American businessman to face tax evasion and campaign fund fraud charges.

Now that Bush is taking over next month, the Supreme Court has moved to get the extradition process rolling.

Jimenez is among Estrada's business cronies. At the onset of the Estrada administration, he masterminded big-ticket mergers and takeovers of various local companies.

These include the takeover of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company, the nation's largest telecommunications company, by the Metro Pacific group, as well as the merger of Equitable Banking Corporation and PCI Bank to form the country's third-largest commercial bank.

For brokering such deals through the creative use of government pension funds in the Social Security System and the Government Service Insurance System, Jimenez has been referred to by President Estrada as a "corporate genius."

-Pan-Philippine News & Information Network