Special Features Editorial Aquino goes to the plate for Uncle Sam
Aquino goes to the plate for Uncle Sam
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- Published on Thursday, 22 November 2012 00:00
By A Web design Company
‘However you cut it, the picture that emerge isn’t too flattering.’
THE statement of President Aquino at the Asean Summit in Phnom Penh last Monday that the US should have a role in maintaining peace and stability in the disputed West Philippine Sea considering it has interests there, is a major cause of concern.
Was Aquino playing for the US government despite the fact that People’s Republic of China, one the claimants in the oil-rich islands, has made known its opposition to any US participation in the territorial dispute?
It is quite confusing that while Aquino knows the US does not take sides in the dispute, he maintains that the US, as the world’s biggest economy, has “a strategic stake in the freedom of navigation, unimpeded commerce, and the maintenance of peace and stability in the South China Sea.”
Aquino’s advisers should know better that the President, by insisting that the US play a more forceful role, is threading on dangerous ground wherein he would give his critics the chance to branding him a US pawn. But on the surface, he sounded like a frail boy running to a bigger guy for help after an encounter with a neighborhood bully.
However you cut it, the picture that emerge isn’t too flattering.
