By Carlos H Conde
Published in Asia Times
MANILA – Kristie Kenney was the first female United States ambassador to Manila, a fact that endeared herself with Filipinos during her diplomatic tour in the Philippines from 2005 to 2009. After all, what male American ambassador would go on national television and do the papaya dance, a popular – if silly – routine that involves jiggling of the bottom?
But, as recent US diplomatic cables released by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks show, Kenney was not all chummy, cheery and bright about the country’s political leaders. In some of the cables, Kenney, who is now ambassador to Thailand, unleashed a torrent of unflattering assessments of key personalities that has sent many Filipinos apoplectic.
Her cables are among the thousands authored by US diplomats that offer insights – many valuable, some not so – into US diplomacy in a country that is often conflicted about its bitter-sweet relationship with its former colonial ruler. These cables, mainly because they were written and relayed to Washington confidentially, are considered somewhat more truthful than what usually appears in the mainstream press. Top officials, including President Benigno Aquino, have responded to their revelations as though they had come right out of the fax machines of the US Embassy.
In a July 2009 cable in which Kenney discussed the then poor health of former president Corazon Aquino, the current president’s mother, the US’s top diplomat referred to her as an “icon of democracy” but in the next breath called her “only a partial icon of morality”, a seeming denigration of what Aquino had achieved when she led the “People Power” revolt that overthrew the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship in 1986.
“[Mrs] Aquino’s credibility as a moral crusader was tarnished when she was seen with disgraced former president [Joseph] Estrada in protest movements against president [Gloria] Arroyo,” Kenney wrote. She was apparently referring to Aquino’s apology to Estrada, who had been ousted in a street movement protesting his administration’s corruption, for her role in calling for his ouster and propelling Arroyo to power. Aquino later called on Arroyo to resign from the presidency. “Her moral leadership, while coming at an important time for the Philippines, never fully compensated for her weak leadership style,” Kenney wrote.
The reaction to Kenney’s cable has been furious, with many Filipinos equating the criticism to the point of being blasphemous. The presidential palace reacted by saying Kenney was known for being cozy with Arroyo. (Indeed, in many of her cables, Kenney did seem to have a soft spot for the former president and now congresswoman.) Kenney has attempted to control the diplomatic damage caused by saying in her Twitter account that people should not believe everything they read, that she admired Corazon Aquino, and that she had cried at her funeral in 2009.
In another cable in January 2010, Kenney wrote of current President Benigno Aquino: “Previous contacts with Senator Aquino, often accompanying his mother, former president Cory Aquino, left the impression of a diffident, unassertive man continuing a political tradition handed on by his parents but not carving out his own legacy.” In that same cable, Kenney wrote that Aquino “was vague on specific policies he would pursue if he won office” and did not provide “any clear policy proposals” on how to resolve the conflict in Mindanao.
Obviously piqued and definitely not unassertive, Aquino said this week that Kenney had been misled, that her assessment of him was wrong, and that Washington should improve its intelligence. “The way I see it, there is a person on the ground who is the eyes and ears of one of our biggest allies and yet it seemed so easy to be misled. So you tend to think what are the implications to foreign policy? What is she reporting? If they believe that she is the most prompt and complete source of information, it seems far from the actual truth,” Aquino said, according to news reports.
But the Kenney-Aquino contretemps is just a sidelight – more like the telenovelas that many Filipinos love to watch on TV – to the drama the WikiLeaks cables have stirred in the Philippines in the past week. Far more significant than one ambassador’s opinions of a dead president and her son were revelations about corruption in previous regimes, the conflict in Mindanao, the so-called “war on terror”, human-rights abuses, and the roles of the military and police. All of these have given the public an unprecedented peek into America’s involvement, rightly or wrongly, in Philippine internal affairs.
For instance, there’s the June 2005 cable in which Ignacio Bunye, the spokesman of then president Arroyo, practically accused the US of having had a hand in the public release of the controversial “Hello Garci” tapes in which a woman said to be Arroyo discussed rigging the 2004 elections with election commissioner Virgilio Garcillano.
A US official denied this to Bunye, who apparently was not placated and asked the diplomat if Washington was perhaps angry because the Philippines had improved relations with China? Preposterous as that may sound, it does indicate the desperation of the Arroyo regime, which was nearly toppled because of the election rigging scandal.
In another cable from that same month, US Embassy officials met with key business leaders who spoke openly about the corruption that was at the time eating away at the Arroyo administration.
One particular business figure, Washington Sycip, co-founder of the country’s top accounting firm SGV and a “long-time embassy contact”, railed against Jose Miguel Arroyo, the former president’s husband, who he called “one of the most corrupt”. Sycip called the corruption during the Arroyo regime as being “at its worst, surpassing even the Marcos era”, referring to the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ abusive regime.
Corruption during the Arroyo regime – or any other regime for that matter (former president Fidel Ramos allegedly received money from now ousted Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, said another cable) – is common knowledge among Filipinos. But to read industry leaders candidly talk about it with foreign diplomats has made the reality sink in much more deeply. (Mr Arroyo on Monday denied the corruption charge raised in the cable.)
Based on the information and assessments contained in the cables, the US has grown quite assertive of its role in Philippine politics, economy and society, offering help and aid to improve the military’s and police’s counter-terrorism capacities, overhaul the judicial system, and eliminate child labor and human trafficking.
While expressing concern about the worsening human-rights situation, particularly during the Arroyo administration, US officials have had no qualms labeling legal leftist organizations as fronts for the underground armed communist movement – something that human-rights groups have criticized because this type of red-tagging emboldens the perpetrators who target activists, often lethally.
Some cables also suggest that the US may have had a hand in the alleged persecution of Jose Maria Sison, the founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines who is now in exile in the Netherlands.
In some cables concerning the “war on terror”, US officials provide information showing that American troops stationed in the Philippines for nearly a decade now do more than advise their Philippine counterparts on how to fight terrorists, as they are legally obliged. For instance, the cables show that US troops have provided operational help such as flying unmanned spy planes, taking photos and videos of enemy positions, among others.
To be sure, many Filipinos welcome this US “interference”. In fact, some have actively sought it, including the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the main Islamic separatist group situated on the southern island of Mindanao. In a February 2010 cable, the MILF practically pleaded to US officials for Washington to engage itself more significantly in the search for peace in Mindanao, arguing that because “the US erred in including Mindanao in Philippine territory when providing the Philippines with its independence, the US ‘owed’ the Moros its assistance”.
“We can still make trouble and Balkanize the area,” Michael Mastura, a member of the MILF peace panel, told US Embassy officials in that meeting. “Please do not allow us to do that,” he said.
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