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Philippine foreign policy has often been justified in terms of one enduring maxim : It is better to be on the stronger side. We are a small and poor country in a dangerous world and there is nothing we can do to survive but to go with whoever is more powerful. We are too weak to influence events one way or the other. And because beggars can’t be choosers, we cannot afford to put considerations of democracy, justice, or other loftier goals in our foreign relations. Others’ justifications are just sophisticated academic rationalizations spun from one basic line : We need all the dollars we can get.

This reasoning, long derided as “mendicant” by a generation of nationalist thinkers and leaders, is today still marshaled to rationalize the cornerstone of Philippine foreign policy – the government’s long-standing military and political alliance with the United States.

And so, for example, in 2003, Arroyo joined the illegal war on Iraq just not to risk incurring its ally’s ire, withdrawing only when the administration’s very survival was on the line. Now, as opposition to the US military presence in southern Mindanao snowballs, the government has resorted to that familiar refrain : we cannot afford to refuse all the roads, bridges, water pipes, and other material rewards that the US is giving in exchange.

But bribery cannot be the foundation of a country’s foreign policy. Ultimately, the material inducements are outweighed by what the majority of us are made to give up : For if it is the US’ drive for global supremacy, its insistence on reserving for itself the impunity and exceptionalism that comes with this status, its determination to shape the world according to its image and interests – if it is these that contribute to aggression, injustice, and inequality in the world, then the Filipino people are being deprived of the opportunity to build a world based on peace, justice, and equality. The benefits from living in this world are more valuable than all the water pipes and guns that the US gives.

With the tectonic changes rocking global politics today, now is a rare opportunity to review and recast our foreign policy. The relative decline of the United States, the rise of new powers, the emergence of new models, the ongoing realignment in international relations brought about by the global economic meltdown – all these is giving birth to a new world. An alternative foreign policy for the Philippines must be forged with the aim of making this world better.

 Ending Empires

The first step towards this is to overhaul the Philippines’ relationship with the world’s erstwhile sole superpower. Ending its alliance with the US does not mean turning it to an enemy. Rather, it only means that from henceforth, the Philippines will be an ally of all that wishes to be friendly with it, the US being just one of many. And like all the others, the US cannot demand subservience nor should it be accorded unconditional obedience. No longer must the Philippines go along with, be pressured into, or be dragged along the US’ wars, interventions, or strategic intentions. The existing “America, right or wrong” policy must be discarded.

Recognizing that its very alliance with the United States threatens – rather than enhances – its security, the Philippines should move to replace the obsolete Mutual Defense Treaty with a Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, with provisions that it is ready to bestow on all other countries that seek friendly relations with it. The accompanying Visiting Forces Agreement, as well as the Mutual Logistics Support Agreement, must likewise be scrapped.

These agreements not only put US soldiers above the law and circumvent the constitutional prohibition against foreign basing, they also underpin a larger military strategy built on securing US military dominance in the region. These are meant to intimidate states and peoples who refuse to accept this domination. The Philippines’ alliance with the US is what could turn other states into enemies, thereby creating the very problem of insecurity which the alliance is supposed to prevent.

The US needs its current allies more than these allies need the US : Without the global network of US military bases and installations provided by these allies or the political cover they give to the US, the US would be constrained to wage illegal wars or attempt to impose its will on other countries. The choice is clear : either the Philippines approves of a world dominated by one power – and then sidle up to that dominant power in exchange for a bribe – or it rejects it, helps build a world ruled by equality among states and peoples, and reaps the benefits.

 Preventing a replacement

Today, in the wake of the United States’ absolute and relative decline, new powers such as China, Russia, Brazil, and India are increasingly asserting themselves on the world-stage, even as the traditional powers such as Japan and the European countries attempt to hold on to their dominance. Arguably at no other time since World War II has the world been convulsed by the current reconfigurations in global politics.

Though the outcome could not be accurately predicted, it is likely that what will emerge will reflect the structural changes engendered by the production and consumption processes introduced by globalization. In light of the crisis afflicting the economic system, it is evident that states will re-assert their power but this – and the resulting inter-state dynamics that will ensue– may not necessarily mean a return to the kind of multi-polarism of the past.

This ushers new dangers and opportunities : On the one hand, it may open up more space for states to pursue their objectives without the constraints imposed by one superpower. On the other hand, depending on the resulting arrangement, it may intensify competition and rivalry among the big powers, inevitably sweeping smaller states into the maelstrom. Or it may pave the way for the entrenchment of transnational political institutions that allow for even less autonomy for weaker states.

What the Philippines does today can influence that outcome. While helping the US transition from empire to just one of many co-equal members of the international community, the Philippines must also actively contribute to preventing the emergence of new empires. The shift from a uni-polar to a multi-polar world is not necessarily better if all it means is the replacement of one empire with more empires – or with an entirely new kind of multi-state empire. The Philippines must therefore resist the temptation of ending its subordination to the US only to kowtow before China or some other power or bloc of powers. The last thing it should do is to extricate itself from one empire only to throw itself into the arms of another.

 Towards a new pole

Instead of allying with the strongest — and then living in a world where might is made to be right, the Philippines should instead side with those who are currently marginalized – in order to then build a world where the weak cannot be exploited by the strong. Together with other small and less powerful states and peoples, the Philippines should be part of a new bloc that will stand for the interests of the country’s – and the world’s – majority : the poor and the oppressed.

Because power imbalances will remain and power struggles will continue in the emerging multi-polar world, forming this new bloc is critical to consolidate, defend, and advance the interests of this majority. United, they will be less weak. Banding together to foil divide-and-rule tactics, this new bloc should forge tactical alliances with social movements and critical global civil society of the kind that allowed them to defeat the North at the World Trade Organization talks in Seattle or Hong Kong. Together, they should work to immediately reject, dismantle, and reconstruct international institutions, agreements and arrangements that currently serve the interests of the powerful few over the majority – whether in the area of international trade, finance, nuclear disarmament, or climate change.

Working to overcoming the limits of Third Worldism and learning from the failures of the Non-Aligned Movement, this bloc should propose to overhaul the United Nations by abolishing the Security Council and strengthening the General Assembly ; rewrite the rules of and overhaul the decision-making processes in the World Trade Organization ; form a successor to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund that serves the interests of developing countries over banks ; push for a post-Kyoto Protocol that enforces real cuts in consumption and production in the developed countries and among elites in the South ; and establish new institutions and mechanisms of the kind that they are experimenting with and learning from today in Latin America, such as the ALBA or Banco Sur.

To prevent wars and conflict, this bloc should tolerate no exceptions and move to compel all nuclear powers, including the United States and Israel, to abandon their weapons of mass destruction ; push for a treaty that bans foreign military basing and mandates universal multilateral cuts in military spending ; end the occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine and bring war criminals to justice ; and uphold the right to self-determination of peoples – including in the Philippines. To constrain the mighty, the cycle of impunity must be ended through the full and equal implementation of international law.

 Beyond borders

Underpinning all these proposals should be a powerful new vision for the world’s people to live together : one that emphasizes our common humanity by rejecting national or cultural divisions, prioritizes people’s welfare over the profits of a few corporations, chooses solidarity over rivalry, and promotes cooperation over competition.

Turning this vision into reality, in turn, necessitates a fundamental overhaul of the existing nation-state system. The Philippines, and the new bloc it should be part of, should push for global arrangements that effectively dismantle the barriers to universal citizenship and universal rights and dissolves the distinctions between “us” and “them.” The global commons – the world’s resources, including oil, water, the atmosphere – should not be privatized and should be equitably shared and sustainably harnessed by all peoples.

Putting into practice the creed that “all men (and women) are created equal,” concrete measures should be put in place to ensure that no one – of whatever nationality, color, or religion – should be discriminated against or be deprived of her rights anywhere in the world – in her country or outside of it. Concretely, for example, migrant workers should have as much rights and protection as local citizens. No one should be made illegal ; borders should not be erected to perpetuate inequalities. At the same time, measures should be implemented to compensate those who have been disadvantaged or treated unjustly as a result of colonization or exploitation.

In moving beyond the Westphalian system and transforming the relationship between peoples and states, what matters is not so much the details of the formal institutional arrangements than the affirmation of practical subsidiarity, or the principle that authority should reside at the lowest level possible – closest to the people most directly affected by them. Direct political participation should be institutionalized at the village or town level – with residents given a say on issues that really matter. Today’s top-down representation needs to be discarded and replaced with substantive popular empowerment.

In imagining new ways of organizing our communities and our states, states should be seen merely as instruments to achieve their objectives ; they should be changed or transformed depending on what will best serve their collective interests. As vessels of people’s aspirations, states are only social constructs and should not be reified. To paraphrase a powerful quote, it is the people that should determine the destiny of states, not states that determine the destiny of the people.

So whether the resulting system is one that preserves existing states or morphs into regional confederations or some other arrangement, what is important is that those living within these states or confederations are not brought under political systems or laws by faraway unaccountable authorities or bureaucrats without their consent. Forming a Southeast Asian Union, for example, may be desirable only if such a union fosters cooperation that can improve the welfare of the Southeast Asian peoples, and for so long as Filipinos – or the Moros or the Acehnese for that matter – can retain control over their own destiny.

 Transforming domestic policy

In this new world, the fundamental divisions will still be between all those who seek to preserve their position of power, on the one hand, and those who seek to redistribute this power along more egalitarian lines, on the other ; those who seek to perpetuate injustice and those who seek to end it. On this, the divisions have not and will not necessarily correspond to actually existing borders. People from both sides can live within the same country ; and control over the state, being a powerful instrument for pursuing one side’s interests over the other’s, will be the object of intensifying conflict.

Recognizing this, forging an alternative foreign policy ultimately entails a transformation in the way “national interests” are defined and pursued. The “national interest” should no longer be equated with the narrow interests of the small group that constitute the country’s ruling elites and that currently direct its foreign policy. For so long have they cloaked themselves with the flag, even as they sacrificed the interests of the workers, farmers, the urban poor, the unemployed, and all those who constitute the country’s majority.

A “nationalist” foreign policy is not one that denies these existing power relations because it will only allow the ruling elites to instrumentalize the state and incite people’s passions to pursue their narrow interests. The Cojuangcos, the Zobels, the Lopezes or the Sys will proclaim their being “Filipino” if it will boost their profits ; but they do not and will not hesitate to bring down the wages of their workers just because they happen to be Filipinos. The Lobregats and the Pinols will rile against the “dismemberment of the nation” but only because they want to hold on to lands they acquired by displacing the Moros. Nationalism should be reclaimed from those who seek to justify the Philippines’ own imperialist practices : an alternative foreign policy will disavow colonization and will never launch or join a war of aggression.

To ensure this, an alternative foreign policy should be more democratic in terms of the procedure by which decisions are made. Its conduct should be more transparent and accountable, reclaimed from being the preserve of the oligarchs and their favored diplomats. Foreign policy decisions should be subjected to public grassroots discussions – and where possible, referendums. But more than the procedures and formalities, foreign policy should be democratic in that its conduct truly reflects the aspirations of the people.

Freed from the chauvinist prejudices which self-interested elites have drilled in their consciousness and empowered to decide on how they want to relate with their fellow human beings in the global community, the larger majority will find that their greater interest lies in creating a world based on friendship and sharing. Rejecting the crumbs thrown their way in the form of water pipes and guns, they will conclude that – faced with a world wracked by aggression and inequality – they cannot afford to continue accepting subordination and injustice. They will be realistic and they will choose peace.