PHILIPPINE FOREIGN RELATIONS: THREATS AND OPPURTUNITIES

On the discussion in the article “Philippines' foreign relations: threats and opportunities”, we discussed the pressures as well as chances of the Philippines for a “better country”. This reading proposed some solutions regarding what we can do to avoid or at least resolve what was been done or what else has to be done in line with the threats but before that, let me first enumerate what are the Philippines’ major threats, and these are : Uncertain extent of the Philippines’ Territorial Sea and Exclusive economic Zone, Foreign assistance extended to the separatist movement in the Southern Philippines including the terrorist acting or purporting to act on its behalf, terrorism and ethnic conflict between Muslims and other minorities, eroding competitiveness particularly in the fierce rivalry for investments, and in line with this threats, it was proposed that we should settle the national territorial issue, strengthen the country’s capacity for surveillance and enforcement in the territorial sea and exclusive economic zone, cooperate with other countries to cut off support from the separatists and terrorists, redress the grievances of the minorities and strengthen the competitiveness of the economy and substantially improve investment climate. On the other hand, opportunities here in the Philippines never came to an end. Some of our opportunities as it was stated in the article were: East Asia is in a calm and Peace zone except for the nuclear issue in Korea, the ASEAN plus Three and North Asians or the potential economic development between Asians and Indians. (Severino 2003)


We are able to talk about the gap between the state’s function as well as the civil society in the Philippine political culture. I believe that in order to address this issue, the government should consider the revision of the 1987 Philippine constitution and the part of Pan- Asianism envision on certain points with regards to the reduction of threats as well as the development of our country’s opportunities. The bottom line is that, we as a part of the country should act collectively by creating a community who is responsible for suggestions as well as opinions for the issues that is facing by our country and the government should serve as our representative for enacting these proposals for a better Philippines.