Carvajal: Treason or vision?

FORMER Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales recently alleged the Philippines “cannot survive treason from within,” alluding to President Duterte’s policy of friendship with China.

In 1969, West Germany had a new chancellor in Willy Brandt, who launched diplomatic initiatives to talk peace with Russia, an enemy that controlled East Germany. West Germans considered Brandt’s vision of a peaceful and progressive co-existence with Russia as an impossible dream. He was even called a traitor for taking this conciliatory stance towards arch enemy Russia.

It was secret diplomacy. Nobody knew how many times this outstanding, creative and brave statesman went to talk peace with Moscow. His only weapons were wit and creativity. But what gave him the courage to risk being branded a traitor by his own people was his vision of a peaceful and progressive One Germany.

Then it happened. There was a thawing of animosities between West Germany and Russia. The reunification of East and West into one Germany came much later when East and West Germans took it upon themselves to bring the Berlin wall down. But long before that, the détente Brandt achieved with Russia brought the benefits of peace and progress to Germany.

In 1971 he was given the Nobel Peace Prize and historians have since acknowledged him as one of Germany’s great statesmen.

It is not the same situation between China and the Philippines but there are similarities. One, Russia had long occupied East Germany, an indisputable part of Germany, when Willy Brandt decided to negotiate. China is occupying territory an international arbitral court has ruled as belonging to the Philippines. Two, Willy Brandt was called a traitor for secretly talking peace with Russia while Rodrigo Duterte’s public extension of the hand of friendship to China is called “treason from within”?

So why is Rodrigo Duterte’s open friendship with China treason and not Antonio Trillanes’s arrogant refusal to divulge the purpose of his 16 secret trips for back-channel talks with China? What is so wrong anyway with being friends with both the US and China that have us by the throat economically and militarily? Besides do we really have any other and better alternative besides peaceful negotiations?

I am confident that one day historians will acknowledge President Duterte’s vision of a country that is “a friend to all and enemy to none.” Duterte’s win-win is wiser and more practical than the opposition’s win-lose, winner-take-all approach to the Philippine David’s territorial problems with economic and military Goliath China.

With vision we can survive all adversity including treason. Without vision we will sink without any help from traitors within or without.

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