 Thank you, Hawaii Asian Reveal. I'm Johnson Choi, the host. Our guest today is Professor Patricio Adbinas. Our topic today is very interesting, it's about the new president of the Philippines, Rory Rogers Duntate. Professor, welcome to the show. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Before I bring, ask professor some question about the happening in the Philippines. Maybe I will give a quick recap. Because of the program today, I spent my last month actually go out and did some of my own research, not straight from the Philippines perspective, but talking to my friends, primary in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. And also, since I spent a lot of time in San Francisco, there's a huge Filipino population in San Francisco. And last year, before I returned to Hawaii, I also spent three days in Las Vegas. And surprisingly, there's a lot of Filipino workers in the casinos. So with the program in mind, I do ask a lot of those more like blue collar type of workers, both in San Francisco and also in Las Vegas. And how do they like about the new president of the Philippines? Surprisingly, everybody likes him, just like the poll number in the Philippines with an 85% plus approval rate. So as some of the people bought the more elite group, that means those are the businessmen and those are with strong ties with the American business. And the answer is quite different. They were disappointed. So with that in mind, I guess they are depends on which sector of the population he belongs to. And because what happened in the Philippines, and before Donald Trump got elected, a lot of people compared him to Duterte to the Donald Trump of the Philippines. And today I listened to the Taiwan talk show. There's another businessman like Donald Trump in Taiwan who built all the iPhone for Apple. And people speculating that in 2020, he may want to run for president of Taiwan. So alongside the old tradition, career partitions have to watch out because maybe the tie has changed. Okay, professor. Do you have anything that you want to add to my comment? Well, Duterte actually, Duterte likes President-elect Trump for one reason that they swear. But if you compare the political careers to each other, they're very much far different. But the Duterte comes from the little family, Mr. Trump doesn't. He's run Davao City as mayor for 23 years, and quite successfully. And Davao City is one of the co-tenants with safest and most comfortable place to live in the Philippines. So he brings that with them. Mr. Trump doesn't have that political experience. So let me bring to another area that before he got elected under the Aquino Administration. With the help of the Americans in Japan, they went to the hate court and filed a complaint against China. And I think the court ruling said China lost, okay? Yes. And when Duterte took office, he took 180 degree turn. And of course, there are different reasons he said that in the media. One of the reasons he said is US has no money, China has. And China has the money to help Philippines to build up the infrastructure and employment. What is your take on that? Well, two things. One is, compared to the other parts of Asia, the Chinese investments in the Philippines are quite very low. The question is, where are the investments? Most of the investments are in the island, the home of Mindanao. The Chinese, there's heavy Chinese importation of export crops, pineapple, bananas, fish. And that comes from the southern Philippines. Second is, there is growing Chinese investment in the mining industry. And so in northeast of Mindanao Island, that's where big deposits of copper, different kinds of metals that China needs are located. And the Philippine government have been trying to liberalize mining laws to bring in more investors. American and Australian investors are coming in, but they have to face problems with their environmental groups back home. The Chinese don't have that. Okay. I visited Mindanao three times, about 10 years ago, and I noticed that, obviously when I went there through the introduction of my Chinese friends there, and I found that most of the Chinese, at least in the Mindanao area, I don't know about the other part of Philippines, they do quite well. In fact, they live in residential complexes, pretty secure with guards and stuff like that. And I know that the Chinese has been, I don't know about Philippines, like Indonesia or Thailand. The Chinese play a very important role in the business side. So with the woman relationship with China, how do you feel the Chinese, the Filipino, maybe play a more important role? First culturally, Mr. Choi, the Chinese have always been part of Philippine society. My grandfather, for example, his first language was Hokkien, not Filipino, because he was adopted by the local Chinese family. So there is already that long friendship between Filipino, Chinese, and Filipino. My mother used to teach piano in my home town, 95% for students are Chinese. So when I was growing up, for example, I thought there were two new years, a Christian New Year, and this New Year, we're the only Filipino in the community, in the house. And the Chinese grandmothers would teach me how to curse in Chinese. So there is already the deep friendship between Chinese, especially outside of Manila. Chinese don't need to be protected in suburban villages. They're part of the village, they're part of the community, my classmates are Chinese. I think my grandfather's side, we have Chinese blood because I have cousins who are Chinese looking. And so that's a big factor. The second factor really is because Chinese have been, unlike other minorities in say Indonesia, Chinese and the Philippines, hell or high water, if there's a political crisis, they don't get their investments out, they don't take away their investment, they keep in the Philippines. Couple of them left in the 1980s when they were kidnapping of Chinese businesses, but the majority of Chinese businesses, small, medium, and large, stay in the Philippines. And that's been a big factor in terms of why the government say, well, the Chinese, they were always with us. The third thing is Chowden, China. The Philippines was one of the end points of Chinese migration in the 50s, but as far back as the 1930s. So it's silent Chinese, a lot of the Chinese then move there. China was closed when it became communist, but in 1980, then shopping opened China, and so the families were reconnected again. So if Chinese Filipinos have investments in China, these are mainly in the southern China. The Guangzhou area. I noticed there's a lot of Filipinos also work in Hong Kong too, almost 300,000 of them. So in Indonesia, they are anti-Chinese, anti-Chinese riots in Malaysia and Indonesia. In the Philippines, you don't see that. Especially in the provinces, I grew up in the provinces and that's it. So I noticed that because my wife, family was Chinese that moved to Indonesia generations ago and they mentioned to me, from time to time, they're right against the Chinese. So if the Philippines has a more friendly attitude towards the Chinese Filipino, isn't there a shame that it cannot be developed into a more better business relationship with China? That's developing now. Because in the early 1980s, for example, the Filipino-Chinese began to talk with their cousins. They haven't seen for a while in southern China and say, how do we set this up? So one of the Filipino-Chinese families, for example, the Xi family, has opened up malls in southern China, Schumart, and there's partnership also on export crops, the export of Philippine goods to China. In the past, when China was communist, my mother used to get smuggled goods via Singapore from China. You know, Chinese toothpaste, maling, the spam, the Philippines' spam, but now you can buy it anytime there. So I think that will continue to grow and that's the basis why President Duterte said, well, I like China more than the U.S. Since I talked to a few elite type of Filipinos, both in the West Coast and in fact, about four or five in Hawaii, and they are in the business and they are very connected with the American business and they more or less refuse to, because I want them to talk about a little bit, a good thing about the current president of Philippines instead of attacking him, not, why the elite and the people that are well connected with the American, the Fortune 100, 500 business is so, but don't like him at all? I think there's a double, it's a double face here. Filipino elites and Filipino American elites supported him because of his anti-drunk campaign. Okay. So the image of the Philippines from the U.S. and I think Europe is that it's a very unstable country, there's lots of criminality going on, and now comes Duterte, like Clint Eastwood, to clean that, and that's good for business. What they did not expect was that he was anti-American, and so there's this big surprise that when he started cursing at President Obama and calling the American ambassador gay, there was something they didn't expect, and I kept telling them that if you studied him carefully, he's always been that, anti-drug, but also consistently anti-American because of some personal experience he's had when he was mayor with Americans, and so they're surprised now, and I understand why they didn't know much about him because who knew about Duterte until he won the presidency? He was a mayor. He was known as the Punisher. If you go to Davao, it's a very clean place, but you could not imagine him then becoming president. Like before the program we were talking about, maybe he learned a few tricks from the American, like a lot of time when Americans go to China. Of course Obama would not swear in the TV but they will throw everything from the garbage can to the same to the president of China before he takes the trip to China. Maybe 15 years ago the Chinese government was real upset, but after all the president are doing the same thing, they all know that it's just a show, they do it for the local audience, and I guess now when Duterte do it, and then I guess he's a wake-up call for the American, and they say, oh my God, we've been doing that to others. How could they imagine a small country like Philippines? Or a mayor. Or a mayor, you know, have the nerve, right? Well, because he's a mayor, as I mentioned in other forum, local politics, mayor politics in the Philippines, that's how they talk, they curse at each other, they threaten each other, and in one form I even mentioned that when he started talking like that, he reminded me of my aunts. They curse like that. Filipino mothers are scary. And so it's very normal for me to hear that, because I grew up in the south, grew up in a small town, but Filipinos in Manila and I guess abroad are not used to it because if you become president you're supposed to learn how to talk in diplomatic language. That's what they're trying to tell Donald Trump right now. Yeah, he doesn't care, Duterte doesn't care because he's very much aware that when he talks, he's talking to Filipinos, not the Americans. Okay, so we're going for a short break right now, so when we come back we're going to talk to Professor a little bit more about the exciting and Duterte of the Philippines. Aloha, my name is Mark Shklav. I am the host of Law Across the Sea. Please join me every other Monday to hear lawyers from Hawaii discussing ways to reach across the sea and help people and bring people together. Aloha. Aloha, I'm Carl Campania. I hope you please visit us this summer. It's a wonderful summer. It's actually a cooler summer than we're used to, but I hope that you come back and visit us and watch our show Education Movers, Shakers and Reformers here on Think Tech Hawaii. It's at noon every Wednesday. See you then. Hi, I'm Keeley Ikeena, president of the Grass Root Institute. I'd love you to join us every week Mondays at 2 o'clock PM for Ehana Kako. Let's work together. We report every week on the good things going on in our state, as well as the better things that can go on in the future. We have guests covering everything from the economy, the government and society. See you Mondays on Ehana Kako at 2 o'clock PM. Until then, I'm Keeley Ikeena. Aloha. Thank you. Hawaii Asian Reveal. This is Johnson to try to host our guest today, Professor Hapenai. Before we went to commercial, we talked about the way how people talk in the non-traditional politician say things, which is eye-opener with the presence of the Philippines now, with the presence of the United States. For some people, I think they may like it because before the politician doesn't always tell you the truth. Now at least they speak their mind and they don't have the second guess what they are actually talking about. Right? One of the big controversy, I guess, one of the American or the Caribbean elite doesn't like the new president of the Philippines because after he set aside the full name by the hate court, he also said he wanted to get American military out of the Philippines. As we may know, the Philippines, there's a country along the Southeast Asia, the American used military to contain China. And the Philippines is a very important piece of that pie. And when the Philippines, the president say, oh, maybe from now I'm going to work with China more, and worse, he said I'm going to work with Russia. So that raised an eye-opener for a lot of people. In fact, on TV, not too long ago, he said he may not live through his presidency, the six years. He said that, not me, okay? And of course, there's a lot of people speculate who is going to take him out. So I'm not going to go into a conspiracy theory right now, but based on your understanding that what he talked about, the military lines, what's your take on that? Well, remember the Philippines kicked out the U.S. bases in 1991, and so the U.S. only began to go back to the Philippines and reestablish ties with the Philippines after the global war and terror. So what has happened now is instead of bases, American bases being returned, the push is on joint military exercises between the Philippines and the American military, especially the Marines in Okinawa. The second one is to allow the U.S. some offices or small bases within Philippine bases. And I guess you're right, it's part of President Obama's pivot to Asia, and the target is of course China. When President Duterte said that, there was a lot of controversy and a lot of complaints in part because of two things. The Philippine military since 1946 has always been a military train under the U.S. system. So its promotions, the way tactics, military education from the guns down to the kinds of tactics they use is very much influenced by the United States. And even up to now, Filipino soldiers, officers are sent first to the United States, second to Australia, and I think Japan in terms of further training. So there is a tension there because the Philippine military, especially in the south, has been working well with American special forces in containing Islamic terrorists. The Philippine south is like a border. Anybody can go in and out of there. It's a wonderful zone of smugglers and pirates and terrorists. So the special forces, your special forces provide intelligence for the Philippine Marines in that area. Now if they withdraw, then the Philippines, our military is not as developed as the United States, will have to rely on very primitive intelligence networks. So that's the main complaint. The second complaint, of course, is if you change to China and Russia, what happens to the guns? What happens to everything equipment that's in the American base, you have to transform all of that. Now that said, there is actually among the senior officers, the military, who are also nationalists, who think that even if they rely on the United States and are close to other United States, the United States can only say much. This is our army. This is the Philippines. I met some colonels in the Philippine south who said, you know, sometimes these US special forces are just pulling, pushing all over the place and we push back. So there is also that sentiment there. But in general, I think the Philippine military is very much, you know, outbothered by his shift to China and Russia. So actually, right now, the military personnel in Philippines is limited more on the advisory capacity, right? Not taking any complex type of, right? Well, they say just intelligence advisory, but I think in the south, they didn't involve, they were involved. America, you know, the United States has a lot of, you know, bases all around the world. Not necessarily have to be staffed by people, but they are ready, you know, like overnight or two day or three day, you can convert into a launching stage or whatever you want to call it. Whatever Duterte's warming up relationship with China, also becoming contagious in the sense that now other countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand always been close to China anyway. So it becomes a very bad influence. I mean, from the makeup on view, first, you know, the American and the Japan have such a big show case of the hate that say, well, China, you know, China lost the case, right? And the next thing he said, I'm sorry, I'm not going to even talk about it for now, you know. And I know that China also plays smart now, they allow the Philippine fishermen to go back to the Dispilled Island to start fishing without interference. So at least China said, OK, let's set aside our disbill. I mean, when you talk about money, we can always make the money together. We don't have to like point gun each other. I mean, China has always been that attitude, you know, they don't go out and tell you what to do. Right? If there's money to make, let's talk about it on the table and settle it. I mean, that's the Chinese way. So the discomfort also with the new president of the United States, they also start saying that if you want me to defend you, pay more money. Right. We think that will also, you know, you think he will actually, you know, he told Japan the same thing, told Taiwan the same thing. I mean, I think Philippine will be. Well, the interesting thing is the Philippines is in the lowest of the total of American interests, meaning if you're talking about bases that can be converted into launching pads, you're talking about Japan and even Singapore. Yeah. Philippines is just, I mean, remember, the Philippine military, the US military initially was advising the Philippines against counter-insurgents, communists and separatists. So it's an internal force. And it's now just beginning of an external force. So if Mr. Trump says, well, we're not going to pay any more for military aid to these countries, I think the Philippines will be the last to, you know, will benefit much. And it's probably the first to say, okay, we don't care. In fact, there's move now to buy more guns from Israel or more weapons from Israel, Korea. So there's a diversification apparently. That's uncorrected in my earlier statement. So the ones who will be worried are the countries with the big bases, no, Japan, especially in Korea. Well, I think, you know, Singapore is such a small nation. And even though it's strategically located, I mean, it's hard for Singapore to take sides and try to pray as much neutral as possible. Japan, of course, relies so much on the American. And actual military, Japan is quite strong. Yeah, it is strong, yeah. They disguise it as a defense force. But, you know, who set a gun as a defense weapon cannot, used to shoot other people, right? Yeah, but the joke in Southeast Asia is they're the worst military. Wow. Because they have no combat experience. But I want to go back to this. As the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, they know they're small. Right. So they're caught between the Chinese and the United States. And if you look at the history of the ASEAN, they know how to play, they play one again, decided to be able to survive. So Vietnam, for example, they're ramming each other's ship with China, but Chinese and Western inter-Vietnam continue to grow. So this sort of, it's an actually an interesting dance that's going on. And I think the Philippines is just starting to learn, because the previous president was really pro-U.S. And with the 30, there's an opportunity there. So let's say we can do the same dance as the Vietnamese, the Singaporeans, the Cambodians, and the Laos are doing. So it's going to be an interesting time. You know what I say, Duterte is very smart. When he goes to China, he got a lot of loans. He got an investment, right? Because he said the way things, and he had a warming relationship in China. China, you have to understand China. Okay, China historically never want to beat down the lazy. They think they're smaller than them. Historically, if you are not going to challenge them, they always give you something. Right. And Duterte go to Japan, he played the same game. Right. I'll give him a bunch of stuff, right? Precisely. So I think he is very smart. You know how to play, right? So he doesn't take side at the same time. He said the right thing to please whoever he is talking to. Right. And that's the characteristics of a lot of Southeast Asian leaders. To be able to play the big powers against each other. But he plays so well in such a short time. Well, he plays so well. But I have to go back to the long relationship with China. As early as the 12th century, the Chinese were actually trading already with the Philippines. The Manchu dynasty, the Ming dynasty, were treating the Philippine sultanates as tributary, but as business partners, so that there is a tomb, a grave of the Sultan of Sulu in Shanghai, I think, from the 12th century. Yeah. So there is this style that goes on. Even up to now in the southern Philippines, the business group that is able to survive terrorism and kidnapping and all that are the Chinese Filipinos. They don't get touched. And so there's that relationship that I think even the Chinese are aware of. One interesting thing I'd like to point out, the United States' interest on the Philippines has gone down. I mean, I teach a course in the Philippines here. I really have 12 students. A course in the Philippines in Xiamen, China will have an enrollment of 100 students. So there is really, I mean, the University of Beijing has three professors specializing on the Philippines. So there is that discrepancy that Americans actually have to take into consideration. Well, we don't have much time to show, so I wish I can talk to you more about, like, the Asian AIB and one-by-one role. And eventually, with the quality, you know, China's grand plan is to connect the whole Asia by rail. And then I think the Philippines is part of the pictures. And with the American dollar-proofing, the TPP, you know. And then Japan now is the panic mode. And I think the Philippines is probably in the AIB already. I don't know whether he actually put in some money. I think not yet. But I'm sure China will welcome. I mean, the Chinese have built this interesting road from Xiamen down to Bangkok through Burma, I think. And then they just connect the bridge to Myanmar. Exactly. And like two days ago, which is a huge project. I used to stay in southern Northern Thailand. I would see all these Chinese goods coming through the ridge. It's a very exciting time in Asia. I mean, sometimes in Hawaii, we don't get much of it. But when I go to California, I do see a lot of happening over there. And then people are very excited. And actually, the Philippines community in California is quite active, too, in many ways. In many ways. Okay, so we're going to the end of the program. Thank you, Professor Appinas for coming to our program. Thank you very much. And I hope to wait back sometime in the near future to talk more about the exciting relationship between the Philippines, America, and China.