 I am very pleased to be here with a colleague of ours, an international academic colleague of mine, assistant professor Richard Hadarian. He is an eminent scholar, an expert on Philippines political science and also political science, the international situation in the western South East Asia region and also the Pacific. He is the author of an upcoming book on the rise of the new Filipino President Duterte. Thank you for coming. Can I ask you one question? I have an interest in South East Asia and in particular ASEAN, but I am more from a historical perspective. I am a historian myself as opposed to being a political scientist and I am interested in being the 50th anniversary of ASEAN, ASEAN being created in August 1967 and I have written quite extensively about those early years and it is interesting back then that the Philippines, back in the 60s the Philippines was not considered to be as big a player as say Indonesia was back then in the early years of ASEAN, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore and Thailand tended to have more and the Philippines is an offshore country whereas they are all linked apart from Indonesia but Indonesia is so close to Malaysia and Singapore and Malaysia and Singapore are more closely linked to Thailand. Yet this is the year that the Philippines is going to be the presidency of ASEAN. Do you think, I get the feeling that Filipinos have never really valued ASEAN? Would you say that's correct? Well for a long time the Philippines was the sole Catholic majority country until East Timor came on board. So in terms of religion there is a tremendous amount of difference between Filipinos and the rest of South East Asia but it's not only that there are other elements. I mean for a long time the Philippines has been in the shadow of the United States. It was a sole American colony in this part of the world. It speaks English but with a different accent than the other former British colonies and if you look at the Philippines in many ways it's more similar to Latin American countries you know for some time Manila was called the Havana of the East. So in many ways the Philippines is more part of the Western, Latin, Iberian episteme rather than this Asian Hindu Muslim episteme which has dominated the ASEAN. So there's this psychological, ideological and geographical difference and then of course as you mentioned correctly the Philippines was while it was among the founders of the ASEAN it was never as much as central as let's say Indonesia. It's not only a question of size and heft. It's also about the fact that the Philippines for a long time was more or less a proxy of the United States. The idea of non-aligned movement which was espoused by Indonesia and Sukarno and to a certain degree welcomed by Singapore and other countries was never really internalized by the Philippines. So while the Philippines paid the lip service to the non-aligned concept in part of the non-aligned movement officially in terms of actual foreign policy it was very much an extension of American interests, American thinking and American military dagger here in the western Pacific part of the world and service also suggests that the level of consciousness of the Philippines about ASEAN the rest of Asia is tremendously low even among the more educated Filipinos. I mean at most they know a little bit about Singapore, a little bit about Japan or but that's it. The level of interest in other ASEAN countries is tremendously low and the level of affiliation is very low. So now the Philippines is taking over the ASEAN chairmanship after 50 years on a rotational basis contrary to what Duterte supporters say he was not elected as the chairman and president of ASEAN. So a lot of propaganda is going on there but some strange things are happening because for the first time you have a Filipino president. I mean to be honest we haven't had anyone like him, you know someone who can cost at the most sacred figures for Filipinos whether it's the pope, whether it's the American president among others or someone who's from Mindanao, you know the dark underbelly of the Philippines. I mean a conflict-ridden region that was neglected by the rest of the country. He's the first person who openly advertises his Islamic and Muslim background through his mother while most Filipino politicians tend to either be critical of the Muslim population, Muslim minority or if they have any background they try to de-emphasize it and he went from mayor to president almost overnight. So in many ways he is a first but what makes him really special in terms of the broader regional dynamics is the fact that he is the first Filipino president that has really began to question where the Philippines should really go on its own and get out of the shadow of America and he has done that. It's very interesting. That's really interesting like that because I've noticed as you say the Philippines has always been the American strategic client. Well it was a former American colony and of course strategically, strategically in the Second World War it's always had the American bases and as you're saying with ASEAN and the non-aligned Indonesia and their non-aligned foreign policy although that being said I think Sahato made good use of an alliance with the American but you know the fact that the zone of peace, freedom and neutrality never worked and all of that sort of stuff because of the American alliance and I think I think it's a difficult thing for future ASEAN relations is that ASEAN was built while it's a regional organization it was built on a bedrock of bilateral military alliances. You know the Malaysians had the British bases in Malaysia and the Singaporeans also had British bases there. Really only Indonesia was the only founding country without foreign bases. The Thai's had Americans of course and so it's quite interesting that that foundation, that solid foundation of Philippine-American relations has been somewhat tested isn't it? Right. I mean this is a strange thing about Duterte. He's bought fresh and out of time. He's fresh in the sense that he's the first president and was openly questioned the value of American alliance with the Philippines whether Americans are reliable. Are you with us? Are you not with us? Who dares to cost at their leaders? At the same time he's quite out of time because sometimes he sounds like Sokarno. Sometimes he sounds like someone is talking about non-aligned. You're right actually a non-aligned person who's trying to court both sides which is exactly what Sokarno did. And some would even say that he's calling foreign Asia for Asians like what Japan used to do in early 20th century. So in some ways he's out of time in some ways he's very fresh in the Philippine context and it's that paradox that makes him a tremendously interesting leader. Nonetheless the fact that it matters that what makes also Duterte quite influential despite the fact that you know he comes from a relatively small sized power is first of all his publicity, his media mileage. The other thing is that he has concentrated power more than most of his predecessors in recent memory probably since the fall of democracy tatorship and that concentration of power and the process of authoritarianization in the Philippines whereby you formally have a democracy but checks and balances are essentially in hibernation because much of the Senate has defected to him. The Supreme Court is not willing to stand up to him. He has over the top kind of approval ratings of more than 80%. Well I was about to say do you think it's to do with the approval rating that he's feeling bold enough to take on the United States? I think it's not only the approval rating but the kind of fanatic support the passionate base he has and this is where there are a lot of similarities between him and Trump with the exception that Trump enters the office with a very low trust rating and he continues to have the trust rating. Duterte came in as a very polarizing character with a very low trust rating but once he was in office he got a 90% trust rating. So overnight you have much of the Philippine public defecting to him the same thing with other institutions of the state. So that has given him a carte blanche. That's his mentality, this carte blanche and he was a mayor for two decades and he thinks like a mayor. A mayor who controls almost everything and then of course there are elements of Hugu Chavez with him. Like Hugu Chavez of Venezuela he says a lot of anti-American anti-Western things but the other thing is his appeal to the masses. While the usual Filipino politicians were more like Hillary Clinton you know scripted speeches, usual slogans, clean needs, careful about what they say a lot of them western educated. Now you have a guy who's from not from mainstream Filipino elite who cracks jokes, who speaks the language of the masses and it shows no reverence for existing institutions and more yeah so authenticity that's what he brings to the table and I think after three decades of fatigue with corruption in the Philippines with broken promises among other things people felt we have to give a chance to someone new so I know a lot of people who didn't vote for him and they're telling me despite all of the things that happen in the Philippines which were not you know in consonance with his promises a lot of things didn't go right. They're still saying we want to give this guy a time a chance because maybe he's the only guy who can take the Philippines through the valley of tears because sometimes you may need a strong leader to do that because the previous leader just didn't have what it took. But what do you think his motivations are for because of course he's courting the Chinese and he's getting aid out of the Chinese. The Philippines have always got aid out of the Americans. What's in it for him to and the Filipino people as a general rule have tended to be very pro-American over the decades so what's it in it for him to you know to speak out against the Americans? What do you think? Very quickly I mean first of all he's not it's not like he's pro-China. His assessment was that the previous Filipino administration was too confrontational towards China without American backing. The Obama administration never clarified whether it will come to the Philippine rescue in an event of conflict with China in the South China Sea. I ask senior officials of America, Admiral Harris of the Pacific Command, former number two at the State Department, James Steinberg, they never gave me a clear answer where the MDT the mutual defense with the Philippines in any ways could be relevant in an event of conflict. So in a very pragmatic sense the terrorist said what's the point of us using this arbitration award and risking war and sanctions from China when we don't have a full backing of the Obama administration which was very reticent in standing up to to the Chinese and at the same time the Chinese offered him heaven. If he changed he shifted gear and offered him hell if he didn't. The Chinese made it very clear behind the scenes that if the Philippines continued the policy of the previous administration now under the terrorist then they could make life very hard for the Philippines in Scarborough, in the Spratlys among others and they were telling the Filipinos do you think the Americans are reliable then the terrorist felt no nonetheless it doesn't mean that he's defecting from one master to the other he's simply creating more room for leverage and one thing that people miss is that the country that actually the terrorist likes the most is not China it's Japan he's closest to Japan than any other country because Japanese investors are very involved in the vow he had an excellent relationship with the Japanese consulate there and now you have Shinzo Abe on a cutting-edge level of personalized diplomacy trying to court the heart of Duterte and matching every renminbi that the Chinese are putting on table so if the Chinese offered 25-24 billion dollars in pledges the Japanese are actually offering tens of billions of dollars in investments and over an official development assistance so the Japanese are going against that and what Duterte wants is this if the Americans are more reliable in terms of their military commitments and if they stop criticizing me on human rights then I'm willing to repair my ties with America and restore some of the military exercises that they cancel and if the Japanese offer me more economic assistance then I don't have to be at the mercy of the Chinese so what's happening here is the classic case of small powers playing big powers against each other it's an equi balancing now is it because Duterte has this kind of unique genius no I think some of it was spontaneous and some of it was actually common sense I mean if you look at Vietnam you look at Singapore you look at Korea this is something that most small countries have been doing what's strange is Duterte's predecessors didn't play that game very well they could have played their card very well but they didn't there were two constrained by the pro-american straitjacket but you have someone like Duterte was never part of the western episteme he had his own world in the vow he had his tension with America some would some even say that America rejected his visa in 2002 that's why he has some tensions with them so he comes in and says what's common sense for a small country play the big powers against each other and as Machiavelli advised small city states should not side with one power against each other because they could end up as part of a bargain that would be provided he maintains his strong level of support because it's interesting when you made those those links to Socarna and Socarna did the same and that was ultimately his undoing because he lost the support internal support and so Duterte has to be very careful and I think too this is where some of his domestic policies he's got to be very careful on which like his war on drugs and also the his problems with the Muslim minority as well so he's he's got to be while he might be feeling good about you know playing off strategic partners with each other he's got to be very very careful about his internal because in the Philippines of course hasn't always had a history of stable government and they haven't always had a history of the internal stability the military is a very important thing I don't know if today you can have the highest approval ratings you can be a star in global headlines or notorious for that matter but if the military feels that their basic institutional interest is being undermined then Duterte could be in trouble that is why Duterte has made it very clear that while he wants a recalibration he will not touch the foundation of the U.S. Philippine military alliance because the Philippine military has been largely trained funded not to mention much of intelligence in terms of counterterrorism and external threats the Philippines relies on the Americans so if Duterte cuts off that channel he could risk a backlash from the military and that's why Duterte has made it clear that his rhetoric is not necessarily an indication of policy but the rhetoric is part of his own art of the deal posturing that will allow the Philippines to have negotiating leverage nonetheless you can just do this for some time if he keeps on flip flopping trying to play at someone he's going to be played by the superpowers so you can do it for a year probably for one or two years at some point the novelty will be gone at some point others will read your your game and at some point maybe he's no longer as popular so you cannot just keep going on doing what he's doing eventually he'll have to have more conventionality more orthodox elements to his foreign policy but at least at the starting point he has reset the deck and given the Philippines more leverage to move forward has he has he done it because of his genius or was it intentional not necessarily part of it was spontaneous part of it was also that he's lucky and now that in U.S. you have Donald Trump who doesn't seem to be a fan of human rights promotion abroad he may find actually in modus vivendi with the U.S. and there's a high probability that at least on the level of executive to executive there'll be a repair and reset of bilateral relations but if Duterte continues his war on drugs in a scorched earth manner the U.S. Congress and Senate will go after him so it's also interesting to watch how Duterte will distinguish between the U.S. Congress and the U.S. government because in the case of EU as I discussed with the European officials last year was that he costs at the European Union when in fact was only the European parliament which was criticizing him not the European Commission so there's also the element of him understanding also the domestic politics of other country for now everyone is trying to understand him and it's natural I mean he went from mayor to the president of a country in the middle of a geopolitical chessboard and a booming economy that takes a lot of psychological leap and the learning curve should have been very steep and he's not necessarily the youngest guy and quite a stubborn person so for some time people will give him some benefit of doubt including Filipinos and our international partners but if he keeps on doing this for two years three years then the fundamental cost of that is this diplomacy is about strategic signaling and credibility matters and if he keeps on flip flopping in two three years from now the credibility of his signaling will be emaciated and at that point in time he may not be able to have much leverage in dealing with his superpowers. Maybe as president of ASEAN he might learn a little bit of strategic a little bit of regional diplomacy on that note we have to finish it up but thanks very much that was really interesting you know the Philippines often gets left out these sorts of things. Now they're too much in there. Now they've put themselves right front and center in their own region so thank you very much for coming to talk to us. Publicities, publicities.