We have three security and foreign policy concerns to consider this morning.

The first is the Abu Sayyaf which we regard as part of the worldwide network of terrorism by extremist groups that misuse Islam as an ideology of violence.

The second is the Chinese presence on Panganiban (Mischief) Reef in the Kalayaan Island Group (KIG) and in other reefs and shoals much closer to our Palawan mainland and well within our exclusive economic zone (EEZ) — which evidences China’s creeping claim to sovereignty over the entire South China Sea.

While we regard this problem with the utmost seriousness and despite alarmist reports from sensationalist media, we have not yet really come to a crisis point in our relations with China.

The third is the Maga-Contemplacion-Singapore problem, which has created heightened emotions and divisions among our people and strained relationships between our country and our ASEAN partner, Singapore.

These three seemingly separate incidents all arise out of our economic, social, political and military weakness — which we, as this country’s leaders, must work on together to remedy and remove.

THE ABU SAYYAF AND INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM
On the Abu Sayyaf depredations, our military and police units have been given orders by me to shoot to kill the outlaws. There is really no other way — you cannot reach fanatics through reason and compromise.

But since terrorism has a way of turning off moderates, we are also taking every care to assure our Muslim population in Mindanao and elsewhere that we continue to meet their rightful demands for their share of development in Mindanao and wherever they are in other parts of the Philippines and abroad — in health care, basic education, infrastructure, skills-training, and jobs and livelihood. Also, as importantly, all this does means that government does not see a Christian versus Muslim war in the Philippines.

How to convey to them this assurance of government’s care — in practical ways — is what the members of this council must discuss as leaders.

I also ask this council to consider the enactment of a law on anti-terrorism to strengthen the substantive provisions of our penal laws that directly address terrorism, including the control of the entry of suspected foreign terrorists and their funding support into the country.

What has happened in Mindanao is this: apart from Nur Misuari’s mainstream Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) with which we are into a peace process, we now also face political Islamists in the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and in the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group.

The strategic and tactical linkages between these two latter groups are not yet clear. But the Abu Sayyaf’s goal is certainly not just separatism. It seeks to establish an Islamic state in the southern Philippines — through terrorism. And to better carry out its program, it has linked up with international Islamist terrorist groups.

The inhumanity of terrorism from whatever source has just demonstrated their reach and their ruthlessness in last Wednesday’s (19 April) Oklahoma City bombing.

We may expect Abu Sayyaf and their cohorts to commit more atrocities in our country. They will try and provoke government into suppressing them — welcoming state violence as producing Islamist martyrs. But we must not be provoked, and the entire nation — Christian, Muslim and indigenous Filipinos — must be prepared to confront and counter this new threat to our security and stability by the stronger cohesion of the national leadership and the united support of our people.
THE CHINA’S MOVES INTO THE SOUTH CHINA SEA
On the “Mischief” Reef dispute with China, our strategy of internationalizing the issue has had some success. We have received diplomatic support for our position from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), from the European Union (EU), from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and, through prestigious American leaders, unofficially from the United States.

Until now, Beijing refuses to acknowledge its responsibility for its incursions on Mischief Reef. But the type of structures built there — and the timing of their moves on Mischief Reef — suggest otherwise.

China’s step-by-step advances into the South China Sea — starting with the Paracels in 1974 — have been characteristically timed just when the opposing parties are least prepared to resist them. The moves on mischief reef come during a period of seeming incoherence in the Asia-Pacific policies of the United States, and our preoccupation with internal problems here in the Philippines.

Now regional anxiety is growing that Beijing may be deliberately using Chinese nationalism as the binder of national unity in place of its ambivalent polices and unclear leadership patterns. Dynastic-style territorial claims certainly help legitimize Communist Party rule at a time it is under pressure from democratizing forces within Chinese national society.

Until now, China’s growing ties with the international economy do not seem to have mitigated the imperial manner with which it pursues its traditional ambitions.

But, eventually, the contradiction — between a Chinese economy increasingly interdependent with those of its neighbors and its rulers’ insistence on an obsolete concept of power politics — must be resolved. We hope Beijing will resolve it in favor of more freedom for the Chinese people, and in favor of progressing together with her more democratic and transparent neighbors in Asia-pacific.

THE MAGA-CONTEMPLACION-SINGAPORE PROBLEM
I have spoken twice over the last 10 days to Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong. I explained to him why the hanging of a simple Filipina maid has evoked such an emotional reaction and outrage from so many Filipinos. The same message has been given through our Secretary of Foreign Affairs, through ministry-to-ministry exchanges and through various back channels within ASEAN.

Our traditional culture recognizes that the most precious possession of poor people is their dignity; and now our people feel that Singapore, which is rich and influential, has taken even that dignity away from our overseas workers.

Prime Minister Goh and I have agreed that if a further re-examination of Delia Maga’s remains should prove our National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) forensic experts correct, then Singapore would reopen the case of Flor Contemplacion and redress the injustice done to her.

Since the Singapore experts and our own could not reconcile their findings in their joint examination of the remains of Delia Maga last 19 April at the Saint Luke’s Hospital, Prime Minister Goh and I have agreed, as the next step, to refer the matter to a panel of third-party experts whose composition shall be agreed upon and whose findings will be binding on both our countries.
CONCLUSION AND CLOSING REMARKS
Throughout these past 48 years, we Filipinos have had little sense of a real outside threat, because the American presence had insulated our country against external dangers. Only now are we facing — on our own — a direct challenge to our territorial integrity. Because we are too weak militarily to deal with this challenge, we must make common cause with our neighbors and the international community — and repair our ties with our old ally, the United States.

Some reduction in her Asia-Pacific force levels will be unavoidable, but the United States will — over the foreseeable future — continue to be the big difference in the Asia-Pacific balance of power.

For this reason, it makes sense to closely cooperate with the United States on anti-terrorist policies and counter-measures. The same is true with Japan and Pakistan, themselves recent victims of terrorism. For the same reason, we need to urgently resolve our differences on the Maga-Contemplacion case with Singapore.

The magnitude of international migration by Filipinos has simply outpaced government’s capacity to service the complex needs of our overseas contract workers (OCWs). We obviously need to effect policy responses and create new mechanisms within and among our concerned departments to enable the Philippines and the whole government, to include the legislature and the judiciary, and the private sector to cope better as a national team.

In many other aspects of public policy, government today faces systemic challenges of a kind it has not faced before — systemic challenges which call for systemic solutions.

I invite this council to think of how we can reorganize our bureaucracy into functional groupings to focus on the problems of the day and the coming century.

I cannot overemphasize our urgent need to strengthen the political capacity of the Philippine state — so that it can mobilize and focus our people’s energies and our resources on modernizing our economy, taking care of basic needs, reforming our politics, and sharpening our sense of nationality.

Only a strong Philippine state can stand up for our people’s dignity and defend our territory against any threats from without or within.