The art of diplomacy

MACASERO

Hindi daw ako statesman. Excuse me? Hindi daw ako statesman. Ang pagkaalam ko, tumakbo ako ng Presidente. Wala mang posisyong statesman doon sa ’min, bakit mo ko pipilitin maging statesman?” the President said.

(Then they said I’m not a statesman. Excuse me? I’m not a statesman, they said. As far as I know, I ran for President. There is no position of statesman there with us, why will you force me to be a statesman?)

The President was addressing criticism from the European Union over criticism that the President is to blame for drug-related killings in the Philippines.

But this isn’t the first time we’ve heard him say it, that the people didn’t elect a diplomat, they didn’t elect a statesman.

True. And this is something his most dedicated supporters in government have accepted. “At least he’s authentic,” they say. That’s what’s important.

They’ve had a statesman before, a president who was more cordial and diplomatic. Yet, he failed – and failed miserably. So now we have “The Punisher” from Davao in Malacañang, who shuns statesmanship and diplomacy.

Diplomacy, it seems, is also not a priority of many of his Cabinet members.

No, they’re not cursing the United Nations, lashing out at “western hypocrites” or “idiot” world leaders. But a diplomat could handle – with ease – a problem highlighted by Department of Tourism Secretary Wanda Tulfo Teo during the March 19 state visit to Thailand.

In light of constant news about the war on drugs and related killings in the Philippines, how can the country continue to promote tourism?

She said during a press conference, “I hope, kung puwede, not only to Vice President Leni but also to the media to please tone down extrajudicial killings [reports] because I’m always asked whenever I go even in Asia and Europe, ‘totoo ba ito?’”

“I would always say it’s safe in the Philippines,” Teo said. “I would always ask them to come.”

For the secretary, the problem isn’t the fact that the killings are happening. The problem is Leni, the problem is the media, when they open their big mouths and scare tourists away.

The problem isn’t that calling the Philippines safe contradicts her chief’s justification for waging this war. A war that is anchored on the very premise that the country is unsafe. The problem is, according to critics of the media and the VP, that it is their patriotic duty to tell tourists to come visit our beaches and climb our mountains and not scare them away–and they have no business telling the world about the killings.

If the secretary thought like a diplomat, she would know that managing bad press is all in a day’s work. A diplomat would know that blaming a high-ranking official of the government or the national press is not the answer.

How would a diplomat handle this question? One acquaintance in the Foreign Service said that they would tell the party concerned that “it’s [the killings are] not state-sponsored and that the government is investigating this. Then I would move the conversation to discuss ideas and opportunities in the tourism sector and how easy doing business here has been in the previous years.”

This is the art of diplomacy.

Had the secretary answered this way, perhaps fewer eyebrows would have been raised.

Diplomacy, also, isn’t showing weakness. On the contrary, according to one popular quote, “Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions.”

It is an art that has been around since the beginning of the first ancient states and will continue to survive far beyond the term of the current administration.

But we want our leaders to be authentic, not diplomatic right? But maybe, just maybe, it’s possible to be both: authentic and diplomatic. And maybe it would do our country some good if they would strive to be both.