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The Philippines began conducting relations with other states during

Emilio Aguinaldos term. He was the first president of the first Philippine
Republic. At that time the Philippines, although it claimed its independence it
had yet to be recognized as a sovereign state. Thus, conducting foreign
relations with other states was not attainable to the government of our first
Philippine Republic. Almost more than a century has passed since our first
government was established. The Philippines now in the 21st century has
established foreign relations with more than 50 other states.
With numerous bilateral and multilateral relations, the Philippines
require a guide to properly go about its relations with these foreign states.
These guidelines are called foreign policy. The Philippines has three pillars for
foreign policy they are political stability, economic development and the
protection and promotion of Overseas Filipino Workers rights. When
discussing foreign relations, we must address what may hinder successful
promotion of these relations.
Looking into the Philippines, implementing and formulating foreign
policy, challenges arise in all three pillars of foreign policy. Most of the points
in this report are derived from a study written by Renato De Castro about the
weaknesses of Philippine foreign policy. The first pillar, political stability,
faces challenges such as
1. inconsistent practice of foreign policy in different
administrations,
2. economic or trade policies benefiting bilateral partners rather
than the PH
3. internal conflict such as insurgencies in Mindanao,
4. and strong focus on military agreements rather than
improvement of PHs own facilities and training
5. lastly, high dependence on other states, mainly the United States
of America
Foreign Policy and the Factors that Affect It
The Philippines, thanks to its various administrations in government has
left us with a strange legacy, a legacy of erratic foreign policies.

An example of this would be in the case of the military agreements


with the United States. The Philippines has varied decisions regarding
the presence of American military bases in the Philippine islands. Some
presidents permit military bases and make use of U.S. military support
for our national defense, while the other administrations with anti-

western sentiments expel the U.S. military and focus on collaborating


with other Asian states in regional groups for regional security.
The second challenge is exemplified in the administration of President
__ wherein Americans and foreign nationals were given parity rights
equal to those of Filipino citizens. This means that not only were the
foreigners allowed to have businesses in the Philippines, but also they
were allowed to exploit the natural resources of the Filipinos.
The third challenge refers to the insurgencies that rose in Southern
Philippines. With the presence of insurgencies in the Philippines, it is
difficult to engage in security building elsewhere as our own country is
not free from conflict. The Philippine army for countless of years has
been focused on internal security and has not been trained to protect
the country from external forces and this is why we need to constantly
rely on the agreements with the American army.
The fourth is about foreign policy centered on military capacity. This
particular foreign policy has been consistently seen in again the
Philippine-US bilateral relations. The policies vary on the degree of
access that the U.S. is provided in the Philippines, but other than that,
the U.S. military is partnered with the Philippines and supports the
Philippines in times of international dispute and protection of national
security. This implication in fact is what provides us with a challenge.
Instead of the Philippines developing its own military strategies, we
have vastly depended on that of the Americans. In a way, the
Philippines is still within the United States control.
The fifth challenge refers to the Philippine governments dependence
on other states for our development and progress as a nation-state.
This challenge is also appropriate for economic security. We rely on
agreements and treaties with other countries to sell or manufacture
products. We also aim to become globally competitive with the highly
developed countries but we do not focus on improving the facilities we
have, to produce our products more efficiently.

Economic & Trade Reliance


The second foreign policy is economic stability. This policy is used to
promote Philippines competitiveness in the global market as mentioned
earlier. We can only become competitive in the global arena if we have a
local environment that promotes healthy competition as well. The
Philippines needs to focus on addressing the business sector of our local
economy. The competition of businesses in the local market will decrease
high prices and encourage patronage from the consumers. With increased

local business growth, the Philippines will have a safer bet and higher
chances to be competitive in the global arena. This is due to the
improvement of facilities to match the needs of the consumers. The
Philippines has only given importance to industries centered on exporting.
If the Philippines were able to give equal importance to industries for local
consumers than the competition mentioned earlier may arise and
exporting goods will only serve as an additional income rather than the
main source of income of the Philippines business sector.

OFW Factor
The last foreign policy focuses on the rights of Overseas Filipino
Workers. The challenge that this policy faces is the compliance or
willingness of bilateral partners of the Philippines to prioritize the rights of
OFWs in their state affairs. The Philippines in this aspect, does not show it
is working on stabilizing or procuring policies that are beneficial to their
bilateral partners. The Philippines needs to work on helping others to help
itself. The Philippine govt has made sure that the Filipinos overseas are
allocated to different countries that can provide source of income and
occupations but the government has failed to show that it has done all
measures to ensure that the overseas Filipinos are safe and being treated
fairly under the host countrys laws. As of late there has been an
agreement made between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the
Philippines for the employment of domestic help. It has been the first
agreement of its kind that caters to the OFWs, especially in the domestic
services.

Philippines and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Bilateral Relations


The Philippines is home to more than 98 million people as of 2013. Among
the working and eligible to work in our population, not all of the Filipinos
are fortunate enough to be employed in the Philippines. Due to the
surplus of human resources and lack of other resources required to
employ the rest of the population, the Philippine governments mission is
to locate proper areas of employment that are also willing to take in
overseas workers and non-citizens.
In October 24 1969, the Philippines opened up its first embassy in
Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, establishing the official formal relations

between both states. The reason the Philippines took the opportunity to
send diplomatic missions to Saudi Arabia is that the Arabian countries
began cultivating and industrializing their reserves of oil. With the
development of their resource, they needed many professionals with
expertise in those fields. Saudi Arabia did not have various nationals who
were dedicated to graduating with professional degrees like those that we
have in the Philippines, thus they welcomed many expatriates to go and
take over the work needed to be done in the oil development.
27 years later, the Philippines and Saudi bilateral relations expanded to
occupy the growing number of Filipino expatriates in the kingdom. Both
states experienced several challenges to the foreign policy formulation or
implementation. Throughout the years, professionals related to oil
development were no longer the only Filipinos being transferred in from
the Philippines. Now, there are tons of teachers, nurses, other medical
personnel that have flown in and have started running their respective
areas. Also widely popular in Saudi Arabia is the Filipina and Filipino
domestic help. The domestic help usually consist of cooks, maids, or
babysitters for rich families in Saudi. Living in the city, you are able to
experience the joys of tax-free food and basically other expenses are taxfree for expatriates in the Kingdom.
Where there are good things, there are also bad. As overseas Filipinos,
it is difficult sometimes to move higher up in your career because some
Saudis racially discriminate foreigners and prefer fellow Saudis to them.
This discrimination is mostly prevalent in hospitals with medical staff like
nurses. The challenge here is not only the racial
discrimination/preference, there is also another implication that arises
from the first aspect. With the preference of Saudi citizens/nationals
some Filipinos are paid less than Saudi counterparts who sometimes if not
always do less work than the Filipino/Filipina staff.
The second challenge faced by Filipinos in the Kingdom is the
difference in religious background. Most Filipinos have a strong faith and
actively participate in church activities but in the Kingdom, they are
limited to hosting these events in houses or other private locations in fear
of getting caught by the authorities in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has a
strict policy when it comes to religion. This is understandable as it is the
culture and traditional practices are founded and based upon the Islamic
religion. The challenge however, is the power to make foreign policies

possible between the Philippines and K.S.A regarding the freedom of


religious practice.
The other challenge of the Philippines and Saudi Arabia in foreign
policy is the conditions set for employment of OFWs in the Kingdom.
Recently, there has been a policy made specifically to ensure the
protection of OFWs in the domestic help sector. This policy brings more
hope in the future for the welfare of our Filipinos and Filipinas in this area
of expertise. Predating this policy, the Philippines witnessed the onslaught
of harsh and brutal treatment of Saudi nationals/citizens to their domestic
help compared to those cases in the years before. This served as the
basis to why the Philippines had decided to stop sending domestic
workers to Saudi in 2013. It is a well-known fact that most overseas
Filipino workers serve in the domestic help sector. For this reason, they
contribute a big portion of the revenues that are sent to the Filipinos with
the rest of the Filipino professionals working abroad. There is a need to
always keep in mind the needs and security of the help being sent out to
ensure that we are not sacrificing our citizens for the mere sake of
economic development.
Another challenge to relations is the difference in culture and language
practiced by both the Philippines and Saudi Arabia. It is important for us
to understand and learn each others cultural background so there will be
no incongruence or violation of anothers foreign policy goals. Because
the Philippines and the Kingdom speak Filipino and Arabic respectively, it
is important that the foreign relations officers are equipped with fluent
Filipino and Arabic so that speaking these languages will be natural.
Natural in a sense that it would not be strange to converse or each partys
(Philippines/KSA) national interest is understood and promoted.
Source(s):
De Castro, R. Weakness and Gambits in Philippine Foreign Policy in the 21st
Century. Retrieved from http://www.academia.edu/
/Weakness_and_Gambits_in_Philippin
Trenwith, C. Saudi Passes Historic Domestic Worker Law. Arabian Business.
Retrieved from http://www.arabianbusiness.com/saudi-passes-historicdomestic-worker-law-509454.html

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