Part 8: An old order gives way to a new one, reshaping local politics

Kung ‘bar’ ang basehan sa talino, bakit napakabobo ni Gibo Teodoro? If the Bar examination for lawyers is the basis for intelligence, why is Gilbert Teodoro stupid?

At the age of 16, in 1980, Teodoro was elected as the Kabataang Barangay president in Tarlac. He served at the position until 1986, to become a member of the Tarlac Provincial Board when his mother was the Tarlac representative in the National Assembly.

This was while Gibo studied law at the University of the Philippines from 1985 to 1989 finishing at the top of his class and topping the 1989 Philippine Bar Examinations with an 86.18% rating.

From 1989 to 1996, Teodoro was employed at the law firm of Estelito Mendoza, one of the leading legal luminaries in the country.

In 1997, he obtained his Master of Laws degree from Harvard University in Boston, USA. After Teodoro passed the State Bar of New York in 2009, he completed his Doctor of Laws at West Negros University.

The country’s defense secretary was the fastest rising star during that period, under the tutelage of his maternal uncle Danding Cojuangco, who was one of the Philippine’s powerful oligarchs, who owned San Miguel Corporation, a powerful politician who founded the Nationalist Peoples Coalition  (NPC) and first cousin of President Corazon Aquino.

Danding lost the 1992 presidential elections by only 5% of the votes cast, behind Senator Miriam Defensor and the winner Fidel Ramos. Instead of making another pitch for  Malacanang, the oligarch decided to groom Teodoro for presidency.

From 1998 to 2007, Gibo served as a House Representative for the First District of Tarlac, assuming the position of Assistant Majority Leader in the 11^th Congress as head of the NPC. For three three-year terms, he authored 106 bills among which sought to repeal capital punishment.

On August 2007 at the age of 43, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo appointed Teodoro her secretary of national defense, second youngest person to ever hold the position after Ramon Magsaysay before the latter was elected Philippine President in 1953.

While Arroyo’s term was on its final year, and was where Teodoro shot like a Houston rocket to become the brightest star in the constellation, but eventually flicker to a destiny forked.

On March 2009, Teodoro announced his intention to run for president in the May 2010 election after a few months quitting his old party, the Nationalist People’s Coalition in favor of the supermajority Lakas-Kampi-Christian Muslim  Democratic Coalition.

The Philippine News Agency said “No other newcomer to Lakas-Kampi has generated so much excitement — and raised higher expectations — about the future of the party and the new direction for the country politics as Teodoro has done.”

On November 20, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo resigned her post as chairman of the supermajority and handed over the post to Teodoro.

A good five months before the elections, GMANewsTV reported that, “nearly 3,000 members of the country’s ruling party cheered an exuberant Gibo as he laid out his plans for the Philippines in his strong, clear voice. With green streamers and balloons all around them, the national and local politicians attending the Lakas-Kampi-CMD national convention pledged their allegiance to Gibo, their ‘intelligent and articulate’ champion for the May 2010 elections.”

But what’s kept Gilberto Teodoro Jr. from surging to the top, when he seems to have it all?

The first cracks of his presidential campaign manifested when he burned a few vital bridges as he switched political parties. Eduardo Danding Cojuangco said his nephew and political ward never consulted him and surprised him with his turncoat decision.

Adding insult to injury, Gibo chattered there is no room for the former ambassador in my administration, responding to an ambush interview.

This angered his uncle. The oligarch considered that a supreme act of disloyalty, disrespect and ingratitude. As a result, NPC defected out of the supermajority.

Cojuangco’s wife Gretchen earlier publicly declared on television her strong opposition to Teodoro’s presidential bid. “Anybody but Gibo!”

Teodoro dismissed the issue as a family affair.

This would have dealt only a tremor to his candidacy, but NPC switched its support to the son of former President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino – Gibo’s first cousin Noynoy, joining a renewed front with the resurrecting Liberal Party supported by other oligarchs led by the Ayala Group.

Within the supermajority, Teodoro also miscalculated his moves by resigning the chairmanship the Lakas-Kampi-CMD, leaving the party’s 18,000 other candidates vying for various positions headless with only sixty days before the elections.

The GMANewsTV continued, “the late House Speaker Prospero Nograles, one of his most ardent supporters, made a turnaround and said it was a ‘mistake’ to choose him in the first place.”

Teodoro explained, “I am resigning as Chairman of Our Party so that I can focus all my efforts campaigning for the Presidency of the country as the official candidate of Lakas Kampi CMD.

“The Party needs at this time a full-time Chairman who will be able to respond on a 24/7 basis to the needs of our Party candidates running for various elective posts this coming elections.”

Nograles further buried him, accusing the presidential candidate of abandoning his party-mates at the “most crucial hour.”

What was worse, was that in doing so. he projected himself not to be a team player and worse not a teambuilder, but as a lone wolf.

His image sank rapidly within the supermajority, as a rumors spread he resigned because that he wanted to ball-hogged hundreds of millions of funds instead of sharing them with his party mates.

A candidate for Congress from Negros Island, where Gretchen Cojuangco hails, disclosed that Teodoro netted at least Php300 million which he eventually invested after losing, in a local mining firm and to secure a Golden Passport from the State of Malta.

A golden passport refers to citizenship by investment programs that allow individuals to obtain a second passport in exchange for significant financial contributions. These programs typically involve investing in real estate, government bonds, or making a donation to a national development fund.

Nograles noted that despite his Galing at Talino platform slogan, “Gibo is lagging in most presidential preference polls.”

GMANewsTV recalled a review of his political history shows that the brainy (?) lawyer made key moves that may have spoiled rather than propped up his chances of capturing –and keeping– the trust of his supporters and the general public.

“In his three terms in Congress, Teodoro made glaring miscalculations first, he joined a move to impeach Hilario Davide Jr, a popular Supreme Court chief justice; and second, he was among those pushing for a constitutional assembly in yet another attempt for Charter Change.

“These foreshadowed other political blunders that reveal what could be a shortage of street smarts in someone reputed to be the most intellectual among the presidential candidates.”

Most Filipinos misconstrue any constitutional reform favors an incumbent perpetuating himself in power. 

What was more damning was the timing of the impeachment of Davide was suspect: it came two years after the Supreme Court ruled that coco levy funds were declared public in nature, and that Teodoro’s uncle Danding used these funds for his private business interests.

Davide hails from Cebu, the most vote-rich province in the country with over 2 million registered voters. His son, Cebu City councilor Hilario Davide III, was also running for governor under the Liberal Party ticket with his second as standard bearer.

Teodoro lost miserably, clocking fourth attaining only 11% of votes cast, more than 30 pts behind winning Noynoy Cojuangco Aquino.

Rappler said, “After conceding the presidential race to his second cousin, the former administration bet Gibo Teodoro vanished from public life,” only to return to run for the Senate and again lose after 12 years of absence.

The Teodoro template, it appears, is that nothing constructive happens when he is left to his own devices. It is incredibly frustrating that without direction and structure, this results in distraction rather than productivity.

However, he caught the eye of Bongbong Marcos who returned him to head once again the defense portfolio, on June 5, 2023.

Instead of performing his function as chief architect of foreign policy, Marcos allows a Mutt-and-Jeff modus in situational management where Mutt could be seen as supportive and understanding while Jeff acts as confrontational or assertive.

In policy work, however, this approach fails more than succeeds in creating a proactive environment, when devoid of  strategic supervision.

All too often, the norm that rules the output is the saying, “too many cooks spoil the broth”, especially when one side uses legalese to process public governance, and not the general welfare of the people, which is what is true in Teodoro’s case.

He conducts the security sector as a sacrosanct turf and does not adjust to the complexities and dynamism of emerging geopolitics. Instead, he uses traditional alliances and old mindsets to weigh on policy, and use legalisms to defend his positions.

Empty words

The man is still caught in a box that he created for himself.

To illustrate, on April 23, Philippine Daily Inquirer said Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. challenged China to substantiate its accusation that the Philippines was dumping garbage in inshore waters, dismissing the claim as baseless and mocking Beijing’s rhetoric.

Teodoro said China has repeatedly made allegations without evidence. “If they have accusations, they should prove them.”

When the Chinese complied with proof, he brushed off a video circulated by Chinese sources showing troops aboard the BRP Sierra Madre burning garbage and dumping it into the sea, saying he could not verify its authenticity shifting to argumentum ad hominem, questioning Beijing’s credibility.

Teodoro leaves no room for absorption of changing realities, and engages in stonewalling.

In a very unprofessional manner, he ends as the one loading the conversation with baseless rhetorics bordering on amusement saying Beijing has a history of provocative behavior.

“Fireworks were invented by them, then they will say we are playing with fire?”

Teodoro’s wind suddenly changes direction: “If any country is worried about our defense engagement and resilience, it’s because they have a bad intention and motive to begin with.”

Where did that come from?

The defense chief reiterated that Manila’s position is anchored on the 2016 Arbitral Ruling under international law, which invalidated China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea.

The problem with Teodoro being nothing but a lawyer is that he sweeps under and hides behind international law but he does not specify the conventions and what particular part of it applies.

There is no question that the Arbitral Ruling is part of Philippine law and has been affirmed by successive administrations, noting that even former President Rodrigo Duterte had raised it before the United Nations.

But first, the Arbitral Ruling is based on only one treaty or convention – the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

Second, the ruling is 479 pages long and must be taken in its context, not on some cherry-picking expedition.

If Teodoro’s assertion invalidating China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea, refers to the nine dash line which UNCLOS indeed indicated in Paragraph 278 as having no legal basis under it, to delimit maritime issues.

The statement is specific and to argue from specifics to generalities, and from there impose absolute terms is a dangerous fallacy.

Our defense secretary’s narrow interpretation of this paragraph deliberately ignores the series of premises which can be summarized in the middle of Paragraph 272, “In particular, the Tribunal emphasises that nothing in this Award should be understood to comment in any way on China’s historic claim to the islands of the South China Sea.”

This discussion, therefore and subsequent resolution of conflicts do not begin and end with the nine-dash line controversy.

As a former bar topnotcher, he should be the first to know land sovereignty carry greater weight in the totality of international law because maritime issues are based on land sovereignty considerations.

That notwithstanding, enforcement of conventions or treaties are mostly based on the principle of state consent, failing which retrogresses to the principle of effective control in customary international law, such as what happened to us when we lost Bajo de Masinloc.

The Philippines cannot avail of the judiciary recourse of the UN, as in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and the compulsory provisions of UNCLOS, as in the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), because China has a veto power in the UN Security Council.

Teodoro’s braggadocio springs from his philandering with the Americans whose self-serving rules-based order serves as his backbone.

He lawyers for them, projecting himself as dogmatic beyond reason regarding our existing military alliances with the United States, in total disregard whether this serves or violates our peoples’ best interests or promotes or denigrates our diplomatic leverage with our neighboring countries.

Read why the Philippines has the weakest claim in the disputed waters.

Harmonizing Otherwise Sea of Division onto Amity and Cooperation

The man who has been vulnerably inclined to failure in his political life is oblivious that dalliance with our former colonizers can easily slide to demutualizing our defense treaty, recalling visiting forces and de-enhancing of defense cooperation due to their incompatibility with our ASEAN treaties on neutrality and non-proliferation of nuclear arms.

With what’s happening to Ukraine and Iran and the world economy today, it would suicidal to be unipolar, relying on a very unreliable and war-prone partner such as the United States.

Teodoro claims the Armed Forces of the Philippines is professional and has always stood for our sovereignty. But he has so far not articulated why we have to kneel just to ask the Americans their permission to import crude oil from Russia.

Since his first day as Bongbong’s defense secretary, he has been avoiding a direct debate with China on the South China Seas issue. Like Cassius Clay, he dances around the ring, but unlike Muhammad Ali he fails to deliver the knock out punch.

Which makes Gibo feebly transactional and so un-inspiring! But as they say – it ain’t over until the fat (man) sings!

   

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