Philippine President Duterte Finally Makes Brunei Voyage

Much of the spotlight in October was on Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s visit to China, with many continuing to be intrigued by his recent embrace of Beijing and snubbing of Washington, with whom Manila has a decades-old treaty alliance. But before that trip, Duterte had a state visit to Brunei that also deserves notice as his foreign policy begins to take shape.

From October 16-18, Duterte was in the tiny, oil-rich sultanate to promote bilateral ties, in line with the initial round of visits Southeast Asian leaders usually make around ASEAN upon coming to power. The visit was a makeup for the one he had to cancel last month following a deadly explosion in his hometown of Davao City, where he was mayor for more than two decades.

Duterte’s engagements in Brunei were fairly typical: an official welcome at the palace, bilateral meetings with its ruler Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah as well as other top officials, a state banquet, followed by a meeting with 7,000 members of the Philippine community living in Brunei. At the banquet, Bolkiah spent much of his ten-minute speech praising not only Duterte’s current leadership, but also his stewardship of Davao City, where he made the region business-friendly and secure.

The visit also saw both sides boost their bilateral ties. Much of this was on the economic side, with priorities including increasing trade and investment, developing the halal sector, and promoting synergies between micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez told local media outlets that Duterte mentioned that the Philippines welcomes more investments from Brunei in the coming years and that investors should look more to Manila as it is one of the region’s fastest growing economies.

But the two countries also discussed security developments as well, including expressing solidarity on the fight against illegal drugs which Duterte is currently engaged in and sees as a top priority in spite of lingering rights concerns. More broadly, a point often missed about Brunei-Philippine relations is that the Royal Brunei Armed Forces and Royal Brunei Police Force are participants in the ongoing monitoring mission in the Philippines’ insurgency-wracked south, where Duterte hails from. That topic was addressed by both sides, since Duterte is now ambitiously engaged in peace negotiations with both communist rebels as well as Muslim insurgents.

With the Philippines holding the annually rotating chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2017, the visit had a regional dimension as well. Duterte’s pivot to China has triggered major reverberations across ASEAN capitals just as Manila is about to assume the ASEAN chairmanship, and Philippine officials recognize that they need to make clear his commitment to the grouping to fellow members. Ahead of the visit, Philippine foreign ministry spokesman Charles Jose admitted that the visit would partly aim to assure Brunei that Manila “continues to be their partners in the region.”

Beyond this, practical considerations also factored into the emphasis on the regional aspect of the visit. One of Duterte’s key priorities for the Philippines as ASEAN chair next year, a Philippine official told The Diplomat, is promoting regional and subregional economic integration within ASEAN as this ties to boosting domestic development in the Philippines as well. An important example of that is the Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA), a subregional initiative founded in 1994 in Davao City. The Philippines is now chair of BIMP-EAGA, a position it has held since September, and Duterte has indicated an interest in expanding it. Little surprise, then, that we saw businesses like global port operator International Container Terminal Services Inc – which already operates the Muara Container Terminal in Brunei through a subsidiary – express confidence about further opportunities within BIMP-EAGA as well.

For casual observers of Asian affairs scanning the list of items discussed, it might seem odd that for all the talk of regional issues, any public conversation on the South China Sea was notably absent, in spite of the fact that the Philippines and Brunei account for two of the four claimants within the Southeast Asian region. That is far from surprising, however. Brunei has long taken a quiet approach on the South China Sea question. And though the Philippines during the tenure of Duterte’s predecessor Benigno Aquino III was fond of raising the South China Sea at every opportunity possible following China’s rising assertiveness there, Duterte has been unwilling to even mention it publicly at some of his bilateral and regional meetings for fear of complicating his embrace of Beijing. Given that he was headed to China immediately after his Brunei visit, keeping mum on that issue would seem to serve his interests.