The Manila Times

His father’s son?

FRANCISCO S. TATAD

IN the beginning, many thought he would be like his father. As many others hoped he would be different. Now, nine months into his presidency, people can’t quite make up their minds about him.

What is Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s real personality? What are his most important personal and family values? How is his real work ethic? His real governing style? His “fighting faith,” as his father once put it? Is there nothing he will not do to achieve his goal? How does he see himself as a leader?

In his latest book, Leadership (Penguin Press, New York, 2022), the 99-year-old Henry Kissinger writes:

“Any society, whatever its political system, is perpetually in transit between a past that forms its memory and a vision of the future that inspires its evolution. Along this route, leadership is indispensable: decisions must be made, trust earned, promises kept, a way forward proposed. Within human institutions —states, religions, armies, companies, schools — leadership is needed to help people reach from where they are to where they have never been and, sometimes, can scarcely imagine going. Without leadership, institutions drift, and nations court growing irrelevance and, ultimately, disaster.

“Leaders think and act at the intersection of two axes: the first, between the past and the future; the second, between the abiding values and aspirations of those they lead. Their first challenge is analysis, which begins with a realistic assessment of their society based on its history, mores and capacities. Then they must balance what they know, which is necessarily drawn from the past, with what they intuit about the future, which is inherently conjectural and uncertain. It is this intuitive grasp of direction that enables leaders to set objectives and lay down a strategy.

“For strategies to inspire the society, leaders must serve as educators — communicating objectives, assuaging doubts and rallying support. While the state possesses by definition the monopoly of force, reliance on coercion is a symptom of inadequate leadership; good leaders elicit in their people a wish to walk alongside them. They must also inspire an immediate entourage to translate their thinking so that it bears upon the practical issues of the day. Such a dynamic surrounding team is the visible complement of a leader’s inner vitality; it provides support for the leader’s journey and ameliorates the dilemmas of decision. Leaders can be magnified — or diminished — by the qualities of those around them…

“Leadership is most essential during periods of transition, when values and institutions are losing their relevance, and the outlines of a worthy future are in controversy. In such times, leaders are called upon to think creatively and diagnostically: what are the sources of a society’s well-being? Of its decay? Which inheritances from the past should be preserved, and which adapted or discarded? Which objectives deserve commitment, and which prospects must be rejected no matter how tempting? And, at the extreme, is one’s society sufficiently vital and confident to tolerate sacrifice as a way station to a more fulfilling future?”

It is a big book (495 pages) and contains six large studies in world leadership: Germany’s Konrad Adenauer; France’s Charles de Gaulle; America’s Richard Nixon; Egypt’s Anwar Sadat; Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew; and Britain’s Margaret Thatcher. Every word of it is a “must read” for anyone interested in leadership. But BBM has access to models beyond these. He has his own father to learn from, especially at this time.

At the height of the Vietnam war in October 1966, US President Lyndon Johnson asked Marcos to host a summit meeting in Manila of the seven Vietnam war allies. These included Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt, South Korean President Park Chung Hee, New Zealand Prime Minister Keith Holyoke, Thai Prime Minister Thanom Kittikachorn, L B Johnson, Vietnamese Chairman Nguyen Van Thieu, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky, and of course, the host, Marcos.

After Johnson got the other allies to commit combat troops to Vietnam, he tried to bamboozle Marcos to do the same. He passed on to Marcos a small piece of paper with a note on it, but Marcos rolled it into a ball, put it inside an empty matchbox, and threw it inside the ashtray in front of the US president. Johnson called on Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara to say something to the allies, then concluded his remarks by saying that unless they all worked together they couldn’t beat the communists in Vietnam. Ultimately Marcos agreed to dispatch a contingent of civic action volunteers. This became known as Philcag, our non-combat troops in Tay Ninh.

Using Marcos Sr.’s example as a model, Marcos Jr. could have expressed support for US “military operations other than war,” in lieu of US operational sites under our 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement inside Philippine military bases for use in a possible war with China on Taiwan. He could have avoided the restive populations of Isabela and Cagayan provinces who want no involvement in America’s future war.

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2023-03-17T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-03-17T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://manilatimes.pressreader.com/article/281479280647880

The Manila Times