Thailand
Biden win has few implications for Philippines, but mostly positive ones
THERE was a delightful quote being passed around the social media over the weekend in the wake of President-Elect Joe Biden’s victory over that thing who I will henceforth avoid addressing by name: “Try to live your life so the whole world doesn’t dance in the streets when you lose your job.”
Along with spontaneous celebrations all across America, the great interest the rest of the world had in the outcome of the election was evident in similar festivities in other countries – they don’t ring all the church bells in Paris at three in the morning for no reason – and the swift congratulations offered to the soon-to-be President Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris by dozens of world leaders as soon as the election was called in their favor.
Among them were some who have been considered particularly friendly to the soon-to-be jobless Yam Head, which must have stung; these included United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Philippine’s own President Rodrigo Duterte.
With the rest of the world apparently quite invested in the outcome of the American election, it is quite natural for other countries to speculate about the implications of the result for them. As far as the Philippines is concerned, the impact will probably be much less than is hoped or feared, depending on one’s point of view. Nevertheless, what implications there are should be positive.
The Washington power dynamic
The main reason why is that Biden, besides being intelligent and having actual ideas, will have an easier environment in which to develop and implement policy objectives than the former Pizza Hut commercial endorser. There are two reasons for this.
First, Biden will take on the presidency with an extraordinary level of executive power. For that, he can thank both of his immediate predecessors. Former president Barack Obama was bitterly criticized by Trumpist forces for expanding his authority by executive order, but as soon as Yam Head took office, he exercised his dictatorial aspirations by issuing more executive orders than any president in history.
A precedent is a precedent; to what extent Biden will take advantage of it is unknown at this point, but it is available to him. If he does use it, the overwhelmingly conservative US Supreme Court may check him in some instances, but the high court’s rejection of almost all of the Trumpist camp’s election-related petitions in recent days seems to indicate it will act with a great deal more circumspection and independence than Biden’s right-wing opponents had hoped.
Second, Biden will have a less problematic relationship with Congress than did Yam Head.
The Democratic Party retains its majority in the House of Representatives, though reduced by a number of seats from 2018. In the Senate, the reverse is true; the best the Republican Party can hope for is a 52-48 advantage, one less than before the election, and there is a strong possibility that could be reduced to 51-49 or even a 50-50 split. Two Republican incumbents’ seats yet to be called – one from Alaska and one from North Carolina – are likely safe, but both of Georgia’s seats will be subject to a runoff election; Biden’s victory there, the first for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992, is thought to bolster the chances of the Democratic candidates.
Thus, even if Biden is facing the same legislative-executive divide as his predecessor, it will be considerably narrower, and Biden will be bringing decades of experience as a Senator – and a great deal of friendly respect from his former peers in the senior leadership of the Senate – to the relationship. Biden is universally acknowledged as one of the best at cross-party negotiation and compromise to have ever served in the Senate, and so fears of political gridlock are probably mostly unfounded.
Where the Philippines might feel it
Biden’s announcement that his first order of business would be to take aggressive, sensible action to bring the coronavirus pandemic out of control – he was to name a task force as early as Monday this week – may help the Philippines’ efforts in an indirect way through restoring US support for the World Health Organization (WHO). As controlling the pandemic is fairly universally accepted as a prerequisite to making a substantial economic recovery, applying enormous US financial and technical resources to an actual strategy rather than the “ignore it and it will go away” approach of the outgoing US administration will benefit everyone.
Another area in which the Philippines will feel a fairly immediate impact, which my fellow columnist Marlen Ronquillo pointed out just before the election, is in the anticipated rollback of xenophobic US immigration policies put in place over the last couple of years.
These have denied the US access to valuable human resources – it turns out Trumpists are not enthusiastic about doing the jobs filled by immigrants after all – as well as severely limiting opportunities for overseas Filipino workers, who, like it or not, are still a vital part of this country’s economy.
Other areas where new US policy could favor the Philippines include the environment, with the expected return of the US to the Paris Climate Agreement. However, any action of any kind is going to have to wait for more than two months before Biden formally takes office.
Likewise, some matters that eager Filipinos have expressed hope that the US will address, such as the stubborn South China Sea issue and a number of pending agreements with the Philippines, may be pushed aside entirely in favor of more pressing domestic problems in the US, at least until after the 2022 elections here.
Source: https://www.manilatimes.net/2020/11/10/business/columnists-business/biden-win-has-few-implications-for-ph-but-mostly-positive-ones/794074/