China chose RP back channel negotiator — Noy

By Angie M. Rosales

JPE shows media authentic Brady notes marked ‘secret’

It was not the Philippines and President Aquino who were calling the shots in the clandestine backroom negotiations with China over territorial claims between the two countries.

It was China who called the shots, to the extent of China even dictating who should be the Philippine back channel negotiator, which is highly unusual, especially in secret talks as such discussions would be confidential in nature, and a back channel negotiator must have the full trust and confidence of the President, apart from the negotiator to have the expertise in such areas.

At the same time, Senate President Juan Ponce-Enrile, appearing on an early TV morning show, rose to the challenge hurled by Sen. Antonio Trillanes to show media the claimed Brady notes as the neophyte senator, who had at least 

clandestine meetings with Chinese officials, claimed that the Brady notes Enrile read into the record were merely his press release, and not the notes made by then Ambassador to China, Sonia Brady.

Enrile also said that he is now checking the information gathered that Trillanes’s contacts were not with Chinese officials but Chinese businessmen engaged in a $70 billion business venture who had put Trillanes in touch with the Chinese officials.

Breaking his silence on the disclosure on his having tasked Trillanes as the country’s back channel negotiator on the territorial dispute between the Philippines and China, President Aquino yesterday told the press that it was China that wanted the neophyte senator to be the backdoor negotiator.

Explaining further, Aquino said he recalls that Trillanes had called him when the senator was in China at that time, saying that Trillanes had told him the Chinese officials had approached him on the possibility of his (Trillanes) being the back-channel negotiator.

Aquino also admitted that he had quickly agreed to the senator’s proposal, saying that he  acquiesced to Trillanes’ request due to the “belligerent tone” emanating from the formal channels.

Aquino, in recalling how the backchannel business came about said, “What I rememeber from this was that I was contacted by  Senator Trillanes  who was in China at that time. He said he was approached by Chinese officials on the possibility of Trillanes to become the Philippine backchannel negotiator, adding that he agreed to Trillanes’ proposal, noting the absence of any other options for backroom negotiations, saying he felt he had nothing left to lose if he gave Trillanes the job.

“In the absence of any other channels that were existing beforehand, and because I wanted to have a peaceful resolution to this situation in  Scarborough Shoal so, what do we lose if we just listen to what they (Chinese) say?”Aquino said.

From what has been gathered through the statements of Aquino, he apparently quickly agreed to what Trillanes proposed, without even bothering to check whether indeed, it was the Chinese officials who wanted the senator as the back channel or whether it was Trillanes himself who had proposed to the Chinese officials to become the Philippine backdoor negotiator on the Scarborough Shoal territorial dispute.

Aquino’s version also contradicts the version of Trillanes, who claimed that it was Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa who had asked him to help resolve the Scarborough conflict.

“I was surprised that the former informal conduits China had to convey its points of view all too suddenly were gone. There were no informal channels that used to normally convet their messages to us. They just suddenly disappeared,” Aquino added.

However, Aquino told reporters that Trillanes remains the country’s backroom negotiator with China until he meets with Trillanes.

Contrary to claims made by Trillanes that he was “authorized” by the President to engage in backchannel talks with China to ease tension over standoff in the Scarborough Shoal, it was the senator who had volunteered himself.

“I was directly in front of him (Aquino) and he said he volunteered to help. I think he (Aquino) allowed him to go because my impression is that he (Trillanes) presented himself as an expert on this issue. So I said, ‘I’m sorry Mr. President but I think we have to be very careful in appoaching this problem in this fashion because this involves the interest of the country and we don’t know  what these people have written in their records and do we have any record on these discussions? Nobody could answer  whether this Trillanes submitted any written report,” Enrile yesterday stated  during a morning television interview, in recalling the details of the July 14  Cabinet meeting where  he was invited by Aquino.

Enrile said he inquired about Trillanes’ role when the senator “butted in and made a report about his trips to China, about his conversation with Chinese government officials, about his negotiations,” following a powerpoint presentation of Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Secretary Albert del Rosario in the meeting.

“I was wondering, who are the people that he met in China, are they  people involved here or just clerks or what level? He did not say. And so, the second thing I asked is, how did you develop a channel in China just like that, knocking at the door of the Chinese government’s ministry of foreign affairs, unless he has a previous contact with them?  Or they contacted him. I do not believe that China contacted him. I imagine that he must have a contact with some people in China or with the Chinese government beforehand. This is the dangerous thing because we must know this background. What channel was this? How did he get this channel. Then I said, by the way who authorized you to make the backroom negotiation?” Enrile further narrated, to which the President stated in front of the Cabinet officials that included the newly-designated presidential envoy to China, Interior Secretray  Manuel “Mar” Roxas II who was still then transportation and communications secretary.

In the TV  interview, Enrile disclosed numerous revelations, among which is Trillanes alleged connections with certain businessmen who have contacts in China that acted as the senators’ “channels” in dealing with the issue on Scarborough Shoal with Beijing.

“I’m trying to verify the information that I received that this has something to do with this, which is connected to the $70-billion that was supposed to have been promised by the Chinese government to the President when he went to China. But I have not verified this. But I got this information. I was wondering how could this man...I’ve been in government for a long, long time, I can’t just go to China and just barge into the Foreign Affairs ministry of China and make dealings with them,” he said.

When asked on Trillanes’ alleged connections, he said, “I understand some businessmen in the country, who have contacts in China,” Enrile was quoted as saying, adding that he is unaware whether Aquino is privy to the information as to the identity of Trillanes’s contacts.

In the same interview, Enrile bared that some of the information on the documents furnished him on “notes” prepared by Philippine Ambassador to China Sonia Brady in her dealings with Trillanes, she has written that the President did not know what was being worked out by the senator in the backchannel talks and that there was a point that PNoy did not know that the “talks” were suspended for two weeks and that Trillanes was acting on his own.

“And for whom? Whose interest was he serving?” Enrile asked.

The Senate chief, while sounding the alarm bells to the President himself in the said meeting, in front of Trillanes, admitted that it’s a prerogative of Aquino as Chief Commander to resort to backchannel efforts.

“You cannot fault the President for trying to find a solution to a national problem especially the problem such as what we’re having with China. But the person entrusted by the President with any mission must exercise first discretion. When you go to a country to deal with a foreign power, you must notify the embassy. That’s the purpsoe of embassy. In that country, he should have notified the embassy to alert them that he’s there to do some mssion and he should have brought at least a responsible official of the embassy to be witness to what he is going to say and what is going to be said to him to take notes,” he pointed out.

Brady, being a trained diplomat, knew for a fact that part of her duty to make a report as an alter ego of the president in the host country, “any conversation that you have, with relation to national interests especially with the likes of Brady you have to (make) notes,” he said.

Brady’s notes were a compilation of what had transpired during her encounters with Trillanes, where Trillanes told the ambassador not to record their conversations, in the 15 to 16 visits to China, a fact that was revealed to the Senate chief  by Malacañang only during the said Cabinet meeting.

Enrile said he checked and found that there are no recorded trips of Trillanes to China.

“In fact, I have to write the DFA. And then I have also information that, I’m going to verify this, the Senator  Trillanes, in some of his trips to China refused to have his passports stamped when he return. There’s no record of it in the immigration office. That’s the information I received. The immigration office should be able to verify this. Why the clandestine activity? That is the question that entered my mind. As a Filipino I will expose this. It’s my duty,” he said.

The information that landed on his lap after attending the said Cabinet meeting in Malacañang did not come in the form of Brady’s notes alone as two other “sealed” envelopes which has a label “to be opened by the addressee only, secret” were received by Enrile.

“I read it and I know the rules on classification of security documents. After all, what was supposed to be a secret document does not comply with the nature of documents to be classified as secret. The documents , the notes of Brady, were on  conversations she had with Sen. Trillanes and it all involves the  Philippine internal problem. It has nothing to do with directly with the Scarborough shoal, with China. And he was talking about the, in effect, the inutility of the DFA which is uncalled for,” he said.

Enrile said he does not doubt the authenticity of the said documents which could only have come from the files of DFA.
“In this case, I’m sorry to say, based on the statements reflected in the notes of Mrs. Brady, the gentleman involved was ignorant about the nuances of being a representative of the president.

“The documents will speak for itself. I don’t think Mrs. Brady, with her experience and stature would manufacture a falsehood. Between her and Trillanes, I’ll take the word of Mrs. Brady,” Enrile said.

“And this is not really a state secret contrary to the impression of uninitiated people, I know what is a state secret, that is something you cannot reveal. Ive been handling the security of this country for 17 years. I know when a documents ought to be classified. That’s the training that I’ve got.

“Yes I can swear on it (that it’s Brady’s notes) and not only did Brady (prepared) report. Another document...this is in Tagalog, and this contains damaging statements also ‘not’ about the Scarborough issue directly but about the official people of the government of the Republic handing it, as if the guy talking in this document is the expert on national security in this country,” he said.

The two other envelopes which Enrile mentioned Thursday as more incriminating documents than the Brady notes on Trillanes, still contained information related to the senator, particularly on his trips to China.

“I don’t want to exacerbate the situation any further. I plead omerta,” Enrile said in refusing the dislose the contents of the documents.

Enrile also put into question Trillanes’ claims on him being sought out by Aquino to help resolving the tension in the Panatag Shoal, recalling the timeline when the President introduced into the picture Brady as the country then still have no ambassador to Beijing.