Duterte wants PHL to be treated as an equal by US

President Rodrigo Duterte wants the Philippines to be treated as an equal not a subordinate of any country, socio-economic expert Peter Wallace told reporters in Malacañang on Wednesday.

However, Wallace expressed doubt that Duterte would cause the Philippines to end historic treaty alliance with the United States.

“As I interpret what the President is doing, it has been 65 years since we broke away from America as a colony. There’s always been this subservient thinking and he wants to break that," Wallace said in a news briefing in Malacañang.

"He wants to establish that the Philippines is truly an independent country, independent of anyone, and on equal standing to any other country; even if we’re a small country, equal standing to others,” he added.

Wallace is an Australian businessman who came to the Philippines in 1975.

Since then, Wallace established businesses and eventually put up the Wallace Business Forum that seeks to help executives understand the business climate in the country.

He became a Filipino citizen by Philippine law in 2015.

“I don’t think he has any intention of breaking away from America. I think he will recognize that the relationship is important but it must now be on equal independent basis… That’s what he is trying to achieve,” Wallace said.

“I don’t see him as trying to divorce himself from America. That would make no sense, right? He’s just trying to establish an equal partnership and that’s a different thing,” he added.

White House is smart enough

Wallace also reacted to Duterte’s message to US President Barack Obama to “go to hell.”

“I think you know, as I said earlier, firstly I am not sure that there is a hell. I don’t think it exists, actually. But again, it’s his manner of speaking, right?" Wallace said.

"It’s his expressionism. He doesn’t mean for Obama to go to hell, right? It’s just the way he talks, right?” he added.

Wallace, nonetheless, said it was a “fairly dramatic” and “politically, internationally unacceptable way” of stressing a point.

But he also believes that the people in the White House are smart enough not to take Duterte’s words literally. “I’m not sure that the foreign community will ever be able to understand it but I think people in the US government will, right? I think the people in the White House are smart enough to know that what he’s saying is not what he intends,” Wallace said.

[SOURCE GMA NEWS]