The timing is impeccable. It deserves both our derision and praise.
The Supreme Court released a decision on convicted American rapist Daniel Smith, the very same week new US State department Hillary Clinton does her Asian trip. Shortly after the SC released the decision, temperatures again rose when civil society groups and the media try to revive nationalist passions against US inaction to hand over the rapist.
Is this a case of just "papansin", or in English, PDA meaning Public Display of Anger?
Obviously, the Smith case is a classic propaganda campaign meant to convince Obama and his administration that the Philippines is more relevant, than, say Indonesia or Thailand.
Those obvious snubs which Obama gave Arroyo and this slap by Clinton shows how strained relations between the Arroyo administration and the US government is right now.
This explains why the Arroyo administration is getting cozier with the Chinese than Obama, to the point that the government dangled the Kalayaan and Scarborough shoals as bait to the Americans.
The gambit did'nt work. That's why Arroyo is now dangling Smith before the nose of Obama and Clinton, trying to get their attention and for what? To save her administration? Or probably, to save her skin and that of her husband, who obviously, faces the prospect of arrest due to money laundering?
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