MANILA, Philippines ? So President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo finally clinched the appointment she had repeatedly sought and for which she had repeatedly been spurned?a meeting with US President Barack Obama.

But she is now in a country whose standing in the world has been much diminished.

Post-Iraq and Afghanistan quagmires and post-Wall Street?s collapse, it is unlikely to ever be the same again. And with the rise of new powers, the emergence of new models of governance, the ongoing realignment in international relations brought about by the global economic meltdown, neither will the world.

Yet, instead of forging a new foreign policy that responds to these tectonic changes in global politics, Ms Arroyo is expected to carry on with the unchanging premise on which Philippine foreign policy has been based: We need all the dollars we can get.

The latest variation of this line was constantly invoked in recent months in light of the ?Nicole? rape case and the creeping expansion of US military basing in Mindanao: We cannot afford to refuse the roads, bridges, water pipes and other material rewards that the US government claims to be giving in exchange.

Alternative world

But complicity in an act of bribery cannot be the foundation of a country?s foreign policy. Ultimately, the material inducements offered by the US are outweighed by what the majority of Filipinos are made to give up as a consequence of this policy.

For if it is the US drive for global supremacy, its insistence on reserving for itself the impunity and exceptionalism that comes with this status, its determination to shape the world according to its image and interests, if it is these that contribute to aggression, injustice and inequality in the world, then the Filipino people are being deprived of the opportunity to build a world based on peace, justice and equality.

Today, with the reconfigurations in global politics, at arguably no other time since World War II is that alternative world more possible?or more distant. The air is rife with danger and opportunity.

On one hand, today?s conjuncture may open up more space for states such as the Philippines to pursue their aspirations without the constraints imposed by one superpower.

On the other hand, depending on the resulting arrangement, it may intensify competition among the big powers, sweeping smaller states into the maelstrom. Or it may pave the way for the entrenchment of transnational political institutions that allow for even less autonomy for weaker states.

Marginalized bloc

As small and weak as the Philippines is, what it does can influence the outcome of this historic moment. But it should do more than beg and expect crumbs to be thrown its way.

To build a world where the weak cannot be exploited by the strong, the Philippines could side with the marginalized.

Working to overcome the limits of Third World-ism and learning from the failures of the Non-Aligned Movement, this bloc should move to overhaul the United Nations, rewrite the rules of the World Trade Organization, form a successor to the World Bank, push for a post-Kyoto Protocol that enforces real emissions cuts in the developed countries, and establish new institutions such as what Latin America is experimenting with.

But ending the Philippines? alliance with the US does not mean turning it into an enemy. It only means that henceforth, the Philippines will be an ally of the many that wish to be friendly with it, the US included.

And like all the others, the US cannot demand subservience nor should it be accorded unconditional obedience.

Justice

Hence, the obsolete Mutual Defense Treaty should be replaced with a Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, with provisions that the Philippines should bestow on all other countries that seek friendly relations with it.

The accompanying Visiting Forces Agreement, as well as the Mutual Logistics Support Agreement, must likewise be scrapped. Justice for past transgressions must be the starting point for future relations.

While allowing the US to transition from empire to just one of many coequal members of the international community, the Philippines must also actively contribute to preventing the emergence of new empires.

The shift from a unipolar to a multipolar world is not necessarily better if all it means is the replacement of one empire with more empires, or with an entirely new kind of multistate empire.

The choice is clear: Either the Philippines approves of a world dominated by one power (and then sidles up to it in exchange for a bribe) or it rejects that one power, helps build a world ruled by equality, and reaps more than just water pipes as a reward.

(Herbert Docena is the author of ?At the Door of all the East: The Philippines in United States Military Strategy.? He is an incoming graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley.)