By Sean Clifford M. Malinao, Features Editor
There is a peculiar way Philippine politics teaches us to waltz with our principles. It rarely asks us to desert them outright. Instead, it invites us to make exceptions, to tiptoe in complexities, and to understand the rhythm of circumstances. So when Naga City Mayor Leni Robredo welcomed Israeli Ambassador Dana Kursh during a courtesy visit to Naga City Hall last October 5, the ensuing controversy became another exercise in negotiating the boundaries between political pragmatism and moral responsibility.
The meeting was reportedly part of Kursh’s visit to the Bicol Region, where Israeli and Philippine officials explored possible cooperation in agriculture, food security, and disaster preparedness. It was, by all available accounts, a diplomatic engagement and not an explicit declaration of support for Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza.
This distinction matters because diplomacy does not necessarily equate to endorsement, and a courtesy call cannot, by itself, establish complicity. After all, governments and their representatives must maintain channels of communications even with states whose actions they condemn.
Yet, we must also understand that legality and morality are not interchangeable standards — an act may be permissible without being beyond criticism, and a meeting may be diplomatically ordinary while carrying political significance in the circumstances surrounding it.
Casualties of more than 70,000 Palestinians have been reported in Gaza since Israel launched its military campaign following the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023.
Even under the United States-brokered ceasefire announced a year ago, Israeli attacks have continued to claim Palestinian lives, while more than two million people remain trapped in a territory devastated by bombardment, displacement, and the collapse of essential services.
Despite the mounting civilian casualties and international condemnation, Israel has continued to defend its military campaign by citing its strategic gains, including the June 2024 rescue of four hostages and the killing of senior Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and Marwan Issa — losses that dealt significant blows to Hamas’ leadership and operational capacity, though has not marked an end to the conflict.
The ongoing genocide perpetrated by Israel must also be understood within a broader context of mass death and destruction.
A person does not need to possess extensive knowledge on legal proceedings to recognize that the scale of civilian suffering demands accountability, urgent humanitarian action, and serious scrutiny of the international relationships maintained with the Israeli state.
It is precisely within these relationships that the tension between political pragmatism and moral responsibility becomes most apparent. Diplomacy may require states to maintain channels of communication even amid grave international controversies, but the necessity of engagement does not absolve those who engage from the responsibility to confront the realities surrounding it.
In October 2025, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion reaffirming Israel’s obligations under the international humanitarian law as an occupying power within Palestinian territory, including those concerning essential supplies for Palestinians and the facilitation of humanitarian relief.
These legal obligations do not disappear because states maintain diplomatic relations, nor does the existence of international ties absolve public officials of the responsibility to consider the moral implications of their engagements.
The point then is not to demand that every diplomatic encounter turn into a confrontation, but to reject the notion that diplomacy must be insulated from moral scrutiny simply because it follows established protocol.
We do not ask whether Robredo had the right to receive an ambassador. Instead, we question whether the language of diplomatic necessity has become sufficient to end a conversation that ought to begin with the people whose suffering proves its urgency.
Because while diplomacy may explain the handshake, it does not settle the moral questions it raises.
The Philippines and Israel have maintained formal diplomatic relations since 1957, operating through mutual engagement and the preservation of connection between states. As such, a local official engaging with an accredited foreign representative is not inherently a betrayal of any political principle.
If an official chooses to engage with a representative of a state facing serious international investigation, the public may reasonably ask what that engagement communicates, what principles guide it, and whether the humanitarian crisis remains relevant in the conversation.
Such questions do not automatically establish one’s wrongdoing, nor should they be reduced to accusations of complicity — they are legitimate demands for political accountability.
This distinction is especially important for Robredo, whose political identity has long been associated by her supporters with principled public service, democratic accountability, and concern for vulnerable communities. These relations are not a blank check, nor should they become grounds for assuming that every decision she makes is morally irreproachable.
If anything, the principles associated with a public figure should provide the very standards against which that figure is evaluated.
Last September 24, the Philippine delegation joined dozens of other delegates in walking out of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began his address. The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) subsequently confirmed the Philippines’ participation, explaining that the gesture was meant to express solidarity with calls for peace in West Asia and opposition to unilateral actions that fuel war.
The DFA specifically cited the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Israel’s proposed E1 settlement plan, and the continuing rise of settler violence in the occupied West Bank as reasons for condemning Israel and amplifying the call for parties to adhere to conditions of international peace. It also reiterated the Philippines’ support for Palestinian self-determination and a two-state solution.
If a government institution can recognize such distinction, then diplomatic protocol should not be treated as a defense against scrutiny when a local official receives an Israeli representative.
There is no sufficient basis to conclude that Robredo intended the meeting as an endorsement, but the DFA’s own position establishes a relevant standard that diplomatic relations and moral scrutiny are not mutually exclusive.
The more consequential question then arises on whether political leaders can really make room for diplomatic cooperation while remaining consistently attentive to the human rights concerns that makes such encounters politically sensitive.
If the Philippine delegation could walk out of a UN chamber without severing diplomatic relations with Israel, why should our political leanings require us to choose between acknowledging the legitimacy of diplomatic engagement and asking whether it meets the demands of moral leadership?
The walkout demonstrates that principled dissent can coexist with diplomacy. It should also remind us that no politician, however much hope they inspire or how unfavorable their alternatives may be, ought to be exempt from the same demand for consistency.
This is where the controversy reaches beyond Naga City Hall. Philippine politics has developed a familiar defense mechanism of settling with the ‘lesser evil.’
We have learned to judge political figures not necessarily by what they do, but by whom they are being weighed against. A politician becomes acceptable because the other is worse. A contradiction becomes a minor inconvenience because acknowledging it might weaken the political camp to which we have entrusted our hopes.
This is not to assume that political choices exist in a vacuum or that all candidates, parties, and administrations are interchangeable. Electoral decisions do have material consequences, and the protection of democratic institutions, civil liberties, and vulnerable sectors may require choosing among imperfect alternatives.
But choosing the lesser evil under constrained circumstances is different from declaring that they are incapable of wrongdoing.
An unprecedented record of public service does not make a politician immune to criticism, just as criticism of one decision does not invalidate their entire political reputation. To insist otherwise is to reproduce the very political culture many reform-minded Filipinos claim to oppose — one in which accountability depends on whose side the accused belongs to.
We cannot condemn one political camp’s moral compromises while excusing another’s, nor profess solidarity with oppressed peoples abroad only to withdraw it when doing so inconveniences our political loyalties. The people of Gaza must not be reduced to instruments in a Philippine political argument; their suffering is not a convenient test of which Filipino politicians deserve our admiration.
In this manner, we must be capable of acknowledging two truths at once — while diplomatic engagement can be legitimate, its political implications can still warrant scrutiny. We can recognize the practical demands of governance without allowing pragmatism to become an all-purpose defense against moral questions.
The greater danger is not necessarily that every handshake conceals an endorsement. It is that, over time, we might become so accustomed to explaining away uncomfortable decisions that we forget why our principles mattered in the first place.
If settling for the lesser evil remains the only option, the greater evil is to condone it as a necessity in becoming a permanent excuse for conditional accountability, negotiable morality, and principles upheld only when convenient.
Perhaps the tragedy of Philippine politics is not that we are forced to choose the lesser evil, but that we have learned to dance with it so naturally that we no longer notice when our principles are the first to leave the floor. No handshake or fear of a worse alternative should be enough to absolve political leaders from the moral scrutiny their positions demand. Because the music will eventually stop — and when it does, we must confront what remains of the principles we were so willing to dance away.
(Photo courtesy by Naga City Tourism)