Learning from the Past, Looking Into the Future : Broken Column Press : 9781944616205 : 1944616209 : 29 Jan 2024 : This book tries to highlight what appears to the author to be some of the shortcomings of the foreign policy approach of the Philippines. The author is of the view that two considerations in decision-making are deficient: national interest and state power. Through this work, the author makes suggestions, based on his background and experience in government. On the national interest, the country started out with a huge swathe of territory bequeathed by the Treaty of Paris between the United States and Spain in 1898. The country's leaders did not cement ownership of that wide expanse of water. On state power, the Philippines did not prepare itself so that it could secure its territory after independence in 1946. While it is true that it was beset with internal dissidence, the external defense mission was way short of fulfilment under the mandatory portfolio of nationhood.