With the presently warming ties between Manila and Beijing, there is a tendency to look at Washington as distant, weakening strategic ally of the Philippines. Nothing can be further from the truth.
Port visits, exercises, choppers
As recent as last month, the nuclear-powered US aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and its accompanying ships arrived in Manila for a routine port call after patrolling the South China Sea. While the US declares that port calls are a ‘direct reflection of the longstanding relationship between the US and the Philippines,’ it is also a direct projection of US military hegemony over the Philippines and the entire Indo-Pacific.
The treaty partners have also undertaken Balikatan military exercises with an expanded number of personnel since 2018. Joint military exercises are useful not only to actually train US and Filipino military personnel, but more importantly, it is used a showcase to the world by both treaty partners that despite overtures from Beijing and Moscow, the strategic alliance remains well and strong.
Most dramatic is Mr. Duterte’s decision to allow the purchase of US Blackhawk helicopters despite months of speeches assailing US interventionism in the Philippines and outrightly rejecting US military equipment purchases as a matter of policy.
All of these expanded activities are surprising given the very strong rhetoric of Mr. Duterte on US-PH relations. It can only be surmised that pro-Washington defense officials have convinced the President to finally relent and reconsider.
Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP)
Under the administration of US President Donald Trump, the Indo-Pacific is the US military’s priority theater, in which its seeks to employ effective deterrence against regional threats, engage partners and allies as force multipliers, and lead the implementation of a rules-based order in region.
As such, the Philippines finds itself in a tug-of-war between two geopolitical giants: China and the United States, in which both powers seek to employ different methods to place the Philippines in its metaphorical safe harbors.
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Forward operating bases raises regional tensions
However, Washington has a first-mover advantage as it military influence stretches as far north as Korea down to Singapore, in what is called the first island chain. The Philippines is included in this chain, after Manila signed the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) which allowed the US to establish forward operating bases (FOB) in the country despite the Philippine constitution prohibiting the establishment of foreign military bases.
And here lies the precarious situation of the Philippines. With increasing trade tensions between Beijing and Washington, it is within the realm of possibility that their dispute escalates to the level of military provocation, such that the FOBs in the Philippines may be equipped with military equipment and materiel within the missile defense framework of the US Department of Defense.
This does not only render the Philippines vulnerable to acts of aggression from US adversaries, but also makes Manila responsible for the expected presence of non-nuclear conventional weapons which may have the same lethality as nuclear weapons.
Way forward
Nonetheless, the way forward is not to choose between two competing regional powers determined to dominate the Indo-Pacific.
Regional groupings and individual states have been undertaking their own independent assessments for the future of the region. The ASEAN, as put forward by Jakarta, has adopted the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific, which seeks to provide a unified vision and strategy for the ASEAN states after US President Trump proposed the FOIP strategy in 2017.
This is an international undertaking which the Manila can find common cause, if it is indeed serious about pursuing an independent foreign policy. This initiative raises the profile of ASEAN states as a contending force in the region, which should not be dominated by Beijing nor Washington.
More importantly, by participating in this mechanism, Mr. Duterte can raise his profile as one of the region’s peace-builders, and secure his legacy to the nation and the world.