With President Rodrigo Duterte, training his sights once again on unequal military relations between the Philippines and the United States, sharp focus needs to be made on a specific aspect of PH-US military agreements: the prospect of short- and medium-range missiles being stockpiled and situated within Philippine territory.
There is no going around it: Under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), there is no prohibition for the stockpile and location of short- and medium-range missiles within EDCA agreed locations. Agreed locations is the term defined by the EDCA to refer to areas within PH military bases on which US forces have absolute command and control.
The only prohibition in EDCA refers to the constitutional prohibition on nuclear weapons, but the agreement, within the entire framework of the Mutual Defense Treaty, allows conventional weapons stockpile in EDCA agreed locations.
Most recently, Mr. Duterte warned that he will scrap the VFA if proven that the US brought nuclear armaments into the country.
“I am warning you that if I get hold of a hard information that nuclear armaments are here brought by you, I will immediately ask you to go out and I will terminate the Visiting Forces Agreement ora mismo (right now),” he said.
Duterte added that should a war break out between the US and its enemy, it would cause serious damage to the Philippines.
“Kung magka-giyera (if a war breaks out) and it will surely start maybe in the theater of war would be the Spratly and China Sea. Katabi lang tayo. Pangasinan, it’s just — nakaharap. Maraming probinsiya nandiyan. Alam mo kung may armaments sila dito ang unang tatamaan ‘yon. Saan? Sa Pilipinas (We’re just beside it. Pangasinan, it’s just — in front. There are so many provinces there. You know if they have armaments here we’ll be first to get hit. Where? The Philippines),” he said.
He said US troops have also stored their weapons “all around the Philippines.”
“Ang unang matamaan, ang Pilipinas. Kasi nandito ‘yong base, nandito ‘yong mga armas nila …(The Philippines would be first to get hit. There bases are here, their arms). The arms are stored everywhere in the Philippines, baka hindi niyo alam. May mga (maybe you don’t know. They have) depots all around the Philippines where the arms are,” he added.
The President is correct with his intuition that regional tensions will escalate not only with nuclear armaments stockpiled in the Philippines, but even if these armaments are mere conventional weapons.
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The US withdrawal from the INF treaty bodes ill for international and regional security at a time when disputes on the South China Sea continue to linger.
With the US withdrawal, the Philippines should be alarmed with this development especially as the US continues to pursue its plans of setting-up bases in the country under EDCA.
In fact, Washington should not have withdrawn from the INF treaty, and instead pushed for international cooperation to include other non-treaty nations such as China into the fold of the INF. Through diplomacy, it should have found ways on how to bring rising nuclear nations to the negotiating table on intermediate-range nuclear weapons.
Certainly, the US will pursue this strategy of armaments stockpile within the Philippines for as long as the EDCA remains in effect, especially at this time that Washington’s pivot to Asia continues, and the recently concluded Alaska dialogue between Washington and Beijing started and ended on sour notes.
Washington has a first-mover advantage as its 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.
Mr. Duterte should act quick to neutralize this situation. The issue is not only about US forces in the country. The more important concern is the prospect of stockpiling of US missiles and further worsening regional conflict in the South China Sea.