Us-philippines Defense Cooperation during the Duterte Administration: Adjustments and Limitations

The Us-philippines defense relationship since 2016 has generally followed its tradition, but has incorporated some changes as well. The changes are deeply affected by the evolution of international and regional strategic trends, and they are the natural result of the domestic political structure, pursuit of interests, and strategic adjustments of each of the two countries.

a relatively special alliance relationship with the United States. During the Cold War, the Clark Air Base and the Subic Bay Naval Base were the largest US overseas military bases and the cornerstones of US front-line deployment in the region.1 Although the Philippines abrogated the Usphilippines Military Bases Agreement in 1991, ending the 93-year-old history of US military presence in the Philippines, the residual colonial legacy and influence apparently still exists in the Philippines today.2 From the late 1990s to the beginning of the 21st century, the United States once again strengthened the Us-philippines alliance out of strategic considerations, and the durable alliance has since “evolved from mere expedient and mechanical aggregations of national capabilities directed at a specific threat to something qualitatively different.”3 The Philippines has reduced its national defense investment since the 1990s, compelling it to rely more and more on the United States for security. Its security requirements from the United States can be reflected in its dependence on the US for protecting homeland security from the outside, maintaining domestic security, and for cooperation in the fight against terrorism and separatism. Traditionally, the US and the Philippines have close military ties, and this has a huge impact on the development of defense cooperation between the two sides. The two countries have established bilateral strategic and security dialogues such as the “2+2” (foreign ministers and defense ministers) mechanism, and the Mutual Defense Board and Security Engagement Board (MDB-SEB). They have also regularly held joint military exercises such as “Balikatan” (shoulder to shoulder) and “Shield.” Especially after Aquino III became President of the Philippines in 2010, the Us-philippines defense relations continued to strengthen, and the Philippines was identified as a key link in the United States’ Asia-pacific rebalancing strategy. The US attempted to build a more 1 Walden Bello, Dilemmas of Domination: The Unmaking of the American Empire,

Metropolitan Books, 2013, p.36.

2 Ava Patricia C. Avila and Justin Goldman, “Philippine-us Relations: The Relevance of Evolving Alliance,” Journal of Global South, No.2, 2015, p.1.

3 Renato Cruz De Castro, “Linking Spokes Together: The Philippines’ Gambit of Harnessing the United States’ Alliances in Its External Balancing Policy against an Emergent China,” Pacific Focus, VOL.XXIX, No.1, April 2014, p.146.

New York:

robust political, military, economic and cultural alliance with the Philippines. In 2016, the outgoing Aquino government left Duterte with two major diplomatic challenges: first, how to handle its relations with China after the South China Sea arbitration case; and second, how to shape the future role of the Us-philippines alliance in view of the South China Sea issue.4 How to properly manage the relations with both China and the United States has become the core task in Duterte’s foreign policy. After he took office, Duterte quickly adjusted the Philippines’ foreign policy to that effect. Many scholars have termed his policy of handling relations with the two major powers “breaking up with the US and leaning towards China,” arguing that the Us-philippines alliance has weakened during the Duterte administration. However, after examining Philippine foreign policy in the past three years, it can be concluded that a rapid development and upgrading of Chinaphilippines relations has been taking place in parallel with the deepening of Us-philippines defense relations. Duterte has been skillfully taking a pragmatic approach to strike a subtle balance among great powers in order to maximize the benefits for the Philippines. The Us-philippines defense cooperation has undergone the following three changes since Duterte took office.

First, it went from “temporary pivoting away from the US” to a steady development. It was within the expectations of many analysts that Duterte would take steps to change the country’s China policy to remedy Chinaphilippines relations, which had fallen to a low level, but they never expected that he would turn away from the United States. A dispute on human rights issues was the main trigger for the turbulence in the Us-philippines defense relations. The Obama administration vehemently accused Duterte of human rights violations in his campaign against drug traffickers. In response, Duterte on several occasions even verbally insulted Obama and threatened to break up the Philippines’ decades-long ties with the United States. In September 2016, Duterte declared that US forces would have to withdraw 4 Aileen Baviera, “President Duterte’s Foreign Policy Challenges,” Contemporary Southeast Asia, Vol.38, No.2, August 2016, p.203.

from Mindanao in southern Philippines. In a speech given in October of the same year, he publicly stated that the Philippines would change its foreign policy because of abusive behaviour by the United States. He warned that the joint military exercise in the month may be the last one during his term, and that he had lost all respect for the United States.5 Shortly after that, Duterte traveled to China, becoming the first Philippine President who chose China as the destination for the first foreign visit. At a press conference during his stay in China, he announced that the Philippines would pivot away from the United States, and would downgrade their military and economic ties except societal interactions. He stated that in the long run, the Philippines must increasingly rely on China. Philippine analysts believed that Duterte’s statements portrayed a very different image from that of a moderate reformist candidate in his campaign.6

Duterte did not carry out those announced changes in the Usphilippines alliance, instead keeping the Mutual Defense Treaty intact and Us-philippines military exercises and military exchanges uninterrupted. However, Duterte’s conduct in his first days in office greatly affected the Usphilippines defense relationship, as compared with the period during the Aquino government. For instance, the United States were restricted from using Philippine military bases to implement “freedom of navigation operations” in the South China Sea, and the Us-philippines Amphibious Landing Exercise (PHIBLEX) and the Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) were also postponed. Moreover, the Obama administration suspended the sale of assault rifles to Philippine police and threatened to cancel US$400 million of aid to the Philippines, further worsening bilateral relations. Notwithstanding, most observers were optimistic at that time, predicting that the core agreements and relations between the United States and the Philippines remained unchanged, which laid the foundation for Trump to

restart the Us-philippines alliance. They argued that the bilateral relations unexpectedly withstood the initial shocks of the Duterte administration and might even embrace a surprise turn in the Trump era.7 As expected, since the inauguration of Donald Trump as US President, the bilateral relationship has gradually picked up, and the main pillar of the Us-philippines alliance, namely defense cooperation, has been continuously strengthened.

Second, bilateral defense cooperation has made progress in both quality and quantity. The period during the Aquino administration can be described as the honeymoon of Us-philippines relations, when US economic and military assistance to the Philippines reached a record high. The assistance declined to a certain extent as Duterte made changes in his foreign policy during his early days in office, and so did Trump in his aid policy; yet the Philippines has remained the largest recipient of US military expenditures in Southeast Asia. According to data of the US Embassy in the Philippines, in the three years from 2016 to 2018, US military assistance to the Philippines exceeded 15 billion pesos (about US$300 million).

The quantity and quality of Us-philippines military exercises are very meaningful indicators to characterize the alliance. According to MDB-SEB, the annual defense and security dialogue meeting between the two countries, the number of Us-philippines military exercises dropped slightly from more than 260 in 2016 to 258 in 2017, of which only six or seven were largescale exercises. The figure increased again to 261 in 2018, and might rise to 281 in 2019. At the MDB-SEB meeting held in September 2019, the two parties announced that there would be more than 300 security cooperation activities in 2020, and reaffirmed that the strengthening of Us-philippines defense cooperation was the only solution to respond to current challenges in a changing world.8

9 Renato Cruz De Castro, “Balikatan 2019 and the Crisis in Philippine-china Rapprochement,” Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, April 23, 2019, https://amti.csis.org/balikatan-2019-and-the-crisis-inphilippine-china-rapprochement.