Duterte ‘no’ to joint patrols with US

Manila rolls back US military co-operation over South China Sea

Military co-operation over South China Sea between the two nations unlikely to continue.

SAN ANTONIO (Philippines): The Filipino defence chief said he told the US military that plans for joint patrols and naval exercises in the disputed South China Sea have been put on hold, the first break in defence cooperation after months of increasingly strident comments by the country’s new president.

Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana also said that 107 US troops involved in operating surveillance drones against Muslim militants would be asked to leave once the Philippines acquires those capabilities in the near future.

President Rodrigo Duterte also wants to halt the 28 military exercises that are carried out with US forces each year, Lorenzana said.

Duterte has said he wants an ongoing US-Philippine amphibious beach landing exercise to be the last in his presidency as he backs away from what he views as too much dependence on the US.

“This year would be the last,” Duterte said of military exercises involving the Americans in a speech on Friday in Davao city, where he lashed out at the US anew and repeated his readiness to be ousted from office for his hard-line stance.

“For as long as I am there, do not treat us like a doormat because you’ll be sorry for it,” Duterte said.

“I will not speak with you. I can always go to China.”

In Washington, State Department spokesman John Kirby said the US government is not aware of any official notification on curtailing military exercises.

He said the US remains focused on its security commitments to the Philippines, with which it has a mutual defence treaty.

“We think comments like this are really at odds with the closeness of the relationships that we have with the people of the Philippines,” Kirby told reporters.

Duterte, who took office in June and describes himself as a leftist politician, has had an uneasy relationship with the US, his country’s former colonial master.

Duterte has lashed out against US government criticism of his deadly crackdown against illegal drugs, which has left more than 3,600 suspects dead in just three months, alarming Western governments and human rights groups.

But while some Filipino officials have walked back on Duterte’s sometimes crude anti-US pronouncements, where he told US President Barack Obama “to go to hell”, Lorenzana’s comments show that the Duterte administration will act by rolling back cooperation with the US military.

With the turquoise backdrop of the South China Sea, US Marines and Filipino combat forces barged ashore on amphibious vessels in a mock assault on a Philippine beach in San Antonio town in northwestern Zambales province.

Pounding rain prevented military aircraft from joining the beach assault drills, but the US and Filipino forces managed to rapidly come on shore to take out a “national target”, said Major Roger Hollenbeck, a US military spokesman for the drills.

Asked to comment on the possibility that the joint manoeuvres will be the last under Duterte, Hollenbeck replied, “If it’s the last, so be it.”

Lorenzana said some US military officials have expressed concern about where the countries’ 65-yearold treaty alliance is headed.

Duterte’s moves to limit the presence of visiting American troops will impede Washington’s plans to expand the footprint of US forces in Southeast Asia to counter China.

“If he curtails US military presence from the Philippines, this would undermine US ability to deter China,” said Carl Thayer, an expert on the South China Sea. — AP

Do not treat us like a doormat because you’ll be sorry for it. I will not speak with you. I can always go to China. Rodrigo Duterte