Philippines to scrap military pact with U.S.
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines said Tuesday it had officially informed the United States that it was scrapping a military pact that has given the longtime American ally a security blanket for the past two decades.
The notice to terminate the pact, the Visiting Forces Agreement, comes as President Rodrigo Duterte has warmed up to China while distancing himself from the United States, the Philippines’ former colonial ruler. The move also comes as the Philippines has shown increasing reluctance to stand up to China over its territorial claims in the South China
Sea.
The agreement has let the United
States rotate its forces through Philippine military bases. It has allowed for about 300 joint exercises annually between the American and Philippine militaries, said R. Clarke Cooper, the assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs. He told reporters Monday the termination of the agreement would put those operations “at risk.”
The pact still remains in force, but the notice to terminate it, delivered to the American Embassy in Manila, starts a clock under which it will remain in effect for 180 days before lapsing.
“The deputy chief of mission of the United States has received the notice of termination of the Visiting Forces Agreement,” Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin said on Twitter in announcing the move.
The decision by the Philippine government comes as Duterte has grown increasingly belligerent toward the United States, principally over Washington’s refusal to grant a visa to Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, the early architect of Duterte’s violent war against drugs.
Duterte’s threats to end the pact have alarmed some in his own administration, who see the American military alliance as a bedrock of Philippine security and a counterweight to China’s growing naval might in the South China Sea.
The foreign secretary said neither he nor the Philippine Department of National Defense was asked for advice on ending the pact. Without the agreement, Locsin said, the United States would have its hands tied in assisting the Philippines, its oldest military ally in Asia, should it come under attack.
What is unlikely to be affected by Tuesday’s announcement is the American counterterror mission in the country’s south that exists separate of the hundreds of annual exercises Duterte has threatened to end.
The American military keeps a small contingent of around 250 troops on the Mindanao island chain, where about 500 Islamic State fighters are thought to be scattered. There, the Americans assist their Philippine counterparts predominantly with overhead surveillance aircraft and assistance known as Operation Pacific Eagle.
Locsin said the Visiting Forces Agreement enabled Philippine troops to receive much-needed training on nontraditional threats such as combating illegal drugs and terrorism.
But on Monday night, Duterte lashed out at America and its military, saying Washington had always gotten the better end of the deal. He said that after large-scale war games, the American troops take their modern weapons with them when they depart.
“They do not leave it with us. None,” Duterte said.