FOR three-quarters of a century, Philippine foreign policy has been tied to the apron of Uncle Sam, a legacy that seems hard to cast by a people colonized and ruled by the most powerful country in the Atomic and post-Atomic Ages.
When President Rodrigo Duterte announced on February 11, 2020 that he was terminating the 1998 Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) between the Philippines and the United States, officials from Malacañang argued this was the latest step in the long process of breaking free from Washington.
Duterte’s termination of the agreement is seen by some Filipino patriots as the latest step in its long quest for Philippine sovereignty. Will the feisty Mayor of Davao, who has built his reputation as a no-nonsense drug and crime buster succeed at last when, prior to him, many presidents attempted but failed?
According to Victoria Reyes, an assistant professor of sociology at the University ,f California, Riverside, Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro L. Locsin Jr. seemed to imply in a tweet that this was a bargaining tactic intended to force the US into an unspecified concession. Reyes is author of “Global Borderlands: Fantasy, Violence and Empire in Subic Bay, Philippines.”
Goal together
REYES opined that Duterte has a history of threatening to cancel trainings between American and Filipino military but not following through on those threats.
“However, this announcement was not just an off-the-cuff statement to the media. It came through official channels and specified the 180-day notice that is required when one party terminates the agreement,” Reyes said.
Still, Duterte appeared to blink first: On July 20, the President announced the restoration of the VFA.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd James Austin III and Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin N. Lorenzana shook hands at Camp Aguinaldo to officially mark the event.
“The Philippines is restoring a military agreement with the United States that makes it easier for US forces to move in and out the country and signals to China a renewed commitment to the 70-year-old US-Philippine alliance,” a report by CNN said.
Originally signed in 1988, the VFA gives US military aircraft and vessels free entry into the Philippines and relaxes visa restrictions for US military personnel. It is seen as important to Washington being able to act to protect the Philippines under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) between the two nations.
Duterte had previously vowed to terminate the agreement but had repeatedly pushed back the expiration date, maintaining it until the end of the year.
Austin welcomed Duterte’s decision to reverse course, thanking the President for his decision to fully restore the agreement.
“A strong, resilient US-Philippines alliance will remain vital to the security, stability and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific,” Austin said. “A fully restored VFA will help us achieve that goal together.”
Exerting sovereignty
THE Philippines was once home to two of America’s largest military bases outside US geographical borders: Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Station.
Washington also exerted control through its military bases—two would become the American military’s largest overseas bases—following a 1947 Military Bases Agreement (MBA) between the two countries.
In 1992, the Philippine Senate rejected an extension of the MBA, which was set to expire. Although some claimed that the Philippines kicked out the US military, finally exerting sovereignty over its former colonial overlord, US forces never really left. Instead, they remained in the Philippines on a visiting basis.
This visiting presence was due to the 1998 Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), which outlined the rights and responsibilities of the United States regarding American military personnel in the Philippines. Although Filipino judges ruled that the VFA was constitutional, controversy continued to surround it and US military personnel in the Philippines.
The significance of the VFA controversy was put to test by the alleged rape of a Filipino with the pseudonym “Nicole” by US serviceman Lance Corporal Daniel Smith and the 2014 killing of Jennifer Laude, a transgender Filipino, by US serviceman Joseph Pemberton.
There was a struggle over which country maintained custody of the accused before, during and after their trials, and which country could dictate the terms of their detainment. The VFA theoretically covered such eventualities; but ambiguities enabled US officials to detain Smith even though Philippine officials requested custody.
Trading overlords
DUTERTE has long courted China.
He decided not to pursue The Hague’s decision rejecting China’s claims to islands in the South China Sea that the Philippines has historically claimed sovereignty over, in part because Chinese President Xi Jinping offered Manila a deal in exchange for ignoring the ruling. But Chinese aid runs the real serious risk that the Philippines would trade one overlord for another.
For the Philippines to truly move forward as a sovereign nation, officials need to build up its own economy and defense and not turn to outside forces to fill these gaps.
The gaps are seen in perception, especially after Donald Trump ascended to the US presidency six months after Duterte’s victory in the May 2016 elections.
While Trump’s first months in office have had a major impact on worldwide perceptions of the US, people in the Philippines still like the US and have confidence in its leader. But Filipinos also share positive views of China and its leader, Xi Jinping. Overall, however, the perception gap between the US and China in the Philippines is narrowing.
In terms of international threats, as government forces continue to battle Islamic militants in the south of the country, seven-in-ten Filipinos say that ISIS poses a major threat to their country. While ISIS is named as the top threat in the Philippines, many in the country also see climate change (65 percent) and cyberattacks (64 percent) as major security concerns for their country.
And nearly half (47 percent) name China’s power and influence as a major threat, almost double the share of people in the Philippines who name the US as a major threat (25 percent).
Winning minds
DOMESTICALLY, despite international concerns leveled by various governments regarding Duterte’s controversial clashes with drug cartels and potential human rights violations, the Filipino leader and his policies have become popular, especially a year in office.
Fully 86 percent have a favorable view of Duterte, a 2017 report by Pew Research Center revealed. About 78 percent of a thousand adults the think-tank polled support his handling of the illegal-drugs issue and 62 percent say that the Philippine government is making progress in its anti-drug campaign.
Meanwhile, 78 percent believe the current economic situation is good and 57 percent are satisfied with the direction of the country, a 21-percentage-point increase from 2014, the last time this question was asked in the Philippines, the report said.
Duterte and his “war” on drugs garnered widespread approval, the survey revealed.
While large majorities of both less-educated and more-educated Filipinos approve of Duterte’s handling of the illegal-drugs issue, these two groups differ in their views of the government’s overall progress in its fight against drugs.
Filipinos with a secondary education or above (70 percent) are much more likely than those with a below-secondary education (49 percent) to say that the government is making progress in its campaign against illegal drugs.
Equilibrium sought
THE Philippines is one of 16 official major non-NATO allies of the US. The two countries have maintained a strong military relationship for decades.
But Duterte has made it a point to court the favor of China, sometimes at the cost of distancing his country from the US.
Duterte’s balancing act between the two powers has received mostly positive reviews: 63 percent of Filipinos approve of his handling of relations with the US and 53 percent approve of how he’s handled relations with China.
In the Philippines, the public is still more favorable toward the US than China. Roughly eight-in-ten (78 percent) have a positive view of the US, compared with 55 percent for China. But positive feelings toward the US are down 14 percentage points since 2015 (when Barack Obama was the US president), which coincides with a global decline in US favorability at the beginning of the Trump era.
On the other hand, favorable opinion of China has changed little since 2015 and is up 17 points since 2014, when most Filipinos were concerned that territorial disputes with China could lead to a military conflict.
Less trust
THOUGH there are no significant differences in support for either the US or China across most demographic groups, those with a favorable view of Duterte are more likely to rate China positively (57 percent) than those who view the president unfavorably (40 percent).
Opinions about which country is the world’s leading economic power are also shifting in the Philippines. While 49 percent still consider the US the world’s top economic power, this is down from 66 percent compared to 2015. Meanwhile, the share of the public naming China has risen from 14 percent to 25 percent in that same time period.
Filipinos’ levels of trust in American and Chinese leadership have also started to converge since 2015; trust in China’s Xi Jinping has remained stable, but Filipinos have much less trust in Trump than they did in Obama. In 2015, there was a 43-point gap between confidence in Obama (94 percent) and confidence in Xi (51 percent) to do the right thing in world affairs. Now, there is just a 16-point gap between Trump (69 percent) and Xi (53 percent).
Across the 37 countries surveyed in 2017, the Philippines was the country where Trump enjoys his highest confidence ratings—and is also the one that has some of the highest ratings globally for Xi.
Filipinos support US military presence and the slow embrace of China. Both the US and China have their share of issues that have, at times, caused tensions with the Philippines.
Lots of issues
SINCE the Philippines gained independence from the US in 1946, the US has maintained some military presence on the islands. And despite vocal protests by some Filipinos, three-quarters say that having US military personnel based in the Philippines is a good thing for the country, while just 20 percent say it is a bad thing.
This view holds across demographic groups, and even among those who hold an unfavorable view of the US, a majority (63 percent) say that having US military personnel based in the Philippines is good for their country, the Pew Research Center’s study revealed.
In recent years, the Philippines and China have feuded over territory in the South China Sea, including tense naval standoffs and an international court ruling in favor of the Philippines. Fully 82 percent of Filipinos say that territorial disputes between the two countries are a big problem.
However, Xi and Duterte have made efforts to improve bilateral relations, and this appears to be paying dividends for China. Two-thirds of Filipinos (67 percent) now say it is more important to have a strong economic relationship with China than it is to be tough with China on territorial disputes, while 28 percent say the opposite.
This represents a significant shift since 2015, when Filipinos were split between the two approaches to Chinese relations (43 percent favored stronger economic relationship with China and 41 percent wanted to be tougher on territorial disputes) and nine-in-ten viewed the territorial disputes as a big problem.
Relations strong
THERE is general agreement that strong economic relations are preferable to being tough with China on territorial disputes across demographic groups. However, those who view Duterte favorably are much more inclined to support the economic approach (69 percent) than are those who hold him in an unfavorable light (53 percent).
While Filipinos generally favor the pursuit of a less-tense relationship with China, the threat of conflict still exists, given the ongoing territorial disputes. In the event that a serious military conflict did occur between the Philippines and China, 68 percent believe the US would use military force to defend their country. Even among those who hold the US in an unfavorable light, a majority (58 percent) believe that the US would use military force to defend the Philippines.
Meanwhile, a majority of Americans (58 percent) say that the US should use military force to defend their Asian allies against China in the event of a serious conflict.
Economy, trade
AMONG eight international concerns tested, topmost on the minds of Filipinos is the threat of the Islamic militant group known as ISIS, whose affiliates operate in the southern parts of the island nation. Seven-in-ten say ISIS poses a major threat to the country.
Filipinos are also worried about global climate change (65 percent major threat) and cyberattacks from other countries (64 percent). Young people ages 18 to 29 are much more concerned about climate change (77 percent) and cyberattacks (71 percent) than are those ages 50 and older (58 percent and 51 percent respectively). About half of Filipinos are also worried about China’s power and influence, almost double the proportion who say Russia (26 percent) or the US (25 percent) are a major threat.
Meanwhile, Andrea Chloe Wong, writing for the “Global China Asia Prospects,” said Duterte’s wobbly relationship with China brought about by several negative developments had mellowed with the Philippines’s membership in the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and its participation in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
In fact, China remained the Philippines’s biggest source of imports, with a 20.8-percent share in January 2017; payments recorded at $1,552 billion. This reflected an increase of 26.4 percent from $1,228 billion in January 2016. Meanwhile, revenues from the Philippine exports to China reached $501.2 million, generating a total bilateral trade value of $2,053 billion.
For the Philippines, these active bilateral trade and recent regional developments will benefit its domestic economy while improving diplomatic relations. For China, such initiatives will further elevate its economic influence in the region while neutralizing its image of bellicosity in asserting its maritime claims.
Chinese ties
THE Philippines also gained positive momentum in renewing political and security ties with China. Despite the favorable arbitration ruling, because of its weak naval capabilities the Philippines cannot enforce its maritime rights and challenge the Chinese Coast Guard barricading in the Scarborough Shoal.
It was not until Duterte’s state visit to China that Filipino fishermen were able to return to the area and resume their fishing activities after four years of Chinese prohibition. Moreover, high-level bilateral dialogue regarding maritime disputes has resumed following Duterte’s participation in the BRI Summit in Beijing last May.
The warming up of bilateral ties after years of frosty relations can be attributed to Duterte’s pragmatic policy. Evidently, he departed from the Aquino administration’s defiance against Chinese assertiveness in the West Philippine Sea.
Instead, Duterte opted to cooperate with China in managing tensions in the area by not taking any military action after the court’s ruling, while amassing various economic concessions in the process. He considered that focusing more on the trade and economic aspects of the Philippines’s relations with China would ultimately benefit the Filipino people more than insisting on national maritime claims that it cannot impose.
Tactic used
ALTHOUGH his approach may appear to be an “opportunistic economic tactic,” Wong wrote that Duterte’s foreign policy adjustments have a logical basis that reflects his calculating and business-like approach.
The Duterte administration touts an “independent foreign policy” that seeks to move the Philippines away from its dependence on the US. While the US is its long-standing ally, the Philippines under Duterte is pushing to deepen relations with other equally-important partners such as Japan. It also seeks to strengthen relations with non-democratic countries that hold divergent political values, such as Russia.
Although the Philippines is a long-standing democracy, its increasing interaction with Russia reflects Duterte’s pragmatic foreign policy and accommodating posture that emphasizes concrete bilateral dealings rather than ideological engagements.
Opinion influence
THE Philippines also strives to steer clear of big power rivalries and seeks to cooperate with various countries that will potentially bring in economic benefits, regardless of any looming political issues.
While the Chinese government has welcomed this positive breakthrough in bilateral relations, public opinion in the Philippines is divided on whether or not this was a sound move by the Duterte administration. But the general perception is that Duterte’s accommodating policy towards China has temporarily de-escalated maritime tensions and enhanced trade ties.
As a small power, the Philippines considers this a welcome step towards a more peaceful environment for economic development.
In the long term, it is imperative that the Philippines be accommodating yet vigilant in its relations with China under its still-ambiguous, yet-to-be-operationalized “independent foreign policy.” Given the shift in its foreign policy, the challenge for the Philippines under Duterte is to be consistently cautious in its policy implementation.
Foreign policy must be supervised by established institutions in order to put a check on decisions based on personal impulses, which have been the trademark of the Duterte administration so far.