Washington, D.C.—A private group of experts, comprising mostly defense and security analysts from leading think tanks in the United States, is prodding the US government to provide mobile state-of-the-art weapons systems for the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) as a deterrent to China’s security threat, even as they pushed for the revitalization of the Philippines-US military alliance.
“Prioritizing provision to the Philippines of items such as land-based mobile anti-air and anti-ship systems, as opposed to big-ticket items, makes sense from both a practical and cost perspective,” the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) US–Philippines Alliance Task Force said in a recently released report. The report examined how the US could reinvigorate its military relations with its Southeast Asian ally and provide it with much needed military support.
“Items such as drones and other equipment that can be used for intelligence collection, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance serve both the Philippines’ goals of enhancing its own maritime security and the US objective to bolster joint maritime domain awareness,” the task force added in the report, entitled “Revitalizing the US-Philippines Alliance to Address Strategic Competition in the Indo-Pacific.”
The task force, formed by the Washington, D.C.-based think tank CNAS, counts former senior US officials, private-sector representatives and academic and think tank experts, who are mostly based in the US capital, as members. It is headed by Liza Curtis, senior fellow and director of CNAS’s Indo-Pacific Security Program.
Strategic value
THE report said the “Philippines’ strategic location in the South China Sea” and its “position in the first island chain is important to American security and the integrity of the US alliance system in the Indo-Pacific,” noting that if an “adversary can coerce or easily penetrate the Philippine archipelago, Japan and Taiwan are easily flanked.” China maintains a dispute over an island nationalized by Japan in the East China Sea while it also wants to reunite Taiwan.
The Philippines is currently contending with China’s aggressive claims in its territory in the Kalayaan Island Group (KIG) and in its exclusive economic zone it calls the West Philippine Sea (WPS).
China, meanwhile, has occupied some of the features claimed or owned by the Philippines, while at the same time maintaining military and paramilitary ships in those territories. The ships are often used to harass Philippine resupply missions to its forces in the features that Beijing disputes.
Territorial issue
PRESIDENT Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s foreign policy is to make the Philippines friendly to all states and maintain it, but he also declared that he would not cede any inch of the country’s territory, apparently referring to the maritime issue with China. Marcos said that the Philippines has no dispute with China, but what it has is “China’s claiming of a Philippine territory.”
Marcos’s clear and strong stance on the territorial issue with Beijing reinvigorated the country’s relations with its allies and other like-minded states. Experts have earlier described such relations as becoming “wobbly” during the time of his predecessor, Rodrigo Roa Duterte, due to the latter’s inclination for China and his declared friendship with Chinese Communist officials, including President Xi Jinping, despite Beijing’s persistent muscling in the KIG and WPS.
The task force viewed the election of Marcos to the presidency as an opportunity for the US to revive its “critical alliance” with the Philippines and set it on “firmer footing.”
Summing up the Philippines-US relations during the term of Duterte, the task force declared, “The alliance had faltered under Duterte’s administration due to his counter-narcotics campaign that resulted in human-rights abuses—including thousands of extrajudicial killings, attempts to reorient the Philippines’ foreign policy toward China and abrogation of the US-Philippines Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) in early 2020.”
With its recommendation to prioritize the sale of asymmetric defense and maritime domain awareness equipment to the Philippines, the task force said the next move would be to explore financial arrangements such as the US Foreign Military Financing program to help Manila purchase “more expensive, sophisticated items” such as F-16 fighter aircraft.
How weapons are acquired
MOST of the military equipment sold or transferred to the Philippines by the US government, if not donated, were given through a military sales program. Recently, US Ambassador to the Philippines MaryKay Carlson announced a new $70 million in defense aid to the country.
Aside from equipping the AFP, the CNAS US-Philippines Alliance Task Force recommended the creation of the 2+2 dialogue with the Philippines, where representatives on the US side are the heads of the Departments of State and Defense, to enhance the alliance by raising both countries’ level of consultations on “strategic and operational planning.”
By holding consultations, the task force said the Philippines and US would be prepared to “deal on an immediate basis with any contingency that may arise in the Indo-Pacific.”
While the US has been vocal on its commitment to defend the Philippines under the Mutual Defense Treaty, the task force said both countries should put forward a common strategic vision based on the Philippines’ strategic autonomy and a rules-based order.
EDCA approach
“AS part of this effort, the United States should be explicit that Washington would consider any construction of permanent military or dual-use structures at Scarborough Shoal unacceptable and a potential trigger for employing Article IV of the Mutual Defense Treaty, the provision that is commonly interpreted to mean that an attack on one party is considered as an attack on both parties,” it said.
Delving into the security agreements between both countries, the task force recommended the full and immediate implementation of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), with more Philippine military camps as hosts, seeing this as both beneficial to both countries.
Likewise, it pushed for the US’s enhanced cybersecurity partnership with the Philippines as it noted China’s 40-percent stake in the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP).
Outside the issue of defense and security, the Philippines is seen to gain in other areas out of the revitalized alliance as the task force prodded the US to invest more in peace efforts in Mindanao, the health sector and to provide the country with funds under the Millennium Challenge Corporation, especially in the areas of renewable energy, transportation infrastructure and post-pandemic economic recovery.
“The United States should seek to maximize the Philippines’ role in the White House’s Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. One area of opportunity is working toward a digital standards agreement, as the Philippines concurs with US-favored digital standards, which help underpin its business-process outsourcing sector,” it also said.
The task force pushed for the amendment of the Filipino Veterans Equity Compensation Act, which should raise the compensation of World War II veterans.
“The US Congress should increase the remaining $55 million in funds allocated to the Department of Veterans Affairs for Filipino veterans and amend the 2009 Filipino Veterans Equity Compensation Act to raise individual payments to non-citizen Filipino veterans to the same level as Filipino-American veterans. Congress should also institute a more streamlined verification process that balances the desire to prevent fraudulent disbursements with the guarantee that remaining veterans receive their rightful compensation,” it said.
A peace monument was also recommended to be constructed on the site in Sulu where an estimated 1,000 Moros, including women and children, were killed by the US Army in 1906.
Truly a friend and an ally
IN pushing for a reinvigorated alliance, the task force recognized the Philippines-US relationship’s “deep historical and cultural ties” as well as the presence of a significant Filipino-American community in the US, aside from Manila’s strategic importance.
“Furthermore, the Philippines is an ally and friend within the Asean at a time when Southeast Asia is emerging as the epicenter of geopolitical competition,” it said.
“With an alliance in place for over 70 years, the two countries have fought side by side in several wars and cooperated on common diplomatic and security objectives, including during the Cold War when the United States had a massive military presence in the Philippines,” it added.
Rene Acosta, a reporter for this paper, is currently a visiting fellow at the East-West Center in Washington, where he researches US-Philippines defense and security relations under the US-Philippines Alliance Fellowship. He is the program’s first visiting scholar.