By Alexander Jones, International Banker
On July 31, the United States announced a $500-million military-funding package for the Philippines, which was later confirmed when U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met with their respective Philippine counterparts, Secretary of Foreign Affairs Enrique Manalo and Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro. As was the case with the series of US military packages already delivered to Taiwan, this latest announcement is raising fears in the region of not only escalating military provocations against China but also the potentially excessive militarisation of Southeast Asia and substantial economic damage being inflicted on the Philippines as a result of the US’ growing hostility towards China. But can the regime of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. in Manila play the delicate balancing act that’s necessary to prevent a serious ballooning of big-power hostilities?
For a holistic understanding of the Philippines’ role in this brewing conflict, one could go all the way back to the turn of the 20th century and the decision by the United States to annex the Southeast Asian archipelago nation in 1899. Its military victory in the Spanish-American War a year earlier resulted in Spain ceding its colonial possessions—the Philippines included—to the US. The ensuing war between American forces and Filipino independence fighters resulted in a brutal conflict that lasted for at least three years, with sporadic fighting breaking out in the years that followed before the US gained complete control of the Philippines and retained colonial rule of the islands until independence was achieved in 1946.
Twenty years later, the brutal dictatorial rule of Ferdinand Marcos commenced, complete with US support. Indeed, Marcos Sr. was described by the Harvard Divinity School (HDS) as “a nationalist president remembered as a corrupt dictator who ushered in an era of political repression and violence” and that by his second term in office, his leadership had seriously impoverished the nation, with most of the blame being directly heaped on Marcos himself.
“Marcos instituted martial law in the lead up to the 1973 elections…. He secretly sponsored acts of public violence that would justify martial law that gave license for the arrests of those who challenged him, especially opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr., but also leftist activists, academics, journalists, priests and nuns, and students,” Harvard also reported, adding that after nationwide protests against rigged elections broke out, “American helicopters airlifted Marcos and his family to Guam, then into exile in Hawaii, where he died in 1989.” The Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) established in the Philippines calculated that Marcos had compiled a personal fortune of between $5 billion and $10 billion, mostly stolen from the Central Bank of the Philippines (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, or BSP) during his reign.
With the election victory in May 2022 of his son, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., and following a decidedly fractious relationship between the US and Marcos’s predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, it would appear that another President Marcos is being primed to serve predominantly American interests in the region, with those interests focusing almost exclusively on combatting China. In practice, this means not only agreeing to an expanded US military presence within the Philippines—Marcos Jr. has allowed the access of American forces and weapons to four additional Philippine military bases since coming to office, bringing the number of sites where US troops can rotate indefinitely under a 2014 agreement to nine in total—but also escalating tensions on both economic and military fronts with Beijing.
The US has explained its military buildup in the country as a response to what it considers Chinese aggression against the Philippines via territorial disputes between the two nations in the South China Sea regarding “freedom of navigation” and maritime flows of global commerce. An ugly, albeit minor, standoff on June 18 between Filipino fishing vessels and the China Coast Guard (CCG) near the widely disputed Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands—which is situated about 105 nautical miles west of the Philippine island of Palawan and claimed by several countries, including Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei—is being touted as justification for this buildup. Manila’s claims to the shoal’s surrounding waters were fortified when it beached its warship, BRP Sierra Madre, there in 1999. It controversially remains there with a Philippine Marine garrison stationed on the vessel.
But by pandering to US military interests in the region, the Philippines plays a dangerous game, perhaps even suicidal, given the country’s long and prosperous economic ties with Beijing. As of 2023 figures, China is the Philippines’ top trading partner—and by some distance—with $41 billion worth of exports and imports traded last year. Japan is its next biggest trading partner at just $21 billion, followed by the US in third place at $20 billion—less than half that of China. The economics division (Cabinet Economic Cluster) of the Marcos administration is only too acutely aware of this reality. “Our position is that we do not impose unnecessary barriers to trade and investment to any country, including China,” Arsenio Balisacan, the secretary of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), said in June. The country “needs to get investments and export[s]” to spur economic growth, Balisacan added.
So, the central question that must be asked is why the Philippines is agreeing to effectively become an outpost for US military ambitions against China when so much of its economic prosperity originates from none other than China. “The Americans are the ones pushing the Philippine government to go out there and find a quarrel and eventually maybe start a war,” former President Rodrigo Duterte stated in an April 12 interview with Chinese state-run news outlet Global Times. “But I do not think that America will die for us.”
Perhaps that sentiment has been no more clearly demonstrated than through the revelations of a July 26 Reuters report that found that the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) acknowledged its spread of propaganda throughout the Philippines during the COVID pandemic with the aim of disparaging China’s Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine, according to a June 25 document cited by a former top government official earlier in the month. Reuters was able to verify its contents with a source familiar with the US response. “It is true that the (Department of Defense) did message Philippines audiences questioning the safety and efficacy of Sinovac,” according to the document, which references information sent from the U.S. Department of Defense to the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and Department of National Defense (DND).
For their parts, China and the Philippines have tried to defuse tensions, with an understanding reached on July 22 for Manila to continue to resupply the BRP Sierra Madre garrison. “Both sides continue to recognise the need to de-escalate the situation in the South China Sea and manage differences through dialogue and consultation and agree that the agreement will not prejudice each other’s positions in the South China Sea,” the Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed. U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan also insisted that the US would “do what is necessary” to ensure the Philippines can resupply the Sierra Madre.
“The Chinese side still demands that the Philippine side tow away the ship and restore the original status of [Second Thomas Shoal] as if it were unmanned and without facilities,” China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also confirmed after the discussions. “If the Philippines needs to provide supplies to the ship’s occupants before the Philippines tows away the beached warship, the Chinese side is willing to allow the Philippine side to carry out the transportation and replenishment on humanitarian grounds.” But should a large amount of building materials be transported to the ship to build fixed facilities and permanent outposts, “China will never accept it and will resolutely block it in accordance with laws and regulations, so as to safeguard China’s sovereignty.”
It is also worth emphasising that the unresolved territorial issues in the South China Sea that involve China represent just a modest fraction of all the legal disputes that exist within the region today. Indeed, the Philippines recently told the United Nations (UN) that it is seeking to expand its continental shelf through a filing that claims the western Palawan region of the South China Sea as its own—an area that is rich in oil and gas resources—which, in turn, would encroach on the Malaysian state of Sabah in northern Borneo.
“Malaysia is an independent sovereign nation that will fight any claim on our territories,” Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohamad Hasan said in response to Manila’s diplomatic note filed with the United Nations. “In its note, the Philippines claims that its maritime border runs through Sabah. If this is used as a yardstick, then it’s claiming that Sabah belongs to the Philippines. We are an independent and sovereign nation, and no one can just come and stake a claim on any of our territories.”
With many such disputes yet to be resolved, then, the use of Second Thomas Shoal as an excuse for sending more warships towards Asia is unnecessarily dragging the Philippines—a nation that has enjoyed decades of peaceful development—into a potentially irreversible quagmire. “I am sorry for my country. I am not the president anymore. I cannot run. But if there is a way we can reverse the situation, we might find a way inside to implode somewhere. And if God would allow it, then perchance, I would be able to reverse the situation. I would remove the bases,” Duterte also lamented. “And I would tell the Americans, you have so many ships, so you do not need my island as a launching pad or as a launching deck for you.”