The Philippines has endless potential. During President Rodrigo Duterte’s term, the titan investment bank Goldman Sachs, predicted the Philippines could be a top 15 world economy in several decades. It has a burgeoning world-class tourism market. It has yet to utilize their rich natural resources that have propelled other Asian nations into super economic status like China and Indonesia.
The last thing the Philippines would want is to get into a military conflict over contested islands in the Indo-Pacific that could unravel all that potential and shoot down all the gains the Philippines has been making since former President Benigno Aquino III and through the Duterte administration.
Bongbong treading dangerous waters
In a recent interview with the Global Times, Rodrigo had some eye-opening revelations on the dangerous path Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. is taking regarding the Philippines’ foreign policy. When Duterte was president, he had a neutral foreign policy for the Philippines, one in which he dealt with both China and the U.S. without any favor of one over the other. It can be argued, this is one reason why the Philippines experienced major economic growth even as Duterte was accused of gross humanitarian violations. Duterte’s neutral stance encouraged both Chinese and U.S. investments to stream into the Philippines.
Since Marcos Jr. became president, the Philippines’ foreign policy has shifted dramatically to one in which Marcos is following in the footsteps of his father, former president Ferdinand, Sr., who maintained cozy relations with the U.S. His father Ferdinand Sr. back then leased two major bases to the Americans. The lease to those bases was terminated years ago. But today, the U.S. once again has many bases there (soft bases, not as huge as the former Subic and Clark bases), according to Duterte.
What’s striking about this interview is Duterte’s remarks that the U.S. is being aggressive and hostile in the region and that they are pressuring the Marcos, Jr administration to do what they want. He accused the U.S. of aggravating the dispute over the contested Spratley and other territories between the Philippines and China.
Duterte said, back when he was president, he, and China’s leader Xi Jinping, had an agreement to leave that issue alone and not force hostility or even a resolution. At the time, those waters around the contested islands were enjoyed by both Philippines and Chinese fishermen, he explained. This is a superficial, trivialized accounting, but his main point of conflict avoidance is well taken.
However, today, he said, the Americans are fueling hostility over these contested islands as a pretext to wanting the Philippines to engage in conflict with China.
Duterte went as far as saying that the U.S. is encouraging conflict, affirming to the Philippines not to be afraid and that the U.S. would back them in any conflict. Under Marcos Jr., the U.S. and the Philippines have conducted joint military exercises. The U.S. in their latest Foreign Aid package also included billions for the Indo-Pacific region, mostly to Taiwan. Earlier this year, Marcos Jr. and Japan’s prime minister of Japan Fumio Kishida met with President Joe Biden in the White House for a trilateral meeting to advance trilateral defense cooperation.
All of this is not going unnoticed to China and these developments are sending a message to China that the Philippines is no longer neutral but picking to be on the side of the U.S. under the guise of needing protection (which it does not need) in the case of conflict over disputed territories.
Philippines is reverting backwards to being a little brown brother of the U.S.
What’s unfolding is clear, classic American foreign policy, of using smaller nations as pawns to get at larger adversaries, in this case China, or as the U.S. did with Ukraine in Europe prior to Russia’s invasion. Included in this strategy is as Duterte alludes to – pressured conditions either diplomatically or quite possibly but unreported to date, economic pressure as well.
The last thing the Philippines needs is for the Marcos Jr. administration to convince Filipinos that they in fact need the U.S. for protection, and as such, identifies China as an enemy. And worse yet, to engage in some unnecessary proxy war over disputed territory.
The Philippines has already left that pawn-status behind decades ago when they decided not to renew the leases of Subic and Clark bases, and for good reason.
Duterte’s non-aggressive approach to the disputed territories with China was the right strategy. It’s almost comical to entertain a dispute (or prepare for one) against a superpower as China with so-called backing from the U.S. Look at Ukraine. How is that turning out for Ukraine? Furthermore, the Philippines is not threatened by China at all. It’s not Taiwan. The need for U.S. protection from China over disputed territories is fabrication of a bogeyman (China). Why is the bogeyman scare fake? Because just a few years ago under Duterte, China and the Philippines enjoyed mutually cordial relations.
Why Marcos Jr. is returning to the U.S. with such high favor and partiality over China and inviting U.S. military presence is mind boggling. In his father’s case, it had to do with corruption. What is Ferdinand Jr being offered as a carrot to make this shift? Lucrative foreign investments? Or is the U.S. simply exerting hegemonic pressure onto Marcos Jr. that he cannot brush off (after all, Marcos, Jr. is no Duterte). The reason remains unclear.
What is clear is that the Marcos Jr. administration should not be allowed to be played as a pawn in geopolitics by the U.S. to get at China. If in fact massive military or American foreign investments are being attached to this new “we’re now on the U.S. side” of foreign policy, Marcos Jr. should know better that there are consequences to “pay and play.” It’s not simple to cash out and tell the Americans to go away as they were able to do years ago. U.S. military “protection” comes at a cost like losing some degree of the Philippines’ independence, and worse yet, potentially lead to conflict with China.
The U.S. since W. Bush has been calling for a greater shift in presence from Europe and the Middle East to the Asia-Pacific, realizing the importance of that region as the global future. It could be, considering the U.S.-Philippines historical relationship, that the U.S. now sees it fitting under Marcos Jr (just like the good old days with his father) to reestablish those ties and U.S. military outposts. But the Philippines, given their marginal success being neutral to both superpowers (U.S. and China) of late, it’s in the best interest of the Filipino people that Marcos Jr. continues that inherited legacy of neutrality.
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