Nick V. Quijano Jr.
Multiple government sources admit the brass and diplomats never did go along with Mr. Duterte ending the agreement.
Why it matters: “Ending the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) would effectively kill the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) and then neuter the US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT),” says one expert.
With such high stakes with which they felt uncomfortable doing away with, it’s safe to presume the country’s military brass and top diplomats heaved a sigh of relief after Mr. Duterte discarded his threats to scrap the VFA.
Mr. Duterte earlier submitted a letter to Washington terminating the VFA. He, however, extended his six-month deadline several times. His over a year-and-a-half threats to abrogate the VFA clouded the country’s long-standing alliance with its former colonizer.
The brass and the diplomats, of course, didn’t publicly show their relish over the turnaround. But their relish was palpable.
Multiple government sources admit the brass and diplomats never did go along with Mr. Duterte ending the agreement allowing American soldiers to conduct military exercises on Philippine soil.
Even if the brass and the diplomats made it appear Mr. Duterte’s orders were followed, obvious were the tactics of buying time. Clearly, as a colleague of mine puts it, the brass and the diplomats “slow-walked the (VFA) termination to extinction.”
In any event, as is now well-known, Mr. Duterte formally “retracted” his termination letter following a surprising 75-minute meeting with visiting US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin last Thursday.
The meeting obviously went well. Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana immediately told reporters after the meeting “that (termination) letter has been retracted as if nothing happened.”
Lorenzana, however, told reporters he did not know what made Mr. Duterte change his mind.
But he said Austin’s courtesy call — the first by a senior Biden official — yielded an “open and frank discussion on the status and future direction of Philippines-US engagement.”
What those open and frank discussions were have not been publicly divulged. It should be noted, however, that Mr. Duterte earlier demanded $16 billion — quadruple of current American aid to the country — in return for renewing the VFA. It is not clear if such negotiations occurred during the Austin meeting.
Insofar, however, as to where the US-Philippine rocky relations now stood, the fruitful talks meant both sides had reaffirmed the importance of their alliance, thereby ensuring that the Washington-Manila ties were stable.
Such stable ties many, including most senators, considered crucial in the face of the country’s anxieties over China’s expansive claims in the disputed South China Sea.
Significantly, directly antagonizing China wasn’t the US posture when Mr. Austin met with Mr. Duterte and other Southeast Asian leaders.
Southeast Asian affairs expert Gregory B. Poling believes the Americans, even if they emphasized they would not “flinch when its interests are threatened,” wanted a “constructive, stable relationship” with China.
Poling says the shift in the American posture went down well with nervous Southeast Asian leaders caught in the middle of heightened tensions between two superpowers.
Washington “not asking countries in the region to choose” between China and the US perhaps also partly explains why Mr. Duterte softened his five-year pivot to China and became receptive to Mr. Austin’s overture to act as partners with the US against Chinese threats.
Still, despite the marked shift in the American security posture, security analyst Collin Koh says Philippine domestic politics, particularly the upcoming elections, also prompted Duterte to change his mind.
“The South China Sea looks set to be an important issue alongside the Covid-19 response and economic challenges that could feature in the polls,” Koh told a newspaper.
“Restoring the VFA could demonstrate Duterte’s care for South China Sea issues, while at the same time, appealing also to the Philippine military, which remains a powerful national institution and which has longstanding, institutionalized relations with its US counterpart,” Koh said.
But while assuring the military establishment is crucial, Mr. Duterte also has his hands full on how the Filipino electorate reacts. Nearly 50 percent of Filipinos say his government has not done enough to assert the country’s rights in the West Philippine Sea.
Republished from Daily Tribune 05 Aug. 2021