MANILA – Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr is overseeing a historic expansion in military cooperation with the United States, putting the Southeast Asian nation on a collision course with China in the South China Sea.
A new report by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) of the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington DC shows in graphic detail how the Philippines is rapidly upgrading a whole host of military bases under its Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) with the US Pentagon.
Combining open-access information, public statements by senior Filipino officials and high-resolution satellite imagery, AMTI has tracked accelerated construction activities across as many as nine EDCA bases across the Philippine archipelago.
The report also shows that, despite the vehement opposition by former Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte (2016-22), who favored closer ties with Beijing and often lopped politicized broadsides against the traditional allies in the US and West, infrastructure upgrades in some military bases date as far back as 2016.
Crucially, EDCA bases close to the disputed South China Sea have seen the most dramatic upgrades, with the Basa Airbase in Pampanga, which is close to the hotly contested Scarborough Shoal, receiving more US funding for expansion than all other facilities.
The Antonio Bautista Air Base also “received significant upgrades to its runway and aircraft storage facilities since 2016,” according to the ATMI report.
In the nearby Balabac Island, also in the southwestern province of Palawan that juts into the South China Sea, major infrastructure projects clearing the way for a three-kilometer-long airbase predated the inclusion of the facilities in the area under an expanded EDCA announced in 2023.
Just as concerning to China are ongoing US-backed plans to upgrade several Philippine facilities, both military and civilian, close to Taiwan’s southern shores.
The Philippines is also fortifying its position in the Spratly group of islands, with the country’s legislative leaders recently visiting the Thitu Island and vowing sizeable funding for necessary infrastructure upgrades.
The Marcos Jr administration has repeatedly emphasized the defensive calculus behind its expanded military cooperation with the US.
By all indications, though, the Philippines is proactively enhancing its deterrence against China’s expanding footprint in the South China Sea to the west, while also preparing for potential contingencies in neighboring Taiwan to the north.
Like father, like son
In historical terms, Marcos Jr’s proactive defense policy is consistent with his late father, who ruled the Philippines with an iron fist for almost two decades while deftly leveraging the country’s Cold War alliance with Washington while enhancing the Southeast Asian nation’s strategic autonomy.
Throughout the 1970s, for instance, Marcos Sr expanded the Philippines’ strategic footprint in the disputed Spratly Islands. This culminated in the establishment of the first modern airstrip in the area on Thitu Island, the second-largest naturally-formed land feature in the South China Sea.
Troubled by the Philippines’ proactive expansion in the disputed areas, the Richard Nixon administration sought to distance itself from its ally’s maritime ambitions.
In particular, then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger insisted that Washington’s Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) with Manila should not be reduced to a “carte blanche [for the Philippines] to deploy forces anywhere in the Pacific [including in the South China Sea] with the assurance that the other Party will be bound by the MDT in the event of attack on those forces.”
In a secret cable, Kissinger reiterated that “there are substantial doubts that Filipine [sic] military contingent on island in the Spratley group would come within protection of (MDT)” in the event of conflict with other claimant states, most notably Vietnam and China. Accordingly, the Nixon administration was “most reluctant to accept” an extension of the MDT to Philippine claims across the Spratly Islands.
Following the collapse of the Marcos dictatorship, successive Philippine governments failed to build on the country’s strategic gain in the South China Sea.
Beset by more than a dozen coups and persistent economic troubles, once state-of-the-art Philippine facilities deteriorated throughout the 1990s and 2000s. As former Philippine president Fidel Ramos told the author, “We lacked resources [for such activities]”, with the nation struggling to even meet its basic defense needs.
Shockingly, the Philippines, which boasted among the region’s best-equipped armed forces throughout the mid-20th century, failed to acquire even a single modern fighter jet until the mid-2010s.
Under the Benigno Aquino administration, Manila adopted a more assertive stance by modernizing its armed forces, filing an international arbitration case against China, and, crucially, negotiating the EDCA with the US.
In order to maintain “the moral high ground”, however, the Philippines decided to postpone the refurbishment of its facilities in the Spratly group of islands.
The succeeding Duterte administration sought to downgrade ties with Washington to appease Beijing. In particular, the pro-China Duterte dragged its feet on the full implementation of EDCA by denying the Pentagon’s requests to preposition weapons systems in designated facilities, especially those close to the South China Sea.
Catch-up time
The AMTI’s latest report, however, shows that even under Duterte’s presidency the Philippines’ US-friendly defense establishment began infrastructure upgrades in various EDCA facilities as early as 2016.
Nevertheless, Philippine-US security cooperation has dramatically accelerated under Marcos Jr, who decided to expand the list of bases under EDCA following a mostly fruitless trip to Beijing earlier this year.
On multiple occasions, the Philippines has emphasized the EDCA is a purely defensive strategic move. During his visit to Washington earlier this year, Marcos Jr, during an event at CSIS, insisted that EDCA bases “are not … intended to be military bases to attack, to move against anyone … not China, not any country.”
The Filipino president also made it clear that EDCA facilities won’t be used for “offensive action”, and that he will ensure they won’t be used as “staging areas” for offensive action against any other country. If anything, Marcos Jr claimed that the Pentagon “never brought up the possibility that [EDCA sites] be used” against China.
Weeks earlier, Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo clarified that the US won’t be allowed to stockpile offensive weapons at EDCA bases in the northern Philippines for any potential operations against China, most especially over Taiwan.
“EDCA is not aimed at any third country outside its meant for use for the Philippines and of course in connection with our treaty with the United States,” the Philippine diplomatic chief said during a congressional hearing in April.
On multiple occasions, however, senior Filipino officials admitted the importance of EDCA to constrain China’s rising assertiveness in the South China Sea. Earlier this year, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) spokesperson Colonel Medel Aguilar admitted that the designated facilities will also be “made available during emergency situations for combined use of the US and the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines).”
During his visit to Tokyo earlier this year, Marcos himself admitted that EDCA sites will be crucial to the fate of Taiwan, too. Recognizing how “tensions across the Taiwan Straits seem to be continuing to increase,” the Filipino president admitted that military facilities “will also prove to be useful for us should that terrible occurrence (China’s invasion of Taiwan) come about.”
Against this backdrop of strategic ambiguity, the AMTI’s latest report on the status of EDCA facilities is highly poignant. Originally, the EDCA facilities included Antonio Bautista Air Base (Palawan); Mactan-Benito Ebuen Air Base (Cebu); Lumbia Air Base (Cagayan de Oro); and Basa Air Base (Pampanga), and Fort Magsaysay (Nueva Ecija).
Earlier this year, Marcos Jr greenlighted the addition of four more bases that are heavily oriented towards the South China Sea including the Balabac Island in Palawan, Taiwan Naval Base Camilo Osias (Santa Ana, Cagayan), Lal-lo Airport in Cagayan and Camp Melchor Dela Cruz in Gamu (Isabela).
Last November, Washington agreed to spend $66.5 million on the original five bases. This April, ahead of Marcos Jr’s visit to the US, Washington agreed to allocate a total of $100 million on the expanded list of EDCA bases.
That month, the Philippines clarified that as many as five projects were already finished by that time, while “significant progress” was made on eight of the remaining 16 projects in the five original sites. According to the AMTI report, the Basa Air Base located close to the Spratly Islands has received more US funding for infrastructure projects.
Meanwhile, Antonio Bautista Air Base, located in Puerto Princesa, Palawan, which is the closest site to the Spratly Islands, has received $1.8 million in US funding, with ongoing construction activities focusing on enhancement of ammunition warehouse, fuel storage, and command and control infrastructure.
The nearby Balabac Air Base, the recipient of substantial investments by the Philippine government, has also seen significant improvements in recent years, including the development of a 3,000-meter runway for both military and civilian purposes.
Upgrades are also picking up in more northern-oriented bases. In May, the AFP announced that up to 14 projects will be constructed in the four new EDCA bases, with American financing.
In September, Manila announced that it was seeking American assistance to build a command center and fuel storage facility at Lal-lo Airport as well as a pier and a repairing airstrip at the Camilo Osias Naval Base. This month, the US is expected to press ahead with help building a civilian port on the remote northernmost islands of Batanes.
Crucially, the Philippines has independently stepped up fortification of its military facilities in Mavulis Island, located just over 100 nautical miles away from Taiwan’s southern shores, as well as in Thitu Island in the Spratly group of islands in the South China Sea.
Follow Richard Javad Heydarian on Twitter at @Richeydarian