2/25/2020 What Would Ending the US-Philippines Visiting Forces Agreement Actually Do?

– The Diplomat

ASEAN BEAT | DIPLOMACY | SECURITY | SOUTHE

What Would
Ending the US-
Philippines
Visiting Forces
Agreement
Actually Do?
In the wake of Duterte’s
latest threat, it is worth
bearing in mind what
potential impact the move
may actually have.

By Prashanth Parameswaran
January 28, 2020

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, left, and

U.S. State Secretary Mike Pompeo chat before
their formal meeting upon the latter’s arrival
at Villamor Air Base in suburban Pasay city

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2/25/2020 What Would Ending the US-Philippines Visiting Forces Agreement Actually Do? – The Diplomat

southeast of Manila, Philippines, Feb. 28,

2019.
Credit: AP Photo/Bullit Marquez

Last week, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte

issued a threat to cancel the Visiting Forces
Agreement (VFA) with the United States, the
latest of a series of threats regarding the
alliance Duterte has made since taking office in
2016. While specifics are still unclear as to if
and when this termination will actually play out
in practice, it is nonetheless worth considering
what its nixing would actually mean for the U.S-
Philippine alliance and wider dynamics in the
Indo-Pacific.

As I have observed before in these pages and

elsewhere, the U.S.-Philippine alliance is no
stranger to rounds of stress testing. Since the
alliance was born through the Mutual Defense
Treaty in 1951, it has been through a series of
challenging periods, whether it be the
renegotiating of the terms of base agreements in
the 1970s, the closure of U.S. military facilities in
the early 1990s, or the management of China’s
growing assertiveness in the South China Sea in
the early to mid-2010s.

But Duterte’s rise to power has brought about

the biggest stress test for the alliance in decades.
Since coming to office in May 2016, Duterte has
sought to distance the Philippines from its
alliance with the United States while pursuing
closer ties with China and Russia. While his
aspirations have unsurprisingly run into long-
standing realities – from the Philippine
military’s close ties with the United States to
Washington’s important role in helping Manila
with some of its urgent threats, including
terrorism – we have nonetheless seen
divergences in threat perceptions and slowing
of U.S.-Philippine collaboration in some areas.

Last week, we saw another test for the alliance

in the Duterte era with his threat on Thursday
to cancel the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), a
pact ratified by the U.S. Senate in May 1999. The
VFA, which governs the terms under which U.S.
military personnel can be temporarily present
in the Philippines, was itself reached following
an increased threat perceived by the Philippines
from China in the early to mid-1990s following
the U.S. base closures that had occurred.

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Duterte’s threat has raised a series of questions

regarding the VFA, from the reasons behind it to
how the termination process could actually play
out between the United States and the
Philippines. But it is also worth probing what
the significance of such a move would actually
constitute if it indeed does take place.

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In terms of symbolism, the nixing of the VFA

would constitute the biggest realized setback we
have seen in the U.S.-Philippine alliance since
Duterte took office. While Duterte has
previously issued various threats including
seeking “separation” from the United States and
canceling exercises, none of them have actually
played out, and on some fronts such as
exercises, collaboration has actually increased.
And as former Philippine Foreign Secretary
Albert del Rosario pointed out, the VFA matters
not only for its own sake, but as part of a series
of agreements tied to the MDT that help advance
its effective implementation.

The symbolism would likely extend beyond the

alliance itself, even if much of this may seem
overhyped in reality. It is worth recalling, for
instance, that the last time that the U.S.-
Philippine alliance took such a hit, with the
closure of U.S. bases in the Philippines, this was
seen as part of a wider reduction of American
presence in the region in a post-Cold War
context, even though the reality of U.S. presence
was much more complex than that. At a time
when Washington is seeking to reassert its role
in the Indo-Pacific region and pursuing a more
competitive approach with China, the nixing of
the VFA would be interpreted as a blow for the
United States.

Substantively, the move would also not be

without significance. For the United States,
while its alliance with the Philippines may not
rank as highly as its other Asian alliances and
has underperformed in the past, it would
nonetheless complicate the issue of the presence
of U.S. military personnel on Philippine soil,
since the VFA is the agreement that governs this
and this aspect of the alliance relationship has
proven to be contentious previously. The
presence of U.S. personnel is important not only
bilaterally to further alliance cooperation across

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a range of issues and contingencies, ranging

from terrorism to humanitarian assistance and
disaster relief, but also regionally as well since
the Philippines is one of the few places where
Washington currently has such as pact in the
Indo-Pacific region.

But the effects on the Philippines would

unquestionably be far more significant given
Manila’s limited capabilities, its continued
reliance on the United States, and the threat
environment it faces. This was why the
Philippines recognized its need for the VFA in
the first place in the 1990s, and that reality
remains unchanged today. Contrary to Duterte’s
recent comments on the VFA about being able to
lean more on Russia and China, the tangible
security cooperation that Manila has with both
Moscow and Beijing is nascent and nowhere
near what it currently has with the United
States. And while Duterte may not admit it, a
degrading of Manila’s alliance with Washington
would only weaken the leverage the Philippines
has in its ties with China and increase the risks
of Beijing undermining Philippine interests on
various fronts, including in the South China Sea.

To be sure, since it is still early days since

Duterte’s VFA threat. And the impact of its
actual termination would depend on a range of
factors, including how the termination process
plays out, the effects on broader alliance
cooperation including existing pacts such as the
Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement
(EDCA) approved by the Philippines in 2016, and
reactions from a range of actors including the
United States and China. But as headlines
continue to roll in, it will be important to keep
in mind what impact a VFA nixing would
actually have for the alliance as well as for the
wider region.

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AUTHORS

STAFF AUTHOR

Prashanth Parameswaran

Prashanth Parameswaran is Senior

Editor at The Diplomat based in
Washington, D.C., where he produces
analysis on Southeast Asian political
and security issues, Asian defense
affairs, and U.S. foreign policy in the
Asia-Pacific.

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