November Monthly Analysis
Published 06 November 2024

Dynastic feud heats up as Philippine fracas with China deepens

National Politics

November 2024 accentuated the growing feud between the Philippines’ reigning political dynasties – the Marcoses and Dutertes – over issues of death threats, the imminent arrest of former President Rodrigo R. Duterte by the police arm of the International Criminal Court (ICC), impeachment charges against Vice President Sara Duterte, among others. Nowhere was such naked display of the misuse of power and institutional violence been seen since the 1970s-1990s. These issues were developing in the backdrop of preparations for the mid-term elections in May 2025 including a move by a former House speaker for former President Duterte to take another shot at the presidency.

“Death threats” – but VP faces ouster as well

Swords are unsheathed as the political row between the Marcos dynasty – where Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. is the sitting president – and the Duterte family where Sara Duterte is serving as vice president – is heating up with an open display of death threats. Marcos and Sara Duterte ran together as presidential and vice-presidential candidates in May 2022.

The feud appeared to have deteriorated following Vice President Sara Duterte’s public revelation that she has hired hitmen to kill President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, his wife Liza Araneta-Marcos and cousin House Speaker Martin Romualdez if she – Sara  Duterte – is assassinated. (Until today, however, she still needs to back her allegation with a thread of evidence showing an undeniable Marcos plot.)

The vice president’s threat prompted the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to issue a subpoena to VP Duterte ordering her to appear before the agency “to shed light on the investigation for alleged grave threats under Article 282 of the Revised Penal Code in relation to Section 6 of Republic Act No. 10175,” also known as the Cybercrime Prevention Act, and “for possible violation of RA 11479,” or the Anti-Terrorism Act.

But Duterte insisted that her disclosure of contracting a hitman to kill Marcos was not an active threat, saying it was a “conditional act of revenge.” The Marcos plot, she alleged, was coded “Operation Romanov,” which aimed to wipe out the entire Duterte family.
(“Operation Romanov” has a Russian historical reminiscence. In his report of July 1918, Yakov Yurovsky and other Bolshevik jailers, fearing that the Legion would free Emperor Nicholas II, head of the Imperial Romanov after conquering the town, murdered him and his family.)
         
But the Department of Justice (DoJ) clarified that there is no legal basis for a “conditional threat,” which Sen. Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa, an ally of former president Rodrigo R. Duterte, also used to describe Sara’s alleged kill orders.

Justice Undersecretary Jesse Andres said a threat remains a threat regardless of any condition attached to it as its essence lies in the intent to cause harm. “There is no such thing as a conditional threat. A threat is a threat. If I say, ‘I’ll kill you if I don’t like your face,’ it’s still a threat,” Andres explained in a TV interview.

Dela Rosa, a former national police chief, defended Duterte’s kill order against the President, arguing that her statement was conditional. “There was a condition in what she said, right? If someone tries to kill her, she said she would have them killed, too … basically, nothing will happen if she isn’t harmed,” Dela Rosa told reporters.

The discord between the Marcoses and Dutertes surfaced with Marcos’ firing of the vice president as education secretary, exposes’ on the misuse of public funds, and other anomalies. Sonny Angara had to give up his Senate seat to replace the VP as education secretary.

Impeachment complaint vs VP Sara

Sara Duterte’s dilemma took a dramatic turn with an impeachment complaint filed against her at the House of Representatives.

Advocacy groups early December filed an impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte and endorsed by Akbayan Party-list Rep. Perci Cendaña.  The complaint was filed in the Secretary General’s Office at the House of Representatives by civil society organizations, religious leaders, sectoral representatives, and families of victims of extrajudicial killings.

They were accompanied by Mamamayang Liberal partylist first nominee and former senator Leila De Lima, who acted as the group's spokesperson. De Lima said there were 16 signatories in the complaint, which stemmed from Duterte’s alleged culpable violations of the Constitution, graft and corruption, bribery, betrayal of public trust, and other high crimes.

Cendaña said Duterte deserves to be impeached for her alleged abuse of power and plunder of the nation’s coffers. He also said that the country must not allow the Duterte family’s “legacy of corruption and mass murder to persist unchallenged.” “The entrenched culture of impunity and graft will only be dismantled when those who perpetuate and profit from it are held to account,” he added.

Two days later, a second impeachment complaint by 74 complainants from various sectors, people’s organizations and the civil society, was filed at the House of Representatives for the case betrayal of public trust by VP Duterte.  It was endorsed by three lawmakers from the Makabayan bloc, namely, Rep.  France Castro, rep. Arlene Brosas and Rep. Raoul Manuel. 
Former Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares said that the complaint was filed on the sole ground of “betrayal of public trust,” which he said is much easier to establish paving the way for faster proceedings in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Colmenares believed that Duterte’s gross abuse of discretionary power over P612 million in confidential funds from December 2022 until the third quarter of 2023 betrayed public trust. In addition, he also believed that Duterte showed “gross disregard of transparency and accountability, making a mockery of the audit process by ordering her subordinates to prepare implausible accomplishment reports, supported by fabricated liquidation reports and falsified documents, submitting them to Commission on Audit to support the questionable use of confidential funds that are not in accordance with laws and regulations, causing great injury to the government and taxpayers.”
The impeachment complaints were filed a week after Duterte made the controversial remark of contracting someone to kill President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and Marcos cousin House Speaker Martin Romualdez, if an alleged plot against her succeeds. 

Earlier last June, the Vice President was forced to resign as education secretary. She, however, is facing another controversy: the lower House is probing into her alleged misuse of the Department of Education (DepEd) – during her term as secretary - and the Office of the Vice President (OVP) budget. This includes the breakneck spending of PhP125 mln in confidential vocational education and training funds in just 11 days in December 2022; suspected overpricing of rented safe houses, and irregularities in the use of PhP15 mln in confidential DepEd funds. This recent development was viewed as another ground for impeachment of the current vice president, particularly due to corruption and betrayal of public trust.

EJKs

Yet another thorn in the two families’ feud is an imminent arrest order by The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC).

The impeachment case against Sara Duterte developed as her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, is once again involved in another development on the alleged extrajudicial killings (EJKs) linked to his war on drugs. On November 4, Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla formed a Task Force to review the cases related to the alleged EJKs during Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war.

Reacting, former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte dared the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is based in Den Haag (The Hague), to expedite its investigation into his controversial war on drugs. The ICC is investigating allegations of extrajudicial killings under his administration, but Duterte has – facetiously - consistently rejected the court's jurisdiction over the case. (Duterte had withdrawn Philippine membership in the ICC in 2018. Today, on the other hand, Marcos wants that withdrawal rescinded.) With the drug war as his flagship program in his six-year presidency, Duterte reportedly ordered the police and hired killers the execution of 27,000 drug suspects. (Independent reports indicated a higher figure.)

Marcos stated that the government would "accord full cooperation" if the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) issues a Red Notice for the former president. A Red Notice is a request to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition. The statement came amid ongoing investigations into Duterte's war on drugs, which has attracted international scrutiny. While Duterte has rejected accusations and the jurisdiction of international bodies like the ICC, the current government has affirmed its commitment to following international legal processes if such a notice is issued.

Some state leaders who were slapped with war crimes charges – or crimes against humanity – before the ICC include Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the deposed president of Sudan, and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is charged with genocide. Some 45,000 Palestinians have been killed – in addition to hundreds of thousands wounded including women and children - in Netanyahu’s genocidal war project.

In fact, on November 21, the Pre-Trial Chamber I of the ICC, in its composition for the Situation in the State of Palestine, unanimously issued two decisions rejecting challenges by Israel brought under Articles 18 and 19 of the Rome Statute which stablished the ICC. It also issued warrants of arrest for Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

Another run

A political ally of the former president is campaigning for his “second presidency.”
Former House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez batted for former President Duterte’s running for president again in 2028 a move which received mixed responses from several lawmakers who expressed neutral or cautious reactions. Clearly under the 1987 Philippine Constitution, a president can serve one six-year term and is not allowed to run for re-election. This means that a president can serve only a single term in office. This restriction on re-election is meant to prevent the concentration of power in a single individual or family.

Ironically, Duterte remains popular despite his alleged EJKs. Reports indicated he will probably take a shot at the Senate in the coming mid-term elections.

Gearing for election

All eyes are directed at next year’s election: the country is headed for the mid-term polls on May 12, 2025. The Commission on Elections (Comelec) said 68.6 million are registered voters for the national, local, and Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) parliamentary elections. However, the BARMM parliamentary elections may be postponed due to the Sept. 9, 2024 Supreme Court decision which declared the province of Sulu as not part of the BARMM due to the results of the 2019 Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) plebiscite wherein majority (54%) of the voters from Sulu rejected the BOL. Having rejected the Bangsamoro Organic Law in the plebiscite, Sulu will be excluded as a province of BARMM.

Unperturbed, Senate President Francis Escudero aims to file a bill seeking to postpone the May 2025 BARMM parliamentary elections due to the high court decision which excluded the Sulu province in BARMM. The legislation seeks to delay the polls to provide more time for governance reforms and preparations in the region.

Meantime, the Comelec – a quasi-judicial constitutional body that administers election - opined that there is no stopping BARMM polls unless postponed by Congress. The poll body will continue its preparation for the historic balloting in the Bangsamoro as COC filing for the BARMM parliament elections (BPE) ended on Nov. 9.

Marcos collaboration with BARMM

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., meantime, convened with leaders from the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) to discuss collaborations ahead of the parliamentary elections in May 2025. Four of the five provincial governors of BARMM were present in the meeting held at the Aguado Residence in Manila, among them Hajiman Hataman of Basilan, Yshmael Sali of Tawi-Tawi, Mamintal Adiong of Lanao del Sur, and Abdulraof Macacua of Maguindanao del Norte.”

Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is seeking to retain control of the BARMM parliament. The MILF, a revolutionary front commanded by Chief Minister Ahod “Al Haj Murad” of the Interim Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), launched its bid to retain control of the BARMM parliament as it submitted a manifestation of intent to participate in the region’s first elections, scheduled also on May 12, 2025. Ebrahim’s electoral party, the United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP), filed the manifestation in Cotabato City on Nov. 8, the fifth day of the filing period set by the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

Founded in September 1977, the MILF used to be the rival group of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) led by Prof. Nur Misuari, a Tausug. But the then Gloria M. Arroyo government chose to take cognizance of the MILF by entering into a peace negotiation leading to the establishment of BARMM. BARMM was created through a regional plebiscite in January 2019. (Misuari, now 83 and living in Davao City, had declared support for Marcos, Jr. and Sara Duterte in the 2022 presidential race.)

Progressive bloc

In a related move, the progressive Makabayan (pro-people) bloc welcomed Comelec's commitment against red-tagging (or communist tagging). In a statement, the bloc, a coalition of 12 Party-list groups including Bayan Muna, Gabriela Party-list, and Kabataan Party, welcomed the Commission on Elections’ commitment to issue specific guidelines against red-tagging during elections, saying this marks “a historic first for the poll body in protecting candidates and parties from political harassment and discrimination".

 

PHILIPPINE ECONOMY

Inflation and unemployment

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the country’s inflation rate increased to 2.3% in October 2024 from 1.9% in September. This led to an average of 3.3% inflation rate from January-October. The PSA attributed the increase in prices to the faster annual increment in heavily-weighted food and non-alcoholic beverages and transport with a slower year-on-year decrease.

Elaborating, the PSA said the unemployment rate in Sept. 2024 was posted at 3.7 percent. This was lower than the unemployment rate estimated in September 2023 at 4.5 percent and in August 2024 at 4.0 percent. In terms of magnitude, the number of unemployed individuals in September 2024 was posted at 1.89 million. This was lower than the estimated number of unemployed persons of 2.26 million in September 2023 and 2.07 million in August 2024. Conversely, the employment rate in September 2024 increased to 96.3 percent, from 95.5 percent in September 2023 and 96.0 percent in August 2024.

Economic think tank questions government figures

IBON, an independent think tank, says however that the labor market was getting worse, saying that the Marcos Jr. administration’s claim that “better-quality jobs, higher incomes” are among its priorities is questionable, considering many of the jobs being created are informal and low paying. This includes peddlers, porters or single-enterpreneurs micro or small-scale establishments. The government has been posturing that it acknowledges the need to improve the quality of work and incomes but has not implemented effective measures that actually create decent and sustainable jobs, IBON said.

Official labor force figures, said IBON, report that employment grew by a huge 2.2 million to 49.9 million in September 2024 from 47.7 mln in the same month last year, while unemployment declined by 370,000 to 1.9 mln from 2.3 mln. But the number of underemployed grew significantly by 831,000 to 5.9 mln from 5.1 mln.

Employment is still plagued by widespread informality. This means many employed Filipinos are forced to put up with insecure, temporary or irregular jobs with low earnings just to support themselves and their families, IBON concluded.

PH rice imports hit record high

A perennial rice importer, the Philippines’ rice imports are inching closer to the 4-million metric ton (MT) mark, already surpassing a previous record achieved in 2022, as a confluence of typhoons and El Niño dry spell phenomenon slashed local production.
This year through Nov. 7, the country imported 3.896 million MT of rice, with nearly 80 percent coming from Vietnam, according to the Bureau of Plant Industry.

The latest rice imports already breached the record-high import volume of 3.83 million MT in 2022 and surpassed last year’s figure of 3.6 million MT. The Philippines is the world's top rice importer, and in 2023 imported an estimated 3.8 million metric tons (MMT) of rice. 

The Philippines used to be a rice exporter until 1980. In short, it has been dependent on rice imports since then or for nearly 45 years. In rice agriculture, the Philippines is weighed down by high production costs and low competitiveness in the global market. Costs covering on-farm costs (TVA), threshing, milling, drying, and transporting are higher than those in Vietnam, Thailand, and the United States. This is exacerbated by low converting ratio.

Meanwhile, the Philippines imported more rice from China in August 2024, with a 46.5% increase in imports from the previous month. 

Overall, the failed rice industry cannot be faulted on the weather and dry spell, as farm authorities are inclined to blame perennially. The industry has been plagued by the inability of governments since the 1980s to implement a comprehensive land reform which left landlord power intact, forced tenants to sell their meager distributed land while remaining defenseless against loan sharks. Absent these factors, farmers would have been reliable farm producers guaranteeing the country’s food security.

GDP Growth

Government said the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) annual growth rate for the second quarter of 2024 was revised upward to 6.4 percent from the preliminary estimate of 6.3 percent at constant 2018 prices. Major contributors to the upward revision were: Manufacturing, from 3.6 percent to 3.9 percent; Accommodation and food service activities, from 10.4 percent to 12.1 percent; and Real estate and ownership of dwellings, from 7.2 percent to 7.6 percent.

Renewable energy – potential

Like other Southeast Asia countries, the Philippines faces the challenge of a rapidly growing population, growing energy demand and climate change. Yet, where it differs and stands out is in in the response to these trends. Compared to its neighbors, the Philippines can be a potential leader in renewable energy, government has claimed.

It remains a pipedream, however.

Over 47% of the country’s total energy use comes from green or low-carbon sources.
The figure is disputed by French industrial engineer Paul Ember who revealed in 2023 that the Philippines actually relied on fossil fuels to produce 78% of its electricity despite the fact that the country has an abundant potential for various ready-to-deploy renewable energy sources that it is yet to tap into. The natural renewable resources, paired with ambitious and supporting clean energy policies, promise a bright future say energy authorities. 

The real score

Why coal will remain the Philippines’ main energy driver

Fossil fuel or coal still continues to play a dominant role in the Philippines’ energy systems. In fact, coal remains to be the largest driver of society’s development the world over. This situation continues up to this day.  

Nevertheless, in terms of energy consumption, the use of coal has increasingly become the least desirable. Coal has been singled out to be the dirtiest of the fossil fuels. When burned, coal produces a high emission of carbon dioxide (CO2).

The Chinese model – global leader

Global clean energy investments have increased significantly over the past decade, rising from $248 bln in 2014 to $745 bln in 2023. During this time, China has deployed more clean energy technologies than all other countries combined. While concerns persist about China's dominance in renewable energy supply chains, Rystad Energy’s analysis highlights that China's rapid scale-up has not only positioned it as a cleantech leader but also triggered a global response, creating a ripple effect. Other nations are now following China's lead, accelerating their own energy transitions in response to this competitive pressure.

Further analysis from Rystad Energy also suggests that China’s total spending, to date, in solar and wind has outpaced the rest of the world, climbing from $150 billion in 2020 to nearly $400 billion in 2023. However, as other regions catch up, China’s investment lead is projected to narrow by the year’s end and may fade entirely by 2027 amid increasing spending by the rest of the world. (Rystad Energy is an independent energy research and business intelligence company based in Oslo, Norway. It is the biggest independent energy consultancy in Norway, and a world-leading analysis company for the energy sector.)

China also leads in the manufacturing of electric vehicles (EVs) such as the BYD brand. EVs maintain some plants in the Philippines. China also leads in the manufacture of solar panels.

China’s solar giant surpasses US

A decade ago, Tongwei Group a company based in southwest China, is the world’s largest producer of solar cells, the components of panels that turn sunlight into electricity. At its $2.8 billion facility on the outskirts of Chengdu, robotic arms stacked the delicate cells on autonomous carts that zipped between production stages. Productivity has gone up 161 percent — and the number of workers down by 62 percent — thanks to 5G equipment from homegrown technology giant Huawei. The company now has even grander ambitions: It is rapidly expanding and upgrading six production facilities and, by the end of this year, aims to churn out 130 gigawatts’ worth of cells annually — four times the total solar capacity installed in the United States in 2023.

 

FOREIGN AFFAIRS / diplomacy

The incoming Trump presidency

The outgoing Biden administration (Jan. 20, 2021 – Jan. 20, 2025) placed the Philippines at the center of its strategy to contain China. In line with this last year, the US and Philippines announced that four additional Philippine military bases would be developed for use by US forces under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). Three of those bases are in the northern part of the country, adjacent to Taiwan, with the other at the southern tip of Palawan, a southwestern island facing the South China Sea, hence, China.

Known for his isolationist and transactional frame of foreign policy, Donald Trump, now 78, will enter office for his second term at a time when the parasitic Marcos government badly needs reliable support from Washington. So Trump would be less likely to abandon the Marcos government as there is a broad, growing regional commitment to support Manila’s territorial claim in the South China Sea viz-a-viz China. Japan forged its own defense agreement with the Philippines earlier in 2024, and the Marcos administration has courted alliances and trade deals with Washington’s traditional allies.

Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said that he does not believe Trump will demand the Philippines pay for its protection, as the president-elect has said he will expect of Taiwan, and Manila seems to believe the US funding of EDCA bases will stay on track. The Philippines already pays for much of the military hardware it obtains from Washington, and the United States has shown no indication that it will withdraw the mid-range Typhon missiles were stationed in northern Luzon this year despite Chinese objections.

During his visit to Manila in 2017, Trump described the archipelago as “the most prime piece of real estate from a military standpoint.” This signaled a knowledge that “the importance of the Philippines lies not in trade but in its strategic geography,” said Jeffrey Ordaniel, an assistant professor of international security at Tokyo International University and the director for maritime security at Pacific Forum. But the location of the Philippines and its strategic value to US geopolitical interests is a known fact since the late 1940s.

Ordaniel noted that Trump’s first term yielded a clear policy shift favoring Philippine interests. Washington clarified in 2019 that its mutual defense treaty with Manila covers the South China Sea, including Philippine troops in the area—something former US President Barack Obama’s administration had hesitated to do. In 2020, the United States explicitly aligned its stance on Philippine sovereignty in the South China Sea with the 2016 arbitral court ruling.

Trump’s cabinet picks of Sen. Marco Rubio as secretary of state and Rep. Mike Waltz as national security advisor represent “a continuation of how Washington sees its alliance with Manila, Ordaniel added. Both Rubio and Waltz are anti-China hawks and are expected to advise Trump along their own ideological lines.

Philippine bananas; tit-for-tat diplomacy

Amid the rising tensions in the SCS, China’s banana imports from the Philippines plunged by 49 percent year-on-year as of end-July to 255,636.069 metric tons, based on International Trade Centre (ITC) data. Thus, the Philippines’ share in China’s banana market fell to 24.53 percent compared to 37.49 percent during the same seven-month period last year. With the substantial loss of market share, Vietnam has, for the first time, overtaken the Philippines as the top banana supplier to China. Clearly, the rising tensions over the South China Sea and the Marcos government’s treaty alliance with the US that continues to target China have had geopolitical implications insofar as Philippine economic ties with Beijing are concerned.

The Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA) confirmed that geopolitical tension between the two countries impacted banana shipments to Asia’s largest economy. “Geopolitical policies definitely play a very important role in economic statecraft. Based on past experiences, the industry always suffers collateral damage whenever there is tension in the West Philippine Sea,” PBGEA executive director Stephen Antig said.

During the Aquino administration, China placed restrictions on Philippine bananas and discouraged Chinese tour groups from entering the Philippines. While these measures did little to harm the Philippine economy overall, some Filipino elites and sectors were nonetheless harmed. Apparently, there were conflicting views from the Philippine government. The Philippine embassy in Beijing dismissed the reports about the banana issue.

Pragmatically speaking, the Marcos government needs to preserve its diplomatic and economic ties with China as a major trading partner and an investor second to Japan in the context of growing maritime tensions with Beijing given the benefits the trade relationship offers to the Philippines. At the same time the Philippines is trying to maintain a strategic deterrence on China by strengthening its defense ties with the US as a major ally. In short Marcos is performing a delicate balancing act. This strategy is the optimal policy for the Philippines, considering the country’s current security and economic reality. Policies to protect the country’s territory and the Filipino people from external aggression are a matter of national priority, Marcos’ national security officials aver.

Still major differences exist between the two countries. Recently, China reacted angrily to two new Philippine laws that demarcate its maritime claims in the South China Sea, which have led to a series of clashes this year between coast guard and naval forces from both countries. After President Marcos signed the laws, which define the Philippines’ sea and air lanes in its maritime territory, Beijing said the legislation “severely infringes” on its sovereignty and escalated naval patrols in the contested waters. Based on historical, occupation and development foundations for thousands of years, China claims almost the entire South China Sea, amid a 2016 ruling by an international arbitral tribunal.

US-China relations

What, in turn, will a second Trump presidency mean for China? The second Trump presidency may mark a return to uncertainty, where scenario-altering developments could come at any moment's notice through a Trump Tweet (or perhaps a Truth Social post). At the moment, US observers say, it remains difficult to gauge the impact as election trail rhetoric does not always translate into actual policy action. In his first presidency, however, Trump bullied China with harsh trade restrictions and unimaginable tariffs that smacked of protectionism – antithetical to the US “free trade” mantra. Today, such playbook may not play out well considering China’s domestic consumption-driven economy and the diversification of its trade from the US toward Asia, Eurasia, as well as Africa. China has long prepared for this.

Potential impact of Trump’s election to Philippine economy

Remittances to the Philippines and receipts from the business process outsourcing sector could take a hit from US President-elect Trump’s hardline immigration policies, while the possibility of diminished security support from Washington could stir up more tensions in the West Philippine Sea, said Japanese investment bank Nomura.

Zooming out, Nomura said in a commentary that Trump 2 will be negative for growth in Southeast Asia, albeit at varying degrees. To elaborate, remittances to the Philippines and income from the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector may be affected by Trump’s strict immigration policies.

Allies sign military intelligence-sharing deal

The Philippines and the United States signed a military intelligence-sharing deal this month, deepening defense ties between the two nations facing common security challenges in the region. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin signed the agreement with his Philippine counterpart, Gilberto Teodoro, in Manila where they also broke ground for a coordination center that will facilitate collaboration between their armed forces.

Called the General Security of Military Information Agreement or GSOMIA, the pact allows both countries to share classified military information securely.

Reacting to the US and the Philippines security deal Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said that no matter what kind of military agreement is signed or what type of defense and security cooperation is conducted, it must not target third party, harm their interests, undermine regional peace, or escalate tensions. The only correct choice for safeguarding national security and maintaining regional peace and stability is to adhere to good-neighborly relations and uphold strategic autonomy, Lin said.

At the same time, there is an element of skepticism and concern among the Filipino people about the potential erosion of sovereignty or an overreliance on foreign military powers. Some critics argue that increasing military cooperation with external powers could lead to greater U.S. military presence and influence in the country, which might be unpopular, especially in the context of anti-American sentiments or fears of exacerbating tensions with China.

The Philippines’ reaction to a GSOMIA-type agreement would be a mix of pragmatic acceptance of the security benefits of intelligence sharing, tempered by careful attention to national sovereignty concerns and the potential diplomatic fallout with China.###