By Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio, Reporter
MANILA should consider setting up more joint military bases with Washington under their Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) as China levels up its encroachment on Philippine waters, according to security experts.
Philippine President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. should reconsider his rejection of calls to create more EDCA bases, said Joshua Bernard B. Espeña, who teaches international relations at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.
“Mr. Marcos should consider adding more EDCA sites to further enhance intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and force projection capabilities,” he said in a Facebook Messenger chat. “This is direly needed if Manila is serious about operationalizing the comprehensive archipelagic defense concept.”
“We must develop more EDCA sites while there is still time,” he added.
Mr. Marcos in 2023 gave the US access to four more military bases under the EDCA. These were on top of the five bases that US troops had access to.
Mr. Marcos has since said his government has no plans to open more joint military bases.
China and the Philippines have been at loggerheads over disputed features in the South China Sea, Claims the waterway almost in its entirety.
Manila has accused China’s coast guard of aggression, while Beijing is furious over what it calls repeated provocations and territorial incursions.
China is expected to ramp up its “aggression” under its sweeping South China Sea claim this year, said Raymond M. Powell, a fellow at Stanford University’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation.
Beijing asserts its sovereignty claim over the South China Sea through an armada of coast guard ships, despite a United Nations-backed court ruling in 2016 that voided its claim for being illegal.
“China’s aggression in the West Philippine Sea is likely to only increase,” Mr. Powell said via Messenger chat. “It has shown both the will and capability to push its sovereignty claims.
The Chinese Embassy in Manila did not immediately reply to a Viber message seeking comment.
The sea dispute between the Philippines and China started escalating in 2012 after a standoff at Scarborough Shoal, but tensions boiled as early as the 1990s when Beijing and Manila were engaged in a naval skirmish at Mischief Reef, according to US think-tank Council on Foreign Relations. The reef is just 250 kilometers off the major Philippine island of Palawan.
Beijing would likely escalate its claim through “swarming methods” while leveraging diplomatic tactics and propaganda to strengthen its hold and legitimize its claim in the waterway, Mr. Espeña said.
MORE SHIPS
Setting up more joint bases with the US could result in “new airstrips, berthing areas, ports and logistic centers to sustain operations and cover the large swathe of the South China Sea,” he added.
“At the strategic level, this may provide the Philippines with a thicker shield to defend itself and a sharper sword to draw against China,” he said.
But efforts to increase EDCA military bases should not be communicated in a manner that would antagonize China, said Chester B. Cabalza, founding president of Manila-based International Development and Security Cooperation.
Instead, the bases should be a means to enhance interoperability between US and Philippine forces for the sake of “peace and order in the region,” he said via Messenger chat. “Otherwise, China will retaliate against our hawkish anti-Chinese defense policy. And it will become a vicious cycle of vengeful attitudes toward each other.”
Philippine authorities should also empower the Philippine Navy and Philippine Coast Guard to boost their presence in the South China Sea, said Don Mclain Gill, an international studies lecturer at De La Salle University in Manila.
“Maritime law enforcement agencies such as the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) and Navy [need to be supported so they could] actually monitor and enforce our maritime space,” he said in a voice message via Facebook Messenger.
Manila should acquire more ships to increase sea patrols within the country’s exclusive economic zone, he added.
The PCG is set to acquire 49 new ships from France and Japan by 2027, Commandant Ronnie Gil L. Gavan said last year. Two corvette warships and six offshore patrol programs are in the pipeline for the Navy acquisition, Rear Admiral Roy Vincent T. Trinidad said last month.
“That would allow us to increase our patrols within our exclusive economic zone,” Mr. Gill said.
The Philippine government should “mix and match” its defense capabilities to better project deterrence, such as buying missile systems and investing in “asymmetric technologies,” he added.
Frequent joint patrols and exercises with allies in “key flashpoint” areas are also needed to bolster Philippine presence in the South China Sea, a key conduit for $3 trillion of annual ship-borne trade, Mr. Gill said.
US President-elect Donald John J. Trump might be interested in consolidating forces in the South China Sea via the Philippines given his tough stance against Beijing and the assembly of China hawks in his cabinet, Mr. Espeña said.