Flashpoints

US-Philippines Defense Ties Under Fire

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Flashpoints

US-Philippines Defense Ties Under Fire

A U.S. Marine accused of murder has called broader U.S.-Philippines cooperation into question.

US-Philippines Defense Ties Under Fire
Credit: Wikimedia Commons

During his tour of Asia in April this year, U.S. President Barack Obama stopped over in the Philippines, long a U.S. partner, to oversee the conclusion of  the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which would allow U.S. troops to return to Filipino military bases on a temporary basis. That agreement built on the 1998 Visiting Forces Agreement, which generally allowed U.S. forces to join major military exercises in the Philippines. Recently, the legal basis for military cooperation between the United States and the Philippines has come under fire after a U.S. Marine was accused of killing a transgender Filipino this month. The incident has led to a bilateral scuffle amid criticisms from the Filipino opposition that Benigno Aquino’s government is unwilling to amend the terms of the 1998 agreement to better suit Filipino interests.

On Thursday, the Philippines’ Foreign Secretary Albert Del Rosario noted that aspects of the Visiting Forces Agreement were “imperfect.” “It’s not a perfect agreement. It’s an imperfect agreement but given that, it’s not plausible for us to amend (it) at this time,” Del Rosario remarked. “We need to abrogate and if we abrogate, it interrupts the benefit of the mutual defense treaty with regards to joint exercise[s] between our two armed forces. It consequences the modernization, the joint training, the inter-operability,” he added.

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