Philippine President’s Shift on U.S. Alliance Worries Military

From the Wall Street Journal (Sep 16): Philippine President’s Shift on U.S. Alliance Worries Military

His willingness to upend alliance with U.S. has dumbfounded even those in his inner circle  

President Rodrigo Duterte’s drive to upend the Philippine’s decades-old security alliance with the U.S. is prompting concerns within the military, the one institution he most needs to keep on side.

In a country prone to coups and palace intrigue, Mr. Duterte is fully aware that past presidents have crossed the military at their peril. The populist leader has spent much of the first 11 weeks of his six-year term touring bases to muster support among the rank and file, repeating a campaign pledge to double soldiers’ salaries.

Visiting the base of the elite Scout Rangers on Thursday, he promised every man a new Glock pistol within a month “because you are good boys.”

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Mr. Duterte has explained to troops that he is crossing an “ideological border” to seek peace with onetime foes at home and abroad. Convincing army leaders to cross it with him will be a challenge, according to people familiar with Philippine military affairs.

Even some old military hands in the president’s inner circle have appeared dumbfounded. Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, a former general and military attaché in Washington, told a congressional committee Wednesday that Mr. Duterte was wrong to want American military advisers to leave the island of Mindanao, where they are supporting counterterrorism operations against the extremist Abu Sayyaf group. Its affiliates bombed Davao earlier this month, killing 14 people.

“We still need them there because they have the surveillance capabilities that our armed forces don’t have,” Mr. Lorenzana said.

Clarita Carlos, a former president of the Philippines’ National Defense College, said Mr. Duterte should have been advised more thoroughly about the alliance’s importance.

“I know how deep and wide the relationship is,” she said. “If Duterte had been properly briefed, he wouldn’t have made those statements.”

Since last week, Mr. Duterte has insulted President Barack Obama , announced that Manila would quit joint patrols of the South China Sea—organized in part to protect Philippine waters from Chinese incursions—and said Manila may start buying Chinese and Russian arms.

Officers who have spent their careers working hand in glove with the U.S. military fighting communist and Islamic rebels are “aghast,” said Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. The officers fear Mr. Duterte is throwing away “the one card the Philippines has to play”—the U.S. security umbrella—in its lopsided confrontation with China, he said.

Though Mr. Duterte has faulted the U.S. for failing to halt Beijing’s expansion in the South China Sea, military officers say the Philippines would have suffered far worse at the hands of China without American support, pointing to deliveries of U.S. equipment, regular joint exercises, and U.S. surveillance flights.

A Philippine defense expert said officers feared Mr. Duterte was trying to cause a rupture with the U.S. to save face ahead of an anticipated backlash from Washington over his so-called war on drugs, in which more than 3,000 people have been killed by police and vigilantes.

The two countries’ alliance was recently bolstered by Mr. Duterte’s predecessor in response to a shared wariness of China’s rise. In 2014, the two countries signed a defense pact that paved the way for American troop deployments to Philippine bases for the first time since the early 1990s, when a nationalist upsurge spurred the U.S. to leave its bases in the country.

A U.S. Embassy official in Manila said the alliance was a “cornerstone of stability” and stressed that there had so far been no official communication from Philippine officials that would affect bilateral cooperation.

The dangers of antagonizing the military were raised during the election campaign by Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, who as a naval officer led an abortive coup in 2003.

“It is going to be very easy to recruit people” to topple Duterte,” said Mr. Trillanes, citing the military’s allergic reaction to communist guerrillas whom Mr. Duterte is courting in a peace initiative. Mr. Duterte, in turn, vowed to jail the senator after Mr. Trillanes accused him of corruption.

Mr. Trillanes last week warned that Mr. Duterte’s attack on Mr. Obama as a “son of a whore” was “wrong on so many levels” and was detrimental to both the U.S.-Philippine alliance and the country’s security. “You don’t just slap the face of the most powerful country in the world and expect to get away with it,” he said.

Army support is crucial to Philippine presidents. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo overcame a 2003 coup attempt thanks to backing in the wider military. But her predecessor, Joseph Estrada, was ousted by a mass uprising in 2001 after the generals turned their backs.

Former dictator Ferdinand Marcos was driven out 15 years earlier after military leaders joined a mass revolt against him. Corazon Aquino fought off numerous coup attempts between 1986 and 1992 thanks to loyal commanders.

Publicly, the military has been openly supportive of Mr. Duterte. Ms. Carlos said the still-popular Mr. Duterte has time to win over the generals, advising him to keep one fundamental point in mind: “The Americans are our allies, not our enemies.”

http://www.wsj.com/articles/philippine-presidents-shift-on-u-s-alliance-worries-military-1474058666