In Photo: A parade of colors by members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in Villamor Airbase, Pasay City, is shown in this file photo. President Duterte’s realistic assessment that the country will never win militarily against Beijing apparently influenced the administration’s decision to scale back the modernization procurement by going for smaller assets.
Conclusion
THE prevailing trend of increased defense spending in Southeast Asia, which has even outpaced Europe, has been linked to China’s “provocative” rise as a military superpower, and what its neighbors viewed as its “irresponsible” behavior in the South China Sea.
China even disputed, through its 9-dash map, territories and claims by countries like Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Vietnam and even Taiwan. While these countries saw the need to defend their respective stake on the South China Sea, other regional states were also worried, if not threatened, by Beijing’s muscle flexing and assertiveness in pursuing its claims. Beijing’s overzealousness in pushing for its stakes, at times, even led it to encroach deep into the territories of the Asean members, like Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia. Even Indonesia’s Natuna Island has seen deliberate entries and presence of Chinese warships in the past.
Defense analysts in the region, all agreed that the military allocations and spending by many Asean member-countries were basically influenced by China’s direction and assertive actions. The huge budget flowing across the region prodded the world’s biggest defense contractors to turn their eyes to Southeast Asia.
China, a threat
MANILA has labeled Beijing as a security threat.
The administration under President Benigno S. Aquino III has tagged China as the single foreign threat to the country, citing Beijing’s policy demeanor characterized by a de facto occupation of the Scarborough Shoal. The Aquino administration also noted China’s constant harassments of resupplies to Filipino soldiers guarding the Ayungin Shoal, as well as its regular challenges of flights near reefs in the West Philippine Sea that Chinese troops have occupied.
No less than Voltaire T. Gazmin, the then defense secretary, who declared that China poses the most imminent threat to the country’s security, owing to its deliberate and nonstop development of the reefs, which it turned into military fortresses.
As early as 2015, then-Armed Forces of the Philippines chief of staff Gen. Gregorio Pio Catapang had already warned of the “indescribable” effects of Chinese activities in the South China Sea/West Philippine Sea, citing as example the ongoing construction of an airfield at that time.
Catapang has said the Chinese airfield will permanently alter the Philippine security landscape by directly putting the country within China’s striking distance, other than choking or cutting Manila’s access to its occupied territories, including Pagasa Island.
China could also derail or even stop supplies to troops guarding Ayungin Shoal, which later became the habit for Chinese military and paramilitary ships.
“We feel we are in a very difficult situation now because they are reclaiming the Mischief Reef,” Catapang candidly admitted that time. “So if they reclaim the Mischief Reef, we will be cut off. We have a series of islands going down south, going up north and it will challenge the Ayungin shoal.”
Beijing also occupies Kagitingan, Mabini, Chigua, Cuarteron, Burgos, Subi and Gaven Reefs, most of which, like Mischief, have been militarily redeveloped to accommodate warships and bigger aircraft. Elaborate gun placements were also made.
In its Annual Report to Congress, the US Department of Defense (DOD) accused China of having added “more than 3,200 acres of land to the seven features it occupies in the archipelago” in late 2015.
‘Credible posture’
THE so-called Chinese threat and what the Aquino government described as constant harassment and bullying by Beijing of both military resupplies and Filipino fishermen, prompted the hastening of the modernization of the military.
Gazmin has said that, while the state renounces war as a national policy, it also has the duty and obligation to defend the country’s sovereignty and national integrity when it is directly challenged, regardless of the outcome. Otherwise, it ceases to exist as a state, he explained. Gazmin has also said that, with the state of the Philippine military, the country may unlikely win against Beijing. Nonetheless, the country’s armed forces, he explained, must put up a credible defense posture.
Gazmin said this is the “patriotic” thing to do for the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).
Chief’s friend
WHILE China’s official standing in the national security listing of the Duterte administration is still unclear, the President sees and even considered Beijing as a friend, and not a foe, judging from the Commander in Chief’s constant pronouncements.
The fact that Duterte has turned to the Chinese government to equip Filipino soldiers is a testament to his fondness for China. This stance is despite the unsettled West Philippine Sea ruling by a UN court, which the Commander in Chief also continuously relegate to the sidelines.
Duterte even took the cudgels for Beijing’s recent incursions in the Benham Rise, saying he has approved it. However, neither his defense executives nor foreign affairs officials knew about such incursions.
It was China and its issues that oftentimes transform Duterte into an erratic and irresolute Commander in Chief.
Just recently, the President said he would go to Pagasa Island on Independence Day to plant the country’s tricolor there. He later backtracked on this vow while on official visit abroad.
The Commander in Chief has maintained he would never go to war with China, as the Philippines would never stand a chance against Beijing’s military might.
The US DOD report of 2016 has said “China’s officially disclosed military budget grew at an average of 9.8 percent per year in inflation-adjusted terms from 2006 through 2015.”
“And Chinese leaders seem committed to sustaining defense spending growth for the foreseeable future, even as China’s economic growth decelerates,” the DOD report, released for the request of budget from the US Congress, said.
To note, Duterte has said the Philippines cannot do anything against China’s wishes in the West Philippine Sea, as the US has even failed to restrain Beijing in its development activities there.
Duterte’s soft spot for China, which he sees a friend and a benefactor for the country, and his realistic assessment that the country will never win militarily against Beijing, apparently influenced the administration’s decision to scale back the modernization procurement by going for smaller assets.
As a middle ground, though, he has just ordered the military to occupy the still uninhabited islets and reefs in the West Philippine Sea, before “they could even be occupied” by others.
Defense and military officials, however, said the Philippines has already occupied all the features that it claims in the West Philippine Sea, except those that are already under Chinese control.
For Duterte, the West Philippine Sea is just a “battle of occupation” or who gets first into which feature. The problem is, the Philippines’s pocket is not as deep as its rival.
http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/phl-explores-paths-to-modern-defense-3/
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