MANILA >> Amid increasing hostilities in the South China Sea — a busy waterway through which more than a third of all trade travels — disputed waters around the Philippines are emerging into a potential flashpoint that holds repercussions both there and in Hawaii.
Since April, soldiers and Marines from Hawaii-based units have been on the ground in the Philippines for a series of exercises. The largest of them, the annual Exercise Balikatan, wrapped up May 9, but smaller engagements across the country have continued well into June as cooperation between the U.S. and Philippine militaries deepens.
Balikatan included live-fire coastal defense training on the outskirts of the northern coastal town of Aparri, as American and Filipino troops fired their weapons into the Luzon Strait in the direction of Taiwan. Some local residents watched, took photos and waved at the Americans. Others nervously asked if a war was imminent.
Filipinos increasingly find themselves caught in a web of competing interests.
Top U.S. military planners in Hawaii see the Philippines as an increasingly critical ally, as well as a key strategic area to support their operations in the Western Pacific as they posture to confront China. The Philippines is among the most likely staging areas the U.S. military would seek to use if it were to respond to a Chinese blockade or invasion of Taiwan.
Meanwhile, Beijing claims the entire South China Sea as its exclusive sovereign territory, over the objections of its neighbors. China and the Philippines in particular have wrangled over navigation and territorial rights around islands and reefs in a part of the South China Sea the Philippines calls the West Philippine Sea and claims as its territory.
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Patricio Abinales, a Filipino political scientist who spent more than a decade teaching at University of Hawaii at Manoa, said, “everyone back home (in the Philippines) knows that the Philippines is in the middle of this superpower rivalry, and would like very much to not be a part of it. But they can’t, because of China claiming a part of Philippine territory.”
In 2016 an international court ruled in favor of Manila, concluding that Beijing’s claims have “no legal basis.” But China dismissed the ruling and has built bases on many of the disputed reefs and islands. Chinese vessels now routinely attack Filipino fishermen, as well as scientists trying to study the environmental impacts of Chinese operations, charging at and ramming their boats and firing high-pressure water cannons at them.
Leonardo Cuaresma, president of the New Masinloc Fishermen’s Association in the western coastal province of Zambales, provided testimony in the arbitration. His group is made up of Filipino fisherfolk who traditionally fish around Scarborough Shoal — known in the Philippines as Bajo de Masinloc. Cuaresma told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser “before they were just bullying and taking our good catches of fishes of our fishermen, but now they won’t allow you to go near the reef about 40 nautical miles away from Bajo de Masinloc.”
“(Their bases) are crushing the corals there, and there is almost nothing left,” said Cuaresma. “Since they stole our seas and reefs, we’ve lost our fisheries and seen marine resources dwindle. This is massive ecological damage done by China, and it harms all Filipino fishermen as they continue to claim it as their own, keep us out and destroy the ecosystem.”
The U.S. once ruled over the Philippines as a colony and the two have a mutual defense treaty. The U.S. military hasn’t had permanent bases in the country since nationalist protests led to its eviction in the early 1990s, but through a series of agreements American forces again have access to conduct operations from some Philippine military facilities and territories.
As U.S. troops have begun moving through the Philippines more frequently, the administration of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. also has sought closer military ties with Japan, Australia, South Korea and others. During a stop in Hawaii in 2022, Marcos told an audience in Waikiki that he believed the days of a “bipolar world” dominated by two superpowers are over, and that “the more allies we find to speak up whenever such incursions occur, such incidents or events occur, then I think the stronger that voice will be.”
Confronting China
Warships from the U.S. and its allies have been an increasingly common sight in Subic Bay, once home to a major U.S. naval base that now exists as a commercial harbor and business district governed by the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority. Though it’s no longer technically a base, warships making their way through the South China Sea commonly dock there to refuel and restock supplies.
Subic was one of several locations the U.S. Navy sent fuel to after draining its strategic fuel reserve at its underground Red Hill fuel facility on Oahu. The Navy defueled Red Hill after it tainted the service’s Oahu water system in 2021, making thousands of residents sick, and redistributed the fuel to sites around the Pacific to support its operations.
Just as the fuel brought the military intense scrutiny in Hawaii, its arrival in the Philippines generated controversy of its own.
As the tanker carrying the fuel from Pearl Harbor was near the end of its voyage in January 2024, Philippine Sen. Imee Marcos — the president’s elder sister — released a statement accusing the U.S. and Philippine governments of a lack of transparency regarding the shipment. A day later the SBMA told local media that the tanker had canceled its request to enter the bay. The fuel shipment was delayed for just over a week and prompted scattered protests, but was ultimately delivered.
Back in Hawaii, a cadre of vocal activists have become increasingly outspoken in their opposition to any military involvement by the U.S. or its allies in the region, holding protests and taking to social media. Richard Rothschiller of the Hawai‘i Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines (HiCHRP) told the Star-Advertiser that China is defending itself from foreign aggression and argued that the U.S. is meddling and “seeks to make the Philippines a co-combatant by goading it to confront China.”
As clashes have increased between Chinese and Philippine vessels to the west, the Chinese military also has been ramping up maneuvers around Taiwan to the north.
The fate of Taiwan, a self-ruled island democracy that China regards as a rogue province, has become increasingly intertwined with the Philippines. It’s a key source of semiconductors most modern electronics need to function and a major trading partner of both the U.S. and the Philippines.
The U.S. has not formally recognized Taiwan diplomatically since normalizing relations with China in 1979, but maintains de facto ties and is required by the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act to provide weapons and help defend it. This year, members of the Kaneohe-based 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment brought the new NMESIS anti-ship missile system to the Philippines’ Batanes Islands, just south of Taiwan, as they trained with Filipino troops.
Rothschiller said that “the U.S. should stop trying to provoke China into military confrontation along China’s own coast, should stop accelerating its aggressive imperial military arming up of the Chinese province of Taiwan and of the Philippines and other countries in the Western Pacific.”
In April the Philippine military’s top commander, Gen. Romeo Brawner, told troops in the northern tip of the country to plan for spillover consequences of a potential conflict involving Taiwan. Brawner, an alumnus of the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Waikiki, asserted in his remarks to his troops that “if something happens to Taiwan, inevitably we will be involved. There are 250,000 (overseas Filipino workers) working in Taiwan, and we will have to rescue them.”
Later that month the Philippines loosened decades old restrictions on relations with Taiwan, allowing officials to visit the island “to further maximize opportunities for the development and expansion of the Philippines’ priority areas of investment.”
Power struggle
Abinales said that China’s continued attacks on Filipino maritime workers and refusal to back down on territorial claims are likely to keep the alliance between the U.S. and Philippines strong. But he added that “what should worry the U.S. more is if in the face of constant Chinese harassment, some irritated Filipino naval commander will hit back, then invoke the U.S.-Philippine mutual defense treaty. Will the U.S. come to our aid?”
HiCHRP and Anakbayan Hawai‘i, a Filipino youth and student group, held a public webinar condemning U.S. involvement in the Philippines as Balikatan was wrapping up. Misty Pegram of Anakbayan Hawai‘i argued during the event that while the impact of tensions on Filipino fisherfolk is a concern, that stories of Chinese attacks on Filipino crews are being spread by the United States and its allies to benefit themselves.
Pegram said “we really do see the United States as like the number one imperialist, which they are, and which they will continue to be … (there are) stories coming from the West and, you know, these things that they’re trying to promote to make themselves look better, but at the end of the day, they’re really the big fish that needs to be fried.”
In a statement to the Star-Advertiser, Anakbayan Hawai‘i said that “Filipino fishermen have been affected by the claims to sovereign territory being laid out by China, as well as the use of violent tactics such as water cannons and boat ramming,” but argued American involvement only exacerbates problems and that U.S. and Philippine military activities also have disrupted fishing.
During live-fire exercises in coastal areas the Philippine government typically restricts boat movements, citing safety concerns. During portions of Balikatan, it restricted wide swathes of the Zambales coast. Ronnel Arambulo, vice chair of the fisherfolk group Pamalakaya, denounced the disruption and said April to June is the peak fishing season for Zambales.
This month, the Philippine government reimbursed some fishermen and fish vendors in Zambales for losses incurred during Balikatan in particular, but critics say assistance has been insufficient. Fish vendor Genoviva Navilla, 85, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer “they said I was already old, so they removed me from the list.”
But other fisherfolk in Zamabales say their concerns about China outweigh those of military exercises. Cuaresma said that for his group, the short-term disruptions from multinational military training doesn’t compare to the ongoing attacks by Chinese vessels.
“If you ask us, we are very happy that they are having the military drills on our seas so China can see that we are fighting for our sovereign rights,” said Cuaresma. “Before (our) government was not doing anything as the Chinese kept taking more and more territory, claiming our seas, getting closer and closer to our shores in their conquest of the West Philippine Sea.”
Cuaresma added that he’s skeptical of vocal activists overseas, asserting “we do not believe what some activists say, because what they say is only for their own interests. The truth is that when it comes to the the West Philippine Sea is that the U.S. is helping us stand up to China’s bullying.”
After Balikatan wrapped up and Hawaii troops began other exercises in the the country, Philippine Army Lt. Gen. Roy Galido gave a keynote speech at the annual Land Power in the Pacific conference — which drew military leaders from across the world to Waikiki — on challenges that small countries face.
Galido argued that smaller countries need work together more closely and train their forces for the specific threats they face, telling a his audience “our small states cannot afford to be reduced into mere passive observers in this seemingly never-ending power struggle occurring at a global scale, with their fate hanging on the balance and at the constant mercy of irresponsible great powers.”
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Freelance photographer Edward Bungubung assisted with translation for this article.