Tag Archives: Philippine

Philippine Interest in Trilateral Security Pact With United States and Japan Possibly Increasing

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Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force butai 01 – 04.

Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force butai 01 – 04.

“Beijing is determined to change the status quo in the South China Sea by continuing to harass neighboring ‘small’ countries.”

In March 2023, the nationalist Japan Times published the excerpted article written by Kuni Miyake, the research director for foreign and national security affairs at the Canon Institute for Global Studies in Tokyo. Miyake argues the Philippines has growing concerns about Chinese policies in the South China Sea, including the building of military outposts on atolls claimed by the Philippines.[i] Therefore, the Philippines is more likely than in previous decades to be open to a trilateral partnership with Japan and the United States.

Miyake acknowledges that Philippines leader Rodrigo Duterte has signed economic agreements with Beijing related to issues ranging from oil and gas exploration to fishing rights. However, provocative actions by the Chinese navy, including targeting a Philippine Coast Guard ship with a laser device in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, and China’s harassing other smaller Southeast Asian countries, has contributed to momentum building in the Philippines government for closer security partnerships with Japan and the United States. In contrast to Beijing, Miyake argues that Japan must stress to the Philippine government the important geopolitical role of the Philippines in their bilateral relations. Miyake’s article comes after the Philippines began contemplating a visiting forces agreement (VFA) with Japan.[ii] For example, the second excerpted article in the Philippine publication Inquirer from November 2022 quoted the country’s Senate President, Juan Miguel Zubiri, who supports a VFA. Another senator stated a VFA would not only be beneficial to the Philippines because of the training Japan can provide, but also because the VFA would increase mutual preparedness between Japan and the Philippines for natural disasters and other humanitarian emergencies.

Sources:

Kuni Miyake, “The geopolitical trajectory of the Philippines is changing,” japantimes.co.jp (English-language daily with a nationalistic editorial perspective), 8 March 2023. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2023/03/08/commentary/world-commentary/philippine-trilateral-cooperation/

Returning to Manila this time, I was struck by a series of developments: a growing anxiety toward China among the populace, dramatic improvement in U.S.-Philippine relations and growing momentum to advance trilateral-security cooperation between Japan, the Philippines and the United States, which until a few years ago would have been only a dream.

In January of this year, Marcos was invited to China as a state guest and signed 14 agreements as the Chinese business community expressed intentions to invest $22.8 billion in the Philippines. Nevertheless, Beijing is determined to change the status quo in the South China Sea by continuing to harass neighboring “small” countries. In February this year, for example, a Chinese Coast Guard vessel blocked the path of a Philippine Coast Guard ship within the island nation’s exclusive economic zone while another Chinese vessel targeted a Philippine ship with a laser device…. What I found most fascinating in Manila was the idea that security cooperation between Japan, the U.S. and the Philippines is gaining momentum these days.

“Senators push for VFA with Japan,” inquirer.net (popular pro-democracy newspaper in the Philippines), 14 November 2022. https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1692799/senators-push-for-vfa-with-japan

Senators are keen to endorse a visiting forces agreement (VFA) with erstwhile invader Japan, making it only the third nation with which the country has such an extraordinary agreement, next to the United States and Australia. “I’m sure we can muster enough support in the Senate for a visiting forces agreement with Japan. They’re good partners,” Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri said during the Senate plenary’s marathon budget deliberations on Thursday night.

Forging a VFA with Japan would not only be helpful in joint training but also during natural disasters, said Senate President Pro Tempore Loren Legarda.“This is not just military training but it will also include disaster response and disaster risk reduction.”

China’s force buildup in the region and opportunities for trilateral coordination and cooperation will be among the key topics on the agenda.

Notes:

[i] One of the first significant South China Sea confrontations between China and the Philippines occurred with China’s seizure of Scarborough Shoal in 2012. At the time, the Philippines believed an agreement existed whereby both countries would withdraw naval patrols from the shoal as typhoon season approached. However, when Philippine ships left the shoal, China placed a barrier across the entrance to the shoal and stationed coast guard boats there to chase away Philippine fishing boats. See: Mark Raymond and David A. Welch, “What’s Really Going On in the South China Sea?,” Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, Vol. 42(2), 214-239, August 2022. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/18681034221086291

[ii] Since the rise of China in the 1990s, Philippine and Japanese political leaders and high-ranking defense officials have conducted goodwill visits and high-level dialogues, while Japan has consistently provided emergency relief assistance to the Philippines in the wake of earthquakes and typhoons. However, a VFA between the two countries would represent a significant elevation of the two countries’ bilateral ties. See: Renato Cruz De Castro, “Exploring a 21st-Century Japan-Philippine Security Relationship: Linking Two Spokes Together?,” Asian Survey Vol. 49 (4, 691-715), 2009. https://online.ucpress.edu/as/article-abstract/49/4/691/24277/Exploring-a-21st-Century-Japan-Philippine-Security?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Image Information:

Image: Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force butai01 – 04
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Japan_Maritime_Self-Defense_Force_butai01_-_04.jpg
Attribution: Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, CC x 4.0

Marawi Reflections Reveal Urban Warfare Challenges for Philippine Army

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Boming on Marawi City.

Boming on Marawi City.

“Marawi showed all potential enemies the advantages of urban warfare [for insurgents].”

The Filipino publication mindanews.com recently published the excerpted article featuring portions from a book by Filipino author Gail Ilagan about the 2017 occupation of Marawi, Mindanao by up to 2,000 militants loyal to the Islamic State (IS) and the military’s recapture of the city. The article recounts details of the occupation, noting that the trigger of the occupation was the Philippine army’s attempt to capture the militants’ leader, Isnon Hapilon. Unbeknownst to the army, the militants had already established sleeper cells in Marawi that they activated once the operation to capture Hapilon began, including attacking a prison to release group members, bombing a church, and sending fighters to control university campuses.[i]

The article points to missteps by the army, including interpreting the militants to be local fighters when, in fact, they not only had inspiration from IS, but also had invited foreign IS supporters to Mindanao and employed IS tactics. In addition, Philippine security forces overlooked earlier bombings at night markets near universities and occupations of smaller towns in Mindanao, which had displaced residents and should have been seen as a harbinger of the future occupation of the much larger city of Marawi. Ultimately, the article claims the military’s unpreparedness resulted in more soldiers’ lives lost than necessary. Military equipment, such as tanks, were unsuitable for maneuvering Marawi’s narrow alleyways, while the insurgents’ hijacking of fire trucks and other public vehicles made it difficult for soldiers to identify their adversaries in the urban combat environment. However, the article concludes that hard lessons were learned from the siege of Marawi that make a similar insurgent takeover unlikely in the near term.[ii] The military has changed its organizational structure, acquired new equipment, and improved training methods to prepare for urban warfare.

Source:

“Local Frontlines of Globalized Islamic States Network: The Emerging War Arena for the Filipino Soldier,” mindanews.com (regional newspapers focusing on Mindanao), 16 October 2022. https://www.mindanews.com/top-stories/2022/10/local-frontlines-of-globalized-islamic-states-network-the-emerging-war-arena-for-the-filipino-soldier/

Violent extremists are rare among Muslim Filipinos. However, it does not take a lot of them to cause a scale of destruction such as was seen in the aftermath of the 2017 Marawi Siege.

Among its choices, the region of Mindanao seemed to be most appealing [to ISIS] because of its porous maritime boundaries and the safe haven that local extremist groups could provide. One such local extremist group was the Basilan-based Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) that had pledged allegiance to ISIS and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in June 2014. In 2016, al-Baghdadi accepted the Abu Sayyaf’s pledge and appointed ASG commander Isnilon Hapilon as the ISIS’ emir in Southeast Asia. Hapilon and his soldiers traveled soon after to Marawi where they were embraced by the Maute Group, as well as other local terrorist groups that shared the ISIS’ aspiration.

The Marawi Crisis was ignited in the early afternoon of 23 May 2017 when security forces tried to arrest Hapilon in Barangay Basak Malutlut in Marawi City. It was two days before the Muslim holiday of Eid’l Fitr. Intelligence sources would later reveal that the ISIS-inspired groups intended to mark Eid’l Fitr by taking over the only Islamic city in the Philippines and declaring it ISIS territory. At the time when the security team was sent to Marawi with the warrant of arrest, they were unaware that Hapilon’s forces were positioned in the adjoining buildings, ready to defend their leader. The arresting team immediately came under heavy fire as soon as they entered the narrow street where Hapilon’s quarters were located.

It would take five long months for the government to neutralize the extremists and rid Marawi of them.

Notes:

[i] In mid-2014, the longtime Abu Sayyaf commander Isnon Hapilon and around a dozen other militants released a video pledging allegiance to IS leader Umar al-Baghdadi. Hapilon noted in the video that these militants and other factions had made pledges separately but were now coming together, which signaled the unification of Abu Sayyaf factions and set the stage for the group’s eventual attack on Marawi under the leadership of the Maute Brothers and Hapilon, all of whom were killed during the battle. See: Jacob Zenn, “The Islamic State’s Provinces on the Peripheries: Juxtaposing the Pledges from Boko Haram in Nigeria and Abu Sayyaf and Maute Group in the Philippines.” Perspectives on Terrorism, vol. 13, no. 1, 2019, pp. 87–104.

[ii] The restoration of critical infrastructure in Marawi and the return of the city’s inhabitants to their original homes, which were destroyed during the battle in 2017, has been slow. This has also raised concerns that grievances of the local population regarding their treatment in post-conflict Marawi could result in their supporting antigovernment militant groups in the future or their remaining alienated from the government, which was one of the reasons why Abu Sayyaf was initially able to gain some traction from among the youths in Marawi. See: Jacob Zenn, “Marawi Rehabilitation Progress Slows in the Philippines,” OE Watch, July 2018. https://community.apan.org/wg/tradoc-g2/fmso/m/oe-watch-articles-singular-format/277112 

Image Information:

Image: Boming on Marawi City.
Source: Mark Jhomel https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bombing_on_Marawi_City.jpg
Attribution: CC BY 4.0