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Philippines
Potential Requests: Requests: Increased U.S. military aid, training, and excess defense articles, including sea patrol craft.
Issues: While improvements in military relations between the Philippines and the United States predate the September 11th attacks, the war on terror is hastening the full reestablishment of these ties. It is also filling Philippine coffers with millions of additional dollars in military aid and stocking its arsenals with sophisticated military equipment.
Following the forced closure of the Subic Bay naval base in 1992, U.S. military aid packages, which had frequently exceeded $100 million a year, dwindled to almost nothing. The two countries began to reestablish military ties through negotiations in the late 1990's. One of the most dramatic indications of the new focus on the Philippines was in U.S. Foreign Military Financing (FMF), which increased greatly, from $2 million in FY 2001 to $19 million in FY 2002. All told, for fiscal years 2001 and 2002, the U.S. offered to transfer about $100 million worth of aid and arms, including a C-130 transport aircraft, eight UH-1H utility helicopters, 30,000 M-16 rifles, a Coast Guard patrol vessel of the Cyclone class, grenade launchers, mortars, and night vision goggles. Many of these transfers were in the works before September 11, but their priority was quickly elevated afterwards. Taken together, they demonstrate how the ongoing re-engagement of the U.S. and the Philippines was accelerated by the war on terror.
The administration's regular FY 2003 budget request specified $20 million in FMF for the Philippines. In addition, the emergency supplemental appropriations bill which became law in August 2002 includes $25 million in FMF. The Security Assistance Act of 2002 added the Philippines to a high-priority list for the transfer of excess defense articles, alongside allies on the southern and southeastern flanks of NATO.
In the first half of 2002, about 1300 U.S. soldiers participated in a six-month joint exercise with Philippine troops, known as Balikatan 02-1. The exercise was the largest deployment of U.S. troops to fight terrorists outside Central Asia after September 11, and was widely understood as the opening of a second, expedient front in the war on terror. Indeed, a Pentagon official told the Wall Street Journal in December of 2001 that the U.S. was particularly focused on the Philippines because it could offer a quick victory in the terror war.
The American presence included about 160 Special Forces who trained Philippine military units. Some of the training took place in regions of conflict with the Abu Sayyaf insurgency, which has been linked with Al Qaeda. The Philippine constitution bars foreign armed forces from operating on Philippine soil. Nonetheless, U.S. soldiers carried weapons, and were permitted to return fire if they were attacked. The exercise spurred a storm of protest against Philippine President Arroyo. In July, the Philippine foreign affairs secretary resigned over disagreements about the proper role of U.S. forces.
For most of the Balikatan exercise, U.S. soldiers were barred from accompanying Philippine combat patrols, for fear that they would be drawn into firefights with the Abu Sayyaf Group. Despite attempts to sequester them, soldiers guarding a construction site did indeed come under fire. At almost the same time, special forces were authorized to accompany some Philippine units on patrols to hunt Abu Sayyaf guerillas. The Balikatan exercise ended on July 31, 2002, but about 100 U.S. troops stayed in the Philippines for civil infrastructure development. Over the next year, U.S. soldiers are to train two elite counter-terrorist units and five regular infantry battalions, as well as provide night-flying instruction for helicopter pilots. Larger operations continue as well; 800 U.S. soldiers came to the Philippines in October of 2002 for another series of joint exercises on Luzon Island, dubbed Talon-Vision-02. Luzon is known as an area of activity for the communist New People's Army, which was added to the U.S. government list of international terrorist organizations in August of 2002. The Philippine director of the exercise said afterwards that "preparations are underway for a bigger Philippine-U.S. military exercise next year."
The presence of U.S. soldiers in zones of conflict raises serious questions about whether the U.S. could become embroiled in the country's civil war. On October 2, 2002, one American soldier was killed and another was wounded after a bomb went off in a restaurant near a military base in the city of Zamboanga. The restaurant was known as a favorite of U.S. soldiers, who were at the base conducting humanitarian missions. It is clear that the insurgents are willing to attack U.S. forces, and while the stated aim of the U.S. is to enable the Philippine armed forces to handle the fight themselves, the plans for ongoing U.S. involvement require the presence of at least some American soldiers on the ground. U.S. forces "will continue a long-term effort to assist the Armed Forces of the Philippines," said a letter from President Bush to Congress on September 20, 2002. Should a future attack result in large numbers of U.S. casualties, the temptation to make the Philippines' fight our own will be powerful.
Meanwhile, there are ongoing concerns about human rights in the Philippines, particularly in connection with the military's fight against communist and Muslim insurgents. The State Department's 2001 human rights report indicated that the government was increasing its efforts to stop abuses of human rights by the police and military, and that abuses had decreased somewhat. However, members of the security services were still implicated in extrajudicial killings, disappearances, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, and the desecration of mosques. In September of 2001, a fact-finding mission deputized by the Philippine Deputy Speaker of the House reported that troops participating in the Philippine counter-terror operation on Basilan Island had carried out extrajudicial killings, as well as torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, and the destruction of civilian homes. Much of the Balikatan exercise took place on Basilan.
Status: Ongoing