The Present Military Environment in the Philippines

From 2016 to 2022, the administration of Rodrigo Duterte shifted away from the Philippines’ traditional ally, the United States, and toward China. The reasons behind this move were simple:

(1) He felt slighted and disrespected by Obama,

(2) China offered eyepopping amounts of money if he could keep US forces away from their artificial island building aka. stealth oil and gas fracking projects in the South China Sea,

(3) Denied a US Visa due to his human rights abuse record while Mayor of Davao City, he felt it was time to promulgate animosity toward Americans, Europeans and Australians – the “loathed whites” – in the minds of Filipinos to “free them of their colonial mentality”.

Ignoring warnings of duplicitousness on the part of the Chinese by other countries who had become their loan sharking victims, his plan worked well at first, hauling in boatloads of Yuan while gleefully denigrating foreigners in public, until July 2020 when he was unceremoniously left at the proverbial alter by Beijing.

His successor, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., known colloquially as “BBM”, immediately pivoted back to Washington after entering office in July of 2022, reinvigorating traditional ties through the establishment of a total of 9 US military sites under the EDCA (Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement) that was enacted by President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, Duterte’s immediate precursor.

Correcting the damage done to the original coalition that had been polluted with bribery and corruption among senior officers and officials by the Chinese continues to be a daunting task, particularly in view of increasing aggression by the PLAN (Peoples’ Liberation Army Navy) against Philippine Navy + Coast Guard vessels and aircraft in the West Philippine Sea that had been enabled by the Duterte.

Beyond these challenges is the finding and deporting of an estimated 4000 PLA personnel that had entered the country between 2017 to 2022, embedded in “POGO’s” (Philippine Online Gaming Organizations) that Duterte had encouraged as revenue generators.

To address the issue, BBM ordered a blanket ban on POGO’s in 2024 that included a dragnet to round up Chinese who were in the country on sham spousal or retirement visas issued by corrupt former Duterte-era Bureau of Immigration (“BI”) managers.

As of April 2025, no known POGO’s were in operation on Luzon or in the Visayas; most of them had either closed down or migrated south to Davao to enjoy protection under the Duterte family.

Cleaning these out poses additional challenges as age-old tribal animosities (Mindanaoans hold Tagalogs in disdain, etc.) intensify after the sudden, surprising arrest and extradition to the ICC (International Criminal Court) in The Hague of Duterte himself, allowing whatever PLA remnants yet exist within such organizations to operate freely, even in the open.

American and allied government / military entities currently or considering working in the Philippines are advised to avail of information gathered through more than a century of in-country experience and local contact development.