Four days to go before the end of the nearly three-week Balikatan joint Philippines-US military exercises, both sides appear to have learned much from each other.
On the one hand, Filipino troops have been able to get to know the capabilities of advanced weaponry, such as the truck-mounted HIMARs, or High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, that can reach targets as far as 80 kilometers away.
That means, if our estimates are correct, multiple rockets fired from Manila can reach targets in, say, Angeles City in Pampanga. The US has supplied Ukraine with such a system to fight the Russian invasion since February 2022.
On the other hand, we have seen newspaper photos of Filipino troops giving their American counterparts training in martial arts, or hand-to-hand fighting, if ever the situation calls for it.
There’s a big difference between what the world’s most powerful military can impart to our armed forces and what our own military, among the weakest in Southeast Asia, can teach the Americans. But that’s to be expected.
What’s important, from where we sit, is the shared commitment to maintain peace and stability in the region amid growing tensions in the Taiwan Strait and in the South China Sea.
Both sides have every reason to be worried over China’s intentions in so far as Taiwan is concerned.
Beijing considers Taiwan as a renegade province that must be reunited with the mainland at all costs; it has time and again said it has not renounced the use of force in bringing the island back under its control.
A recent three-day military drill by China around Taiwan using air and naval assets is disturbing, to say the least, as it portends an imminent invasion in the years to come, even as early as 2025, if we’re to believe updated assessments by the US military.
Beijing’s extreme reaction to the Philippine government’s decision to expand the number of sites under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA)—practically telling the Philippine government to reconsider its move or else this put in jeopardy the safety and security of nearly 160,000 Filipino workers in Taiwan—is tantamount to bullying and intimidation by our powerful neighbor that does not bode well for the future of our bilateral ties with China.
Recent events, such as swarming activities by the Chinese Coast Guard and maritime militia against our troops monitoring the situation in our Exclusive Economic Zone in the South China Sea under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and, more recently, the Chinese ambassador’s tactless remarks on Manila’s decision to allow the Americans to expand military presence in northern Luzon raises the question: Is China our friend or our foe?
