Philippine Defense Policy in the 21st Century: Autonomous Defense or Back to the Alliance?

Abstract

a result of the Philippine Senate's decision not to ratify a new base treaty on September 16, 1991, the United States withdrew its forces from the Philippines in November 1992. This event heralded Manila's attempts to discontinue its alliance-based defense policy and forge an independent defense capability. The Philippine government announced its plan to modernize its armed forces through the acquisition of modern aircraft, fast-attack crafts, reconnaissance aircraft and corvettes. In the postUS bases era, the Philippine government appeared determined to undertake a series of decisions and actions aimed at developing an autonomous defense posture. Unfortunately, such attempts began to falter less than two years after the Philippine government passed a law in 1995, providing for the modernization of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) . The financially constrained AFP could barely cover its basic manpower and logistics requirements, and even a modest modernization programme had to be put on the back burner. Thus, a few years after the withdrawal of American forces from the country, the Philippines began looking again to the US for its defense needs. In 1998, Manila formulated a visiting forces agreement with Washington, authorizing the resumption of large-scale cooperative military activities between the two countries. The terrorist attacks in New York and