SUBIC BAY, Philippines (AP) – Once-secret munitions bunkers and barracks lay abandoned, empty and overgrown with weeds – remnants of American firepower at what was once the United States’ largest overseas naval base at Subic Bay in the northern Philippines.
But that may change in the near future.
The US has taken steps to rebuild its military might in the Philippines more than 30 years after closing its major bases in the country, strengthening an arc of military alliances in Asia in a vastly different post-Cold War era than this as new The regional threat is an increasingly warlike China.
On February 2, the longtime allies announced that rotating batches of American forces would be given access to four more Philippine military camps, in addition to five other local bases where US-funded construction has picked up the pace to include barracks, warehouses and other buildings construct housing for an as yet unspecified but likely significant number of visiting troops as part of a 2014 defense pact.
Manila-based political scientist Andrea Chloe Wong said the location of the Philippine camps would give the US military the presence it needs to be a “strong deterrent to Chinese aggression” in the South China Sea, where China, the Philippines and Four other governments live have increasingly tense territorial rifts — as well as a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan, which Beijing regards as its own territory, to be brought under Chinese control by force if necessary.
Around the former US Navy base at Subic, now a bustling commercial freeport and tourist destination northwest of Manila, news of the Philippine government’s decision to allow an expanded American military presence brought back memories of an era when thousands of US sailors were raising money , life and hope pumped into the neighboring town of Olongapo.
“Olongapo was like Las Vegas back then,” Filipino businessman AJ Saliba told The Associated Press in an interview at his currency exchange and music store along Olongapo’s former garish red light strip.
“Noise as early as noon with neon lights on and Americans roaming about. women were everywhere. Jeepney drivers, tricycles, restaurants, bars, hotels – all making money – so when they come back, my God, you know that’s the best news,” he said.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said during his visit to Manila last week that Washington is not trying to restore permanent bases but that agreeing to expand its military presence under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement is “a big deal.”
The visit by American military personnel could involve the Philippine military in larger joint combat-readiness training, provide assistance with rapid disaster response and press efforts to modernize Manila’s armed forces, Austin and his Philippine counterpart Carlito Galvez Jr. said.
“This is part of our efforts to modernize our alliance, and these efforts are especially important as the People’s Republic of China continues to advance its illegitimate claims in the West Philippine Sea,” Austin said at a news conference in Manila.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said strengthening the US military in the region is escalating tensions and jeopardizing peace and stability.
“Regional countries must remain vigilant and avoid being coerced or used by the US,” Mao said at a briefing in Beijing on Feb. 2.
Austin and Galvez did not disclose the four new locations where the Americans will be allowed access and pre-position weapons and other equipment. The Philippine defense chief said local officials where the Americans were located would need to be consulted.
In November, then-Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines Lt. Gen. Bartolome Bacarro announced that the locations included the strategic Subic Bay, where the naval base was once a boon to the local economy. But two senior Filipino officials told the AP that Subic, where a Philippine naval camp is located, is not among the current list of locations Washington has sought access to for its forces, although they have indicated that this is changing over the course of the talks could change. The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the issue publicly.
Subic Freeport Administrator Rolen Paulino said he was not informed by the government that the former US naval base had been designated as a potential site for US forces to visit.
However, a renewed U.S. military presence in Subic would create more jobs and generate additional freeport revenue at a crucial time when many Filipinos and businesses are still struggling to recover from two years of COVID-19 lockdowns and an economic recession caused by coronavirus outbreaks to recover. said Paulino.
“I see them as tourists,” he said of US forces, whose presence could spur economic recovery.
About the size of Singapore, the former US naval base at Subic, with its deep harbors, ship repair yard and huge warehouses, had been used in support of the US war effort in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s. It was closed in 1992 and converted into a commercial freeport and recreation complex after the Philippine Senate rejected an extension of the US lease.
A year earlier, the US Air Force withdrew from Clark Air Base near Subic after nearby Mount Pinatubo was engulfed in the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century.
The American flag was lowered for the last time and the last group of American sailors left Subic in November 1992. This ended almost a century of American military presence in the Philippines that began in 1898 when the US conquered the archipelago in a new colonial era after Spain held the Southeast Asian Nation as a colony for more than three centuries. Washington granted independence on July 4, 1946, but maintained military bases and installations, including Subic.
China’s seizure in the mid-1990s of Mischief Reef, a coral outcrop within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone that extends into the South China Sea, “provided the first indication that allies might have been too quick to downgrade ties,” he told Greg Poling , Director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.
The Philippine constitution prohibits the permanent stationing of foreign troops in the country and their involvement in local fighting, but allows temporary visits by foreign troops under security pacts such as the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement and a 1998 Visiting Forces Agreement.
The 1998 accord allowed for the deployment of large numbers of American forces to the southern Philippines to provide combat training to Philippine forces in the fight against the then-al Qaeda-affiliated Abu Sayyaf group, which was blamed for deadly bombings and mass kidnappings for ransom and provide reconnaissance, including three Americans – one of whom was beheaded and another shot dead in a Philippine Army rescue operation. The third survived.
However, there is still opposition to a US presence in the Philippines, which left-wing groups have slammed as neocolonialism, compounded by the killing of a transgender Filipino woman by a US marine, Wong said.
Governor Manuel Mamba of the northern province of Cagayan, where Bacarro said the US had reportedly sought access to two local military camps for its forces, vowed to oppose any such American military presence. Located on the northern tip of the main island of Luzon, Cagayan lies across a narrow sea border of Taiwan, the Taiwan Strait and southern China.
“It will be very dangerous for us. If they stay here, anyone who is their enemy will become our enemy,” Mamba told the AP over the phone, adding that the Philippines could become a target for nuclear weapons if the conflict over Taiwan escalates.
“You can’t really dispel every suspicion by anyone that the Philippines has nuclear capabilities through the Americans who are going to be here,” Mamba said.
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Associated Press journalists Joeal Calupitan and Aaron Favila in Manila, Philippines and David Rising in Bangkok contributed.
Jim Gomez, The Associated Press
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