View from Manila: ‘Mutual defense is political’ 

MANILA, Philippines – Towards the end of a “ghost month” spoiled by a series incidents between the Philippines and China in the West Philippine Sea, National Maritime Council spokesperson Undersecretary Alexander Lopez revived calls for a review of the 73-year-old Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) between the Philippines and the United States. 

 “The Mutual Defense Treaty was made in 1951. And since then, the strategic landscape has changed so much. So, maybe it’s high time now to, maybe, review,” Lopez told reporters after guesting on a Malacañang-run program. 

The day before, Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr said the MDT should be “interpreted dynamically” in the face of a “dynamic and cunning adversary” in Beijing. He didn’t say how that dynamic interpretation should go, but said it was up to military commanders to figure it out. 

These statements came in the lead-up to an important (though routine) bilateral event: the Mutual Defense Board-Security Engagement Board Meeting (MDB-SEB) meeting between Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo and Armed Forces of the Philippines chief General Romeo Brawner, Jr., who distanced themselves from talk of an MDT “review” — in whichever form it would take.

Calls to define an “armed attack” under the treaty (although this was not explicitly said by either Teodoro or Lopez), to include China’s gray zone or “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive” tactics, have long persisted. But so have the resistance to any black-and-white definition.

To be clear, there have been moves to better define the treaty. 

Last year, after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s visit to the Pentagon in May 2023, the US and the Philippines released new guidelines for the MDT — in response to Manila’s urging to make clear the conditions that would invoke the treaty, or compel the US to come to its defense.

Through those guidelines, it became policy that the treaty covers armed attacks “anywhere in the South China Sea,” even on the Philippine Coast Guard. The two countries also officially recognized the need to “build interoperability and cooperation… while taking into account asymmetric, hybrid, and irregular warfare and gray-zone tactics as well as artificial intelligence and other emerging technology areas.” 

Normalizing reviews 

Ronald Llamas, a political analyst and presidential adviser for political affairs for the late president Benigno Aquino III, said any treaty — not just the MDT —  “should be subject to review,” especially if they were written “during a different epoch.” He also extended a possible review to include “new stakeholders who were absent when the treaty was made,” to include civil society. 

Llamas highlighted a key difference in public sentiment towards the Philippines’ maritime security, too. “We are looking at the MDT with a new sense of patriotism and a more dynamic national consciousness,” he said. 

I asked him to expound on what he meant by this “new sense of patriotism.” 

“For a long time, especially during the time of [former presidents Gloria Arroyo, Erap Estrada, and Rodrigo Duterte], being Filipino has been taken for granted. But because of this creeping invasion through the gray zone strategy of China, as well as sporadic bursts of harassment, a new, more meaningful and active patriotism has awakened,” he explained. 

“Nabubuhay ang patriotism and nationalism when under attack. ‘Yun ‘yung unintended consequence ng Chinese aggression,” he added. (Patriotism and nationalism are awoken when under attack. That’s the unintended consequence of Chinese aggression.) 

While surveys indicate that the West Philippine Sea (and territorial integrity) are not the top priority for most Filipinos (top concerns, as always, are the price of basic goods, poverty, and jobs), it remains to be a gut issue that touches on many other issues — from national pride, to food and energy security, and safety. 

Pulse Asia’s Ronald Holmes once explained that the West Philippine Sea’s low placement among Filipino’s top concerns could indicate that the public feels the government is already addressing the issue. 

Yet there’s no denying a sense of restlessness and frustration when another China Coast Guard (CCG) vessel rams or uses its water cannons against the PCG in the West Philippine Sea. Marcos seems to share — or at least is aware of — this sentiment. He told reporters in June 2024, days after the horrible June 17 resupply to the BRP Sierra Madre, that “we have to do more” than file protests, file demarches, and summon Chinese diplomats.  

While there’s a sense from some sectors that the Philippines is not being forceful enough in the West Philippine Sea, others also promote a false dichotomy: that the Philippines must only choose between kowtowing to or waging war against China. The message goes as far as saying Marcos is a warmonger. (Rappler’s editor-at-large Marites Vitug writes about it in this exclusive piece). 

All politics, baby

President Marcos has expressed the belief that protests and demarches shouldn’t be the Philippines’ “only” solution to China’s aggression. In the same manner, it’s been said that the vaunted “transparency initiative” shouldn’t be the only effort that Manila should be relying on. 

There are bilateral and multilateral conversations and agreements with old and new partners. The Bilateral Consultation Mechanism with Beijing exists, even if one of its results — the “provisional arrangement” covering Ayungin Shoal — was followed by China’s aggressive actions in other features in the West Philippine Sea. 

The trickiest part will always be implementation, according to lawyer Jay Batongbacal, an expert on maritime affairs. 

“I do not agree that there is any need to renegotiate the MDT. People are too obsessed with legal documents like treaties (and laws) when the real challenge is implementation,” he said. 

“What nations do, whether alone or together, is first and foremost a political matter not a legal one. Take for example the alliance between the US and Israel, it is not based on a treaty document, but on confluence of policy,” he added. 

For Batongbacal, it should be up to the military generals (including during their MDB-SEB meeting in Baguio) to flesh out how to “interpret and operationalize” the treaty. “If they want to talk about definitions, there is nothing that prevents them from doing it there,” he added. 

And then there’s the question of when the treaty is to be invoked. 

“This is also a political, as well as a legal construct. The decision to invoke the treaty is a political decision influenced as well by our Constitution, which renounces war as an instrument of foreign policy. And then again, all of this may change with a new government in 2028,” said Llamas. – Rappler.com