Transitions of Philippine Foreign Policy under President Duterte - by Uk Dararath

Transitions of Philippine Foreign Policy under President Duterte

Written by Uk Dararath 

A longstanding defense relationship between the Philippines and the United States seems to be getting weaker since the beginning of President Duterte’s administration. The military exercises that have been conducted annually would end as President Duterte announced that there would be no longer military exercise. “President Rodrigo Duterte has verbally given notice to the United States that the scheduled war games between the Philippines and the United States next month would be the last” (Tesiorna 2016). The ending of the security relations between the Philippines and the U.S is claimed to get rid of foreign policy dependency (Parameswaran 2016).

Source ABS News

The event of altering foreign relations from Washington and the transitions towards Beijing have made significant attentions of world politics. China, also as a rival of the Philippines on South China Sea disputes, becomes a strategic partnership for the Philippines. The state visit of President Duterte in October allowed the two countries to strengthen bilateral talks and sign a plenty of agreements, including trades, investment and tourism (Hunt, Rivers & Shoichet 2016). 

The transitions of Philippine foreign policy have posed questions by some analysts. Is the ending of security ties with the U.S a signal of the weakening of the U.S power?  Is China getting more influence over U.S in Southeast Asia, in particular? What will the Philippines and the United State lose and get with these issues? 

Obviously, China takes a step further in influencing countries in Southeast Asia. Despite the disputes between the Philippines and China over South China Sea, China is still most important to countries in Southeast Asia, especially the Philippines, in terms of economic development, foreign aids and infrastructure. “Duterte has chosen to focus on China's deeper pockets in the hope of lucrative trade deals” (Heydarian, cited in CNN). 

President Duterte says that it is time to say good bye to the United States and he [and the Philippines] is not an American puppet. “Your stay in my country was for your own benefit. So time to say goodbye, my friend,” and “I will not go to America anymore. I will just be insulted there,” said Duterte (France 2016). These show that the power of the United States decreased significantly. The end of security relations with the Philippines might be a great loss of the United State for its security strategies in Southeast Asia and with China.

References

France, Agence. 2016. Inquirer.Net. October 20. Accessed 15 November, 2016. http://globalnation.inquirer.net/147175/time-to-say-goodbye-duterte-tells-us-during-visit-to-china.

Katie, Hunt; Rivers, Matt ; Shoich, Catherine E. 2016. CNN International. October 0. Accessed November 15, 2016. http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/20/asia/china-philippines-duterte-visit/.

Parameswaran, Prashanth. 2016. The Diplomat. October 27. Accessed November 15, 2016. http://thediplomat.com/2016/10/will-duterte-end-the-us-philippine-military-alliance/.

Tesiorna, Ben . 2016. CNN Philippines. September 29. Accessed November 15, 2016. http://cnnphilippines.com/news/2016/09/29/Duterte-last-US-joint-military-exercise.html.