EDCA deal: Philippines says U.S. base upgrades will proceed

The Philippines’ top defense official said Thursday that the U.S. military is cleared to begin upgrading and constructing facilities in the Southeast Asian nation over the coming year — an apparent reversal of Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte’s outspoken rejection of an American troop presence there.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told reporters in Manila that Mr. Duterte will honor the so-called Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), a deal U.S. officials struck with the Filipino’s president’s predecessor in 2014 to allow for enhancements at five bases in the Philippines.

“EDCA is still on,” Mr. Lorenzana said, according to a report by Reuters, which also cited the defense secretary as saying that Mr. Duterte — who has threatened to scrap the agreement — will, in fact, honor it.

Mr. Lorenzana said Washington had committed to build warehouses, barracks and runways in the five agreed locations, according to Reuters, which noted that U.S. Sen. John McCain, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, last week proposed $7.5 billion in new funding for U.S. forces and allies in the Asia-Pacific.

The U.S. essentially viewed the Philippines as a colony during the early part of the last century and Washington’s largest overseas military base was located there until the early-1990s. But a surge of nationalism in Manila drove the Americans out in 1992 and recent decades have seen only a limited U.S. military presence.

EDCA, which the Obama administration inked with former Filipino President Benign Aquino III, called for the expansion of a rotational deployment of U.S. ships, aircraft and troops at five bases in the Philippines, as well as the storage of equipment for humanitarian and maritime security operations.

But the agreement was stalled for two years by domestic politics in Manila and uncertainty surged around again when Mr. Duterte came into office last June. The new Filipino President engaged in a war of words with President Obama over human rights abuses in Manila. He also began making overtures to China, which has reportedly agreed to providing new weaponry to the Philippine military.

After visiting Beijing in October, Mr. Duterte said he didn’t want to see any foreign military troops in the Philippines, including from the U.S., and that he would work toward crushing EDCA.

He has, however, since expressed optimism about the arrival of the President Trump’s administration in Washington. And analysts say there is a chance the Filipino president, who’s become known for his policy swerves and bombastic public statements, may be eager to work with Mr. Trump.