 This is Think Tech Hawaii. Community Matters here. I'm your host Bill Sharp. Our show today, Alliance and Transition, The Philippine-American Relationship, question mark. And our guest is a frequent guest to Asian Review, Carl Baker, who is the executive director at Pacific Forum. Good to see you again. Good to see you, Bill. In fact, it's been a couple of years since we've done the Philippines here. Right. We're due. We're long overdue. That's right. We're long overdue. Well, let's get at it. From one perspective, the Philippine relationship has been close. The Philippine-American relationship has been close. But from another one, the Philippine-American relationship has been characterized as a love-hate relationship. So where do you fall? Well, I fall right in the middle of that. You know, it's a fraught relationship over the years. And it's partly because of the colonial relationship that the United States had early in the century. I think there's a lot of historical memory about what happened in the early 1900s and late 1800s when the U.S. first occupied the Philippines, if you will. And over the years, they've developed an alliance relationship. And certainly during World War II, it was a close relationship that has fostered a lot of long-term friendships and a lot of long-term memories on both sides, I think. And then in the 1990s, when we went through the base issue with closing of Clark and Subic, I think there was a fairly dramatic shift in how at least the elite in the Philippines viewed the relationship with the Americans. But again, because of the people-to-people relationships with the Filipinos that have moved to the United States and become American citizens, there's always been this long-standing, close cultural relationship. So, you know, it is. Yes, it's a relationship that blows hot and cold, but it's been fairly steadfast on the people-to-people level. What's changed, I think, is probably the government-to-government relationship based on how each side viewed the other in terms of its commitment to the other's security interests. That's interesting. How about democracy? Does that help to hold the relationship together? Yeah, and I think that was always a strength up until a couple years ago. That certainly the United States always saw the Philippines as an important democracy, as an example of democracy. In fact, in some respects, the Philippines was too much of a democracy where there wasn't a well-structured organizational approach to how you deal with democracy. And so it was kind of an open-ended, the media was sort of wide-open, difficult to control, and, you know, there was always this concern with the extrajudicial killing of the press because of its openness, because of its sort of wild west attitude towards news collection and things like that. So, but democracy has been an important keystone, a cornerstone in the relationship between the Philippines and the United States for sure. What do you think is the single most important factor that drives the Philippines and America apart? Well, that's a complicated question, because I think what has driven them apart in recent years is the Philippines' frustration with the willingness of the United States to make firm security commitments to the Philippines. And by that, what I'm really saying is, you know, the Philippines has the issue in the South China Sea with China over the islands. And while the United States is prepared to make a security commitment to Japan to protect the Senkakus with the competition between Japan and China over that set of islands, it hasn't been willing to make that same sort of statement to the Philippines over the Philippine claims in the West Philippine Sea, in Philippine terminology, or in South China Sea, in international terminology. And so I think the Philippines has felt a little bit frustrated with that. On the American side, on the other hand, I think there's a growing frustration with the Philippines inability, unwillingness to develop true defense capacity on its own. And so the Americans have felt that they have provided a lot of support for the Philippine defense establishment, but that the Philippines has been unwilling or reluctant at least to actually take that assistance that the United States has provided and put it to good use. That's interesting. But isn't it true that one of the strongest connections between the Philippines and the United States is the folks in the Philippine defense establishment and the folks in the U.S. defense establishment? Yes, that's right. It is. In fact, that's one of the reasons why, you know, with the introduction of President Duterte's sort of lambasting the United States for criticizing his human rights record, one of the reasons that the relationship with the United States did endure is because there is a longstanding relationship at the operational level between the U.S. defense establishment and the Philippine defense establishment. So certainly Lorenzana, the Secretary of Defense in the Philippines, has done a lot to maintain that relationship with the United States. And his staff and the military officers themselves have done a lot to sort of maintain that military relationship, even in the context of rather hostile exchanges between President Duterte and at the time President Obama. Interesting. Well, you mentioned President Rodrigo Duterte, and so we should really focus some attention on him. Generally perceived as anti-American. Do you agree with that or disagree? On a personal level, yes, he is. And, you know, he has his history, you know, he thinks that the CIA is out to get him, you know, and he has a historical memory about a bad experience with the Americans and specifically with the CIA and the Philippines. And so he personally does, I think. But I think it's a mistake to say that he has his anti-American in his policy. Because I think what his policy intent is really to diversify Philippine defense relationships. And so what Duterte has tried to do is has tried to sort of wean the Philippines from sole dependence on the United States and has tried to be broader in his perspective by looking at how he can use the relationships between the Philippines, Japan, China, Russia to actually improve the Philippines' defense in a more autonomous way. Defense or economic situation? I'm sorry? Defense or economic situation? Both. Both. But I mean, talking specifically about defense, he sought to sort of expand their defense relationships. And yes, part of that also then lends itself to a broader economic relationship, specifically with China. I think that that's the real cornerstone of the Philippines' relationship with China is not so much the defense relationship, but the broader economic relationship. And then the defense relationship goes along with that. Could you say that Duterte is like a lot of other leaders or countries in Asia. They want the security guarantee from the U.S. but want the economic benefits from China? Well, sure. That's a way to put it, but I think that that's a fairly American way of looking at what that relationship is. Because I think from the Philippine perspective, I think the way it's viewed is we have to deal with China economically. We really don't have a choice, because China has become so important for the economic well-being in Asia that it has become the export market for a lot of products being produced in the Philippines. Because the Philippines, almost 70% of their exports are actually electronic components that are mostly shipped into China for assembly and then off to the rest of the world. So they have to have an economic relationship with China. And so you have to start from that premise. And then I think when you talk about the looking for America as a security guarantee, I think is not necessarily accurate. And I think that's what Duterte really represents is he's suggesting, no, we don't need to be solely dependent on the United States. In fact, it's unhealthy to be solely dependent on the United States. And that's why he wants to expand his defense relationship. So yes, they want to have American security presence. And they would also like to have more engagement from the United States economically. But the fact is that they are dependent on China because the United States, in my view, hasn't done a particularly good job of integrating itself into the Southeast Asian economies. So it's not quite as simple as saying everybody wants the U.S. security guarantee and wants the economic relationship with China. I think in Southeast Asia it starts with the reality that your economic well-being depends on China. And then what else can you do to sort of buffer yourself from Chinese complete domination by China? I think a lot of people in Asia would agree with that. Not just the Philippines, but a lot of people throughout Asia. Well, the Russian angle, how does that work? Aren't the Russians going to sell some planes to the Philippines? Well, it's defense equipment. And more specifically today, it's Russian submarines. Submarines? Submarines. You know, you have to wonder why all these countries in Southeast Asia want submarines. Why it's such an attractive weapon for Southeast Asian countries given the cost of operating submarines and sort of the inefficiency as a real defense weapon. And part of it is because everybody else does it. This is always a problem with defense equipment is if that guy has 10 airplanes that I want 12. So the submarine has sort of become the sine qua non of developed military capability in Southeast Asia. And so the Philippines is the country that hasn't developed a submarine program. And so now Duterte and the Philippines is looking at Russia to provide submarines. Kilo class? Yeah, Kilo class submarines. And that sort of compares with what the Vietnamese have done, you know, what Malaysia is trying to do and Indonesia is trying to do with developing a submarine capability. So that's the latest thing. But it's a broader issue, again, with the Philippines trying to diversify its resource base for defense equipment. And the Russians do make defense equipment. And the Russians are very aggressive in trying to develop those defense related markets. Southeast Asian markets. In Southeast Asia in particular. Interesting. Well, this is a bit of a deviation, but sitting here listening to, you know, bring us up to date on the Philippines. It occurs to me that, you know, in 1945 or 47, I forget the exact year when the Philippines got independence from the United States. It was seen as kind of the model country in Southeast Asia. Philippines and Burma, and they both fell on hard times. Why exactly, in your view, did the Philippines not really live up to that, everyone's hope? I suppose there's any number of reasons. I personally think that a big part of the problem is that they were never able to complete a meaningful land reform program. That was my guess, but I wanted to hear it from you. Yeah, well, there you heard it. You know, and so when you look at what happened in Korea, for example, you know, you had a very serious land reform movement in the 1950s. And you saw the same thing in Taiwan. You had the same thing, different versions a bit in Japan, in other Southeast Asian countries. And the Philippines was never able to do that. So you've always had this big difference between the very rich, the land-owned owning class, and the rest of the Philippines. And so I think that's a part of the problem. You know, and you could certainly say that, you know, more technically, I think in the economic sphere, you had problems with people being willing to reinvest in the Philippines. So the tendency in the Philippines has always been to sort of offshore money and to not reinvest in capital infrastructure. And so because of that, of course, the infrastructure in the Philippines always suffered. You know, I remember, you know, when I first went to the Philippines in the 1970s, they were building a road, you know, from Manila up north. And I remember going down this road, watching them, you know, one pile driver driving piles through the rice field. And I went back two years, three years later, and that truck had moved up the road about 20 miles, still driving piles into the rice field. You know, by the time they had gotten the last pile driven, the ones on the other end had rotted away in the corrosive environment that it was sitting in. You know, so when you compare that to how infrastructure was developed in the rest of Asia, it was remarkable. And I think the reason for that was because there simply wasn't a willingness to invest in serious infrastructure back in the 60s and 70s or even the 50s. And so that's, I think, another important reason. And it's one of the reasons now why I think people are excited about growth in the Philippines, because they finally have access to capital for infrastructure development. Their roads are still woefully behind, so everyone in the world, I think, knows about EDSA, Epifanio de los Santos Avenue in Manila, because it's a horrible road, because once you're on it, you're on it for hours, you know, and it's just almost unpassable because the traffic has gotten so bad. So, you know, I think that that's another important part, that they were just unable to develop infrastructure and unable to get capital investment that allowed them to actually develop their economy like some of the other countries. Interesting, interesting. Well, I think this is a good time for us to take a break. You're watching Asian Review. I'm your host Bill Sharp. My guest today is Carl Baker, Executive Director at Pacific Forum. We're talking about the Filipino-American relationship, and we'll be right back, so don't go away. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. Hello, everyone. I'm Yukari Kunisei, host of the Japanese broadcast of Hello, Hawaii. I'm hosting this show on Monday, every Monday. This is a program where we host useful information, news, and guests from the Japanese community. Hello, everyone. I'm Yukari Kunisei, host of the Japanese broadcast of Hello, Hawaii. Welcome back to Asian Review. I'm your host Bill Sharp. My guest today is Carl Baker, Executive Director at Pacific Forum. We're talking about the Filipino-American relationship, and wondering just what does this say to it today? Is it really undergoing significant change, or just what's the situation? Well, how about some of the local politics in the Philippines? Yeah, I think it's important to realize that what's happening in the Philippines is somewhat different than it has been in the past. And the difference is that President Duterte has really taken a turn away from the American relationship. And while initially people were worried that this was a sharp break from the American relationship, I think what we're seeing is it's really an attempt to sort of indigenize Philippine politics. And so what we saw first, of course, is his big effort on the war on drugs. And it's been a little bit frustrating, because there's been what appeared to be a large number of extrajudicial killings. And it's a sad situation where I think there's people that were caught up in drug raids. And there was some evidence, significant evidence, I think, that there was some rather suspect work being done by some of the local police. And so he stopped it for a while. He called the military in to try to mitigate the abuses by the police, but then the police were brought back in. So there's a lot of questions about the drug war. My skeptical side makes me wonder, was these extrajudicial killings an attempt to wipe out the drug trade or a way to eliminate opponents? Well, no, I don't think it was to eliminate opponents. But I think what happened is it's always easier to get the little guy than it is to get the real kingpins behind the drug trade. And so I think that was where the problem occurred. As you go chase the drug user and not the drug peddler. And so I think this was some of the problem. And they've tried to correct that, but it's difficult because drugs is a dirty business. And as I said, it's always easier to go get the little guy. And so I think that there was a little bit of that as part of the problem. He incurred the wrath of the church, too. He incurred the wrath of the church, he incurred the wrath of all the human rights organizations in the world. And I think rightly so because I think there was a fair bit of abuse. And I think there was at least a glimmer of recognition on his part and certainly on the part of some of the people at the national political level in the Philippines that that was wrong. You know, talking about local politics in the Philippines, how would you gauge the influence of the Chinese Filipino community? Well, I mean, in the Philippines, the Chinese community are the ones with the wealth. For the most part, the Chinese merchants are the wealthy. Sort of like another Southeast Asian country? Typical Southeast Asian countries where the Chinese have made a lot of money in the Philippines. The big corporations are mostly owned by Chinese. There's a few old landed class people that have stayed in that inner circle. But there's about 40 or 50 families that control a lot of the resources in the Philippines. Most of them are Chinese. And a large percentage of those are Chinese. And those Chinese have really been fairly careful in involving themselves in politics. They've really sort of stuck with their businesses and their economic enterprises. But, of course, that influences the political system, but not directly. And so the Chinese play an important role. But it's an important role as a background, not as the front of the political scene in the Philippines. Interesting, interesting. Well, some people say that Duterte is selling out the Philippine sovereignty in order to, you know, glean favor with the Chinese. That he has not been as, how should we say, hasn't defended the interests of the Philippines when it comes to the South China Sea and those islands in the South China Sea. Yeah, and there is a growing amount of criticism of Duterte in the Philippines about what he's doing or not doing in the South China Sea. But the fact is that he actually has done some things that he probably wouldn't have been able to had he followed Kino's line of trying to get the Tribunal of 2016 enforced with the Chinese. And so actually what he's been able to do is he has been able to build some capacity on islands that are occupied by the Philippines. So for example, he's been able to actually improve the runway on the one island that the Philippines has that has a runway on. And he has been able to set up some monitoring stations on some of the islands in what the Philippines calls the West Philippine Sea, which is well within the EEZ of the Philippines, but he has been able to make some of those improvements. But it's not completely fair to say that he has simply abdicated the region to the Chinese. Having said that, the Philippines comes back and they're also very critical of the United States because they say, if the United States was a good ally, they would have been much more aggressive early on to prevent the Chinese from taking these islands. Why wasn't the U.S.? Well, that's a question you'd have to ask the Obama administration because that's really the administration that was in place when that all happened. And I think there was this faith that the Chinese were not going to try to militarize. That was the promise that was made. And it turns out that in fact they did militarize some of those installations. Well, yeah, that's really interesting. So perhaps some of the Western press has been a little bit overly critical of him. Yeah, I think they have. And I think that's why you sort of see this disconnect between the international view that the Philippines is in trouble and the view within the Philippines that they've maintained a pretty good sense of loyalty to deter today. You know, he still is running 60-70% favorable ratings in the Philippines, which is tough to do in that place. The Philippines tends to like these tough guy characters. You could say that about Southeast Asia. I mean, that's not just, do you think about it, not just the Philippines. There's a sense in Southeast Asia in general that they like a strong leader, that they like a strong leadership. And there's different forms, but if you look at Mahatir, it's back in Malaysia. Look at Hun Sen. Oh, yeah. Look at what Thailand is doing with the military basically staying in power, which is still there. And so it's a little bit of a Southeast Asia phenomena that we see a tendency to like a strong leader in power. Well, what do you think? Have there been assassination attempts under Turkey? I don't know. I mean, I think that there have been probably attempts, but there certainly hasn't been anything very... There certainly hasn't been any close calls that have been in the news or anything. But I would suspect that, as with all presidents, there are... Do you think he was staying in office or do you think he would get pushed out? Well, this is a big question of whether he's going to stay in office, but not so much because he's going to be pushed out, but because of his health. He's given several indications that he himself doesn't actually want to serve until his term ends in 1922. And he's disappeared from the public for extended periods to suggest that he may have health problems. And so there's talk, in fact, just recently there was talk that he would step down tomorrow if it wasn't Lenny Roberto, his vice president, that would take over. And so there was talk that just inside politics in the Philippines a little bit. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. or Bong Bong Marcos was the challenger to Roberto in the vice president election. And he's still contesting that election. And so if he wins his appeal or if he wins his case in court, then in fact he would become vice president. And then some people have said Duterte would step aside so that Marcos could take the presidency. That's really interesting. You know what occurs to me? As much as he Duterte badmouths the U.S. from time to time, the situation in Marawi was only saved because of U.S. military advice. Well, the U.S. certainly helped. And by the way, that was a big event for the Philippines that they saw that the United States did in fact come to support them in Marawi. So it was really a positive move and a positive influence on the relationship between the U.S. and the Philippines. But if you ask the Filipinos, they quickly say but it was really the Australians that were most supportive. Really? So it wasn't, you know, the United States got the media attention. But in fact, in the Philippines itself, there's a big recognition that Australia was also a very faithful partner. Australia had advisors, wasn't it, Graham? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, they actually provided support for that operation. Well, we're coming down to our last minute here. And so we're, you know, just sort of to get back to the theme of the show. Has there been a permanent change in the Philippine-American relationship? Well, I hate to say permanent because it's always an ebb and flow in the Philippines and the U.S. relationship. And so, you know, there's talk now about actually starting to implement the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, which was put in place during the Aquino Administration. And, you know, initially Duterte had said he didn't want anything to do with it. But in fact, now they've built their first facility up at Basa Air Base in Pampanga. And now they're talking about doing more. And so, you know, so it looks like some of those things are coming back around. And so it sort of depends on what happens for the rest of Duterte's term. But I think there's a more positive trajectory today than there was when Duterte first came to power a couple of years ago. Great. Well, I guess we're going to have to leave it there. You're watching Asia In Review. I'm your host, Bill Sharp. My guest today has been Carl Baker, Executive Director at Pacific Forum. We've been talking about the Philippine-American relationship. And Carl, as always, is full of a lot of very interesting insight and really good information. See you the next time.