In this file photo taken on April 23, 2023, US soldiers fold a US and Philippine flag at Subic Bay Freeport Zone as part of the US-Philippines joint military exercise “Balikatan.” (Photo by JAM STA ROSA / Agence France-Presse)
WASHINGTON — The Philippines’ 72-year-old military agreement with the United States should “evolve” in the face of new challenges in the security landscape in the Asia-Pacific region, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said on the eve of his one-on-one meeting with US President Joe Biden here.
Marcos, who arrived at the US capital on Sunday afternoon after a 15-hour flight from Manila, will be meeting with Biden and other top US executive and security officials at the White House on Monday morning (Tuesday night in Manila).
Marcos, whose official delegation includes House Senior Deputy Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, a former president, said the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) between the United States and the Philippines would be a top agenda of his meeting with the American leader.
“That’s really one of the main purposes of the visit,” Marcos told reporters who joined him on the presidential plane.
“On the political level, it (meeting with Biden) will still be centered around the relationship between the Philippines and the United States,” he added.
The president repeated his previous statement that the military agreement should be reviewed as China has become a military and economic giant while the United States has considerably trimmed down its military presence in the region.
“Well, that’s pretty much what we’re going to talk about now. The reason it has to evolve is because the conditions are changing,” Marcos said.
“The conditions under which the [MDT] was written… are completely different from the conditions that we’re facing now,” he noted.
Peaceful region
On the other hand, he noted, the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations had “also changed their position in the world.”
“That’s why we call it a continuing evolution because we have to be able to respond to the situation as it happens,” he added.
The president maintained that the country had no intention to encroach on the territorial waters of other nations.
“We don’t have any other interest but to have a peaceful region,” he said. “We don’t have any interest to expand our territory.”
Ahead of the president’s meeting with Biden, more than 100 faith organizations in the United States and the Philippines called on the US leader to abstain from any new military agreements with the Philippines until Manila has made certain reforms to its military and police forces.
In an open letter by groups led by the Ecumenical Advocacy Network on the Philippines, Pax Christi USA, Presbyterian Church-USA Office of Public Witness, and the United Methodist Church Board of Church & Society, they also urged Biden to support the Philippine Human Rights Act filed in the US Congress, which hopes to suspend US security assistance to the Philippines until it has investigated and prosecuted human rights abuses committed by its security forces.