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Philippines - Foreign Relations

Philippine foreign relations are colored by the contradiction between subjective nationalism and objective dependency. After nearly seventy years of independence, Filipinos still view their national identity as undefined and see international respect as elusive. They chafed at perceived constraints on their sovereign prerogatives and resented the power of foreign business owners and military advisers. Yet, as a poor nation deeply in debt to private banks, multilateral lending institutions, and foreign governments, the Philippines had to meet conditions imposed by its creditors. This situation was galling to nationalists, especially because the previous regime had squandered its borrowed money. Filipinos also sought to achieve a more balanced foreign policy to replace the uncomfortably close economic, cultural, military, and personal ties that bound them to the United States, but this was unlikely to happen soon.

In its foreign policy, the Philippines cultivates constructive relations with its Asian neighbors, with whom it is linked through membership in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), ASEAN Plus Three (with China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea), the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting (ADMM), the East Asia Summit (EAS), and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. The Philippines chaired ASEAN from 2006 to 2007, hosting the ASEAN Heads of State Summit and the ASEAN Regional Forum. The Philippines is a member of the UN and some of its specialized agencies, and served a 2-year term as a member of the UN Security Council from 2004-2005, acting as UNSC President in September 2005. Since 1992, the Philippines has been a member of the Non-Aligned Movement.

The government is seeking observer status in the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The Philippines has played a key role in ASEAN in recent years, ratifying the ASEAN Charter in October 2008, and is serving as the Country Coordinator for the United States with ASEAN until mid-2012. The Philippines also values its relations with the countries of the Middle East, in no small part because hundreds of thousands of Filipinos are employed in that region. Protecting the welfare of the some four million to five million overseas Filipino contract workers is considered to be a pillar of Philippine foreign policy.

The Philippines signed its first bilateral free trade agreement in 2006 with Japan under the Japan Philippine Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA). The Philippines has also begun implementing preferential rates under the ASEAN trade in goods agreement (ATIGA), ASEAN-China, ASEAN-Korea, and ASEAN-Australia New Zealand Free Trade Areas.

The fundamental Philippine attachment to democracy and human rights is reflected in its foreign policy. Philippine soldiers and police have participated in a number of multilateral civilian police and peacekeeping operations, and a Philippine Army general served as the first commander of the UN Peacekeeping Operation in East Timor. The Philippines presently has peacekeepers deployed in eight UN peacekeeping operations worldwide. The Philippines participated in Operation Iraqi Freedom, deploying some 50 troops to Iraq in 2003. (These troops were subsequently withdrawn in 2004 after the kidnapping of a Filipino overseas worker.)

The Philippine Government also has been active in efforts to reduce tensions among rival claimants to the territories and waters of the resource-rich South China Sea. The Spratly Islands, some 100-230 islets, atolls, coral reefs, and seamounts spreading over 250,000 square kilometers on the South China Sea, are the object of overlapping sovereignty claims by China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Brunei. Although the Spratlys encompass less than five square kilometers of land area, the likely presence of oil, gas, and other mineral resources has kept the islands in the forefront as a regional irritant. The 2002 ASEAN-China Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea lowered tensions in the region, and in 2005, the Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking (JMSU) agreement among China, Vietnam, and the Philippines coordinated "pre-exploration" of possible hydrocarbon reserves. Following allegations of kickbacks and corruption, the Arroyo administration had little choice but to allow the JMSU agreement to lapse when in expired at the end of June 2008.

Under the 1898 Treaty of Paris whereby Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States, the Spratlys were defined as a "regime of islands" outside the baselines. The majority of the Spratlys lie with the Philippines' 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) granted under UNCLOS, while none appear to lie within China's or Taiwan's EEZs or extended continental shelves (ECSs). The Philippine Senate and House agreed in early 2009 to exclude the disputed Spratly Islands from the country's baselines, defining them instead under the terms of the UN Convention on Law of the Sea as a "regime of islands" -- although still subject to Philippine claims. Notwithstanding Chinese diplomatic protests over the Philippines' Spratlys claims, the accomodation achieved in the Philippine Congress appeared to offer the best hope of moderating tensions in Southeast Asia over the disputed islands, while defusing past charges in the Philippine Congress and the media that the Arroyo administration had performed inadequately in defending Philippine sovereignty over these islands.