Calling for a Philippine Comprehensive Maritime Strategy (original) (raw)

The Philippines Discovers its Maritime Domain: The Aquino Administration's Shift in Strategic Focus from Internal to Maritime Security

How do strategic changes affect small powers? How do small powers adjust to strategic changes? This article addresses these two questions as it examines the strategic shift in the Philippines’ defense policy from internal to maritime security. With China’s naval expansion in the South China Sea, the Philippine government has eased up its counter-insurgency/counter-terrorism campaign and has vigorously pursued instead the modernization of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) particularly in developing the deterrence capability of the Philippine Navy (PN). However, slow-paced and hampered by scant resources, the naval build-up will hardly deter China’s encroachment on the Philippine maritime territory. Faced with this predicament, the Philippines has resorted to forging new security partnerships with the United States and Japan, two major naval powers in East Asia. The paper concludes that maritime security will remain the Philippines’ priority concern way into the third decade of the 21st century.

Strengthening Manila's Maritime Security Posture in the South China Sea: The Role of the Philippines-Japan Strategic Partnership

NDCP Executive Policy Brief, 2017

This paper aims to discuss how the Philippines-Japan Strategic Partnership strengthens Manila’s maritime security posture in the SCS. In particular, this article seeks to address the following questions: (1) What is a strategic partnership?; (2) Why is there a strategic imperative for the Philippines and Japan to forge such a partnership?; and (3) How does the PJSPD bolster Manila’s maritime capabilities? Using the strategic partnership framework developed by Thomas Wilkins, this paper argues that Manila and Tokyo forged a strategic partnership largely because of their shared concern over the uncertainty in the regional security environment caused by China’s rise, as manifested by its increasing assertiveness in the SCS. In this context, the Philippines-Japan Strategic Partnership’s objective of promoting peace and stability in the SCS is operationalized by strengthening Manila’s maritime security posture through: 1) enhancing maritime domain awareness; 2) conducting bilateral capacity-building initiatives; and 3) coordinating measures in managing tensions at the multilateral level. http://www.ndcp.edu.ph/wp-content/uploads/publications/3.%20EPB%20re%20PH-Japan\_v11.pdf

Unpacking the Philippines’ 2018 National Security Strategy: Examining the Case of the South China Sea Dispute

NDCP Executive Policy Brief, 2018

The aim of this policy brief is to discuss how the National Security Strategy (NSS) seeks to promote Philippine national security interests in the South China Sea (SCS). In particular, this paper seeks to answer the following questions: 1) How does the NSS perceive the regional security environment of the Indo-Asia-Pacific particularly, with respect to the SCS?; 2) How does the NSS articulate Philippine national security interests in the SCS and what are the identified courses of action to pursue such interests?; and 3) What are the challenges in promoting Philippine interests in the SCS?

ASEAN@50.PH (1) AEC Vision 2025 - a sectoral contribution of the Philippines to maritime connectivity and ocean governance

The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) : The Philippines stake and contribution to economic/political integration and consolidation, and connectivity-The Philippines will be hosting the 31 st ASEAN Summit later this year, at mid-century of its founding and into the second year of the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in 2015. The 50 th year of the ASEAN also marks a milestone with the implementation of the AEC Vision 2025 which is the second phase of constructing the AEC. The Philippines must take these important ASEAN milestones as an opportunity to project national concerns and core interests in the context of ASEAN regional integration and consolidation. It must seize the opportunity to promote regional ocean governance as a core regional interest for the AEC, projecting a core interest of the Philippines. This is a series of articles by balikBalangay to highlight Philippines core national interests that are core ASEAN regional interests.

Understanding the Philippine National Security Strategy

Understanding the Philippine National Security Strategy, 2016

National security is a concept that seeks for the protection of the interest of the nation state and its people with the state’s sustainability and survival its utmost priority, hence, a strategy to promote it is instructive for every nation. However, in the development of a National Security Strategy (NSS), the people must understand and have a common appreciation of the necessary fundamentals that constitute the framing of such a strategy. National security commands the employment of all the elements of national power: its territory, people and resources, and the use of political, diplomatic, economic and military components. The Philippine government needs to translate the employment and prioritization of these elements into a national security framework towards achieving its national interest of “ensuring its sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the well-being of its people and institutions are preserved, protected and enhanced” as mandated by the Philippine Constitution. In framing the NSS, the national interest should then be the precept. However, although universally used, global interpretation of the notion of ‘national interest’ is highly diverse and does not have a fixed definition. Conversely, there is a basic need to contextualize the concept of national interest to better guide the framing of a strategy to promote national security.

An Assessment of the Naval Capability of the Philippines in Achieving Minimum Credible Defense

The research presents an analysis of the process of attaining minimum credible defense through the assessment of the progress of the country’s naval modernization. The aim of the study is to assess the Philippine Navy (PN) Sail Plan 2030 under the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Modernization program, which in turn will be used as a component in analyzing the attainment of the minimum credible defense of the country. The assessment of naval military capability of the Philippines pertains to the actions and decisions taken by the government in naval force enhancement. Another agenda of the study is to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the strategies undertaken by the government in attaining minimum credible defense. Vital to the study was the analysis of government agency structures, actions and decisions in enhancing the navy and the problems encountered along the process and the consequences due to the implemented decisions. The primary question which the research aims to answer is ‘how has the Philippines attempted to attain a minimum credible defense through the modernization of the Navy?’ The term enhancement was operationalized by the process of modernization of navy in attaining minimum credible defense. The other term explicated is minimum credible defense through the definitions argued by different scholars. The process by which the questions were answered was through the assessment of the PN Sail Plan 2030 which included the examination of military enhancement policies, national budgeting, government transactions, navy enhancement policies and foreign policies. Qualities of naval equipment and vehicles were studied in relation to the budgets allocated which determined any accomplishment by the Philippine government in attaining minimum credible defense. Findings show that through undertaking the PN Sail Plan 2030, the Philippines aimed at refocusing its empowerment of the Army into reorganizing the entire military forces, balancing the priority for the Army, Navy and Airforce. However, agencies faced organizational, hierarchical, political and material acquisition complications. The success of the government in modernizing its navy has merely substandard results of a recent policy of the current administration wherein problems regarding strict implementation of rules and regulations, hierarchy, bureaucratic effectiveness and efficiency, government strength and consistency of policies from one administration to the next. This led for the researchers to conclude that the attainment of a minimum credible defense has been hampered by the influence of the inefficient implementation of the AFP Modernization.