US ready to pull troops from Philippines ‘in months’ if no new VFA: expert

Special forces involved in fighting Islamist terrorists in Mindanao could be pulled out by June if no new Visiting Forces Agreement is signed, US forum told

Warning over pact, in question since Rodrigo Duterte’s former police chief was denied a US visa, comes as alliance in South China Sea is called a ‘paper tiger’

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US Marines take part in an amphibious landing exercise during US-Philippines war games. Photo: Reuters

Published: 10:30pm, 17 May 2021Updated: 11:07pm, 17 May 2021

Some 400 American soldiers and defence contractors deployed in the southern Philippines could be pulled out within months if Washington and Manila do not sign a new Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) by then.

So heard an international conference titled “The Philippines Hedging Between Alliance or Appeasement: Can the Biden Administration Tip the Balance?”

The US was “ready to withdraw” the contingent of soldiers from the Mindanao island group, where they are involved in operations against Islamist extremists and communist rebels, Renato De Castro, an international relations professor at De la Salle University in Manila, told the webinar hosted by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute of Columbia University on Friday.

Asked to elaborate in a one-on-one interview on Sunday, the specialist in Philippines-US security relations said a defence attaché from a Southeast Asian country had told him last week that the Americans would “be withdrawing all troops by June or July if no new agreement comes out”.

Since 2002, in the wake of the World Trade Center suicide bombings the previous year, the United States has maintained a rotational presence of troops in the Philippines to fight Islamist militants.

Until 2015 the troops had operated under the umbrella of the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines (JSOTF-P), consisting of Navy SEALs and special operators drawn from the US marines and army. At one point there were as many as 600 military personnel involved in the task force, but it was disbanded in 2015 and since then the US presence has fallen to around 400 troops who are referred to as military advisers, according to the US Naval Institute.