US-Philippines Joint Military Drills End Amid Local Economic Strain

The beaches of San Antonio in the Philippine province of Zambales stood empty as fishermen were barred from going to sea. Normally a hub of activity for fresh catches, the shoreline remained quiet during the period of the drills. “It’s very sad because we cannot go fishing,” said Madardo Agasa, a villager.

When weather is fair, Agasa normally spends half his time at sea. Instead he sheltered from the sun in a makeshift wooden beach hut with his vessel beached nearby. Just a few miles north, the waters Agasa usually fishes became the site of the Balikatan exercises, the largest annual joint military drills between the United States and the Philippines.

Drones filled the sky and small arms fire echoed as the drills took place. The exercises form the backbone of security cooperation between the two nations under a mutual defence treaty. This year’s Balikatan, which means “shoulder to shoulder,” involved about 17,000 service members and focused heavily on unmanned aircraft.

Lessons drawn from conflicts in Ukraine and Iran informed the training. Romeo Brawner, the Philippine armed forces chief of staff, said the character of war around the world is changing with greater involvement of unmanned systems.

Fishing bans lasting up to 11 days were enforced in villages near the exercise sites. Compensation promised by local governments has not materialized for many residents. Before the drills began, roughly 50 percent of fishermen represented by the country’s largest trade union could no longer afford fuel to leave harbor.

Activists staged protests in central Manila in May, including the sewing of a giant United States flag that they prepared to burn. “We want the United States to leave our country immediately,” said Kyla Benedicto, an activist. Some residents view the temporary American presence at nine sites across the country, permitted under a 2014 enhanced defence cooperation agreement, as creating security risks rather than reducing them.

The drills drew criticism from Beijing. China’s foreign ministry stated that the participation of Japanese troops, the first time since 1941 that Japanese soldiers had been on Philippine soil, represented another example of right-wing forces pushing for accelerated remilitarisation of Japan.

Tokyo’s contingent demonstrated military hardware and participated in sinking a decommissioned ship in the South China Sea.

The exercises ended last week at the same time the Philippines continued to feel effects from the US-Israeli war with Iran. With 98 percent of the country’s energy imported from the Middle East, fuel prices more than doubled in the weeks after the conflict began.

The Philippines became the first government to declare an energy emergency. Jerome Adonis, chair of the country’s largest trade union KMU, said some workers have begun skipping meals because of rising costs. “It’s really hard to feed our family,” he said.

The union added that in the midst of an economic crisis brought about by geopolitical tensions, Filipino fishers do not deserve to be restricted from their livelihood. Agasa said the situation had grown worse. “We have already suffered too much because of the gasoline,” he stated.

Adonis attributed the main cause to actions by Donald Trump. The Philippines sits at the forefront of regional pressures. To the north, China conducts military drills aimed at Taiwan, whose closest point to the Philippines lies 90 miles away. To the west, Philippine fishermen report frequent encounters with Chinese coastguard vessels in the contested South China Sea, where Beijing has militarised several atolls.