Manucduc, Joshua P.

Quinia, John Carlo A.

The United States of America’s Economic and Political Impact Towards the
Philippines

The Philippines started making relationship with countries such as USA, China,

Russia, and other Global North countries in order to improve itself in both economical

and political terms. Global South Countries such as the Philippines is considered as a

developing country which help and benefits other countries. Which in general, makes

other countries be globalized including itself. This relationships among Global North and

Global South countries enables globalization thus developing the countries economy.

This development accounts to many things such as utilities in energy resources, trade

market, and understanding in other cultures in order to build up more relationship

among other countries. In other words, relationships with other countries signify growth

and welfare for one country. United States of America (USA) is one country that helped

the Philippines grow better than before. USA is a Global North country which helped the

Philippines in an economic relationship thus giving more job opportunities for the

Filipinos. In a political point of view, good relationships act as a beneficiary alliance to a

country struggling to sustain its resources. Despite all the advantages of relationships

between countries are evident, it can still be harmful for a developing country such as

the Philippines when disagreement emerges. This disagreement may result to

destruction of alliances which can generally shuts down an economy of a Global South

country or in worse-case-scenario, it may result to war which will be detrimental to the

Philippines. In the present-day, countries have nourished a relationship that concerns

globalization where in the global marketplace has been “healthy” because of interaction
between countries towards trades. USA has brought many strong connections to many

countries including the Philippines in terms of economy. Although the Philippines is

frankly working on its economic and political integration issues, it still has discrepancies

which were caused by the government. According to De Leon, J. (2008), the Philippines

is economically and politically well far behind compared to its neighboring countries

such as China, Japan and Singapore. This is because of its puzzling economic and

political development which slows down the country’s development. Although the

Philippines economy started going down when the Marcos administration were

defeated, the Philippines held hope towards to USA that it can help to restore its

economy by entering the world’s healthiest market. This Philippine-American

relationship will be beneficiary to both ends of the relationship yet in some cases, this

relationship will be harmful if ever a disagreement comes up between two parties. In the

end, the opportunities given by the USA will be beneficiary to the Philippines because

those opportunities will sustain the growth of the Philippines into becoming a

sustainable country.

The Philippine’s economic ties among other countries will gradually improved

when it comes across with USA and made an alliance or relationship with it. If ever so

happened, this will gradually increase the Philippines’ status in the global market by

having more opportunities or job for the Filipinos in other countries which is an example

of globalization. In order for the Philippines to be on par with neighboring global north

countries, it needs economic integration in order to go to economic globalization. The

United States of America has helped raise the GDP of the Philippines to $356.9 billion

by having an agreement on Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) which

made the Philippines the 31st largest trading partner of the US. According to Stavridis of

NBC news, the US cannot cut its relationship with the Philippines duly alone by its big

investment on the Philippines. This investment accounted 6% of the GDP of the US

which is significantly big for any country. Yet even if huge money has been staked, the

economic and political ties of the Philippine-American relationship should be

reconsidered and strengthen. Both ends of the relationship cannot afford to lose each

other because of trade benefits and political and economic outcomes. Yet, after the

Duterte administration took in charge of the welfare of the country, the Philippines

started deepening its relationship towards its neighboring wealthy countries such as

China. This act made by the Philippines has brought imbalance to its relationship with

US. Yet the Philippines wanted to have more ties to big countries such as China. Being

the world’s main distributor of technology China is wealthy but this will not help the

Philippines improve itself to being politically and economically stable. If such corruption

happens, then the Philippines will not be able to strengthen its relationship with the US

anymore thus disrupting its system towards an economic and political globalization

unless if the US still helped the Philippines and improve the country’s credentials on the

trade market then more likely, the Philippines will start to improve once more. If a

country has credentials in the international trade, then its economy will automatically

rise. Being part of the international trade have advantages such as international

businesses investing inside the country which will be crucial in economic integration,

and increase in GDP. The Philippines’ population is steadily increasing but the Job, and

opportunities it offers cannot accommodate everyone thus having people living in

poverty. If the economic ties between the Philippines and US has been strengthen then
poverty will be lessened drastically which accomplished SDG 1 which is generally a

goal that will eradicate poverty in the whole world.

Internal inconsistencies are brought in with the Philippine-American relationship.

Example of this is on how the government handle the global pandemic. There is no

concrete reason why the Philippines must put crushed dolomite in manila bay when

there are approx. 300,000 cases of COVID-19 in the country. This is an example of

corruption in the government which depicts an image on where the government readily

waste 389 million pesos on this pandemic where economy is fragile. According to

Nawaz (2008), corruption in the Philippines is the biggest problem the country needs to

get rid of. Greed is what keeps the Philippine-American relationship being stable. This

greed concerns money, power, and resources. This greed can also be the reason the

Philippines will overpowered by USA because it is a powerful country unlike the

Philippines which is a developing country.

Another factor that strengthens the Philippines-United States relationship is the

Vising Forces Agreement (VFA) or also know “Balikatan exercises” is a bilateral armed

forces agreement between the two countries signed in the year 1998. VFA/Balikatan is

an annual training of the both countries armed forces and aims to improve Philippines-

United States combined combat and planning readiness under the mutual defense

treaty and it is also to show that United States is an ally to the Philippines especially in

resolving internal and external aggression (Panda, 2020). The VFA matters because it

provides strategic procedures on how to handle such issues. The US forces provide

intelligence about the potential threat to the national security. One instances that US

forces were felt in the country is during the Marawi siege in 2017, where they provide
aerial assistance such as drone reconnaissance to locate the precise location on where

the Maute terrorist group could be hiding (Schaus, 2020). After two decades of

implementation of the VFA in the country, The current Philippine president, Rodrigo

Duterte threatened to scrap the Visiting Forces Agreement to the United States since in

his early years in presidency, the situation has worsen when Senator Ronald “Bato”

Dela Rosa’s US Visa was got cancelled because Dela Rosa is listed on the

Washington’s human rights watch violators (Bueza, 2020). However, according to the

United States Department of States the Philippines-U.S. relations is based on cultural

linkage and to enforce democracy and humans rights as their commitment (United

States Department of States, 2020). But it may change since Philippine president made

backlashes against the U.S. especially in Obama administration and because of these

such instances, it is questionable if Philippine government would continue to share ties

with the U.S. government. In the past decades since the second World, the Philippines

receives assistance and benefits from the American government (Woolf, 2013). Thus,

United States Department of States have done efforts and committed to continue to

improve the Philippine Government to enforce peace and order such as supporting the

Armed Forces of the Philippines through VFA. Through the said VFA it helps the

Philippines protect its security and interests at the national level. One of the significant

support that the U.S. government had done in the country is during the reign of Benigno

Aquino administration. During his term, the both countries had signed the Enhanced

Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) to promote peace and economic stability, the

U.S. government provided approximately USD 40 million for the training and

contingency fund. One of the prolific achievements of EDCA is that they were able
assisted the Philippine Coast Guard on their National Coast Watch (United States

Embassy-Manila, 2014). In the articles of USAID 2020 it was stated that there will be

efforts on restoring/recover and assist some communities in the Philippines especially

on those earthquake and typhoon prone areas ((United States Embassy-Manila, 2020).

And since COVID-19 Pandemic has hit the world hardly but then the U.S. government

doesn’t astonished with the said pandemic and stay committed to its ties to the

Philippines, in fact the American government provided USD 5.500 million for COVID

assistance and increased with the total of USD 9.7 million to address the construction of

testing facilities, isolation centers and laboratories overall the archipelago. With that

being said, it is a loss for the Philippines and its citizens in general if the ties were cut

that binds the Philippines and United States.

The most suitable Sustainable Development Goal (based on the United Nations)

is the SDG 1 which talks about poverty and economic ties and SDG 16 which focuses

on promoting peace Creating a relationship to other countries, especially to the

superpower countries such as the United States of America is one of the strategies that

will eventually lead to economic and political integration. Based on the factual data that

had been provided earlier, the Philippine government should continue to bind with the

American government for the betterment of the entire country, Philippine government

should analyze thoroughly the proposal of the U.S. government if the said project would

benefit the mass. And for the Philippine government, they should not be relaxed or rely

solely to the aid given by the American government since it can be cut-off anytime.

Again, the Philippines should continue to cooperate with U.S. for its economy’s sake

and make these events as a step towards the Global Integration.