Angelo Jose

Political Science - PSC31

Political Economy
Sir. Jumel Estrañero
De La Salle University - Dasmariñas

Republic of the Philippines’ Political Economic Relationship with the United States and
China

The Republic of the Philippines’ relationship with both the United States and China have
been up and down during the past decade, one administration leaning to the former and the other
to the latter. At the start of 2016, after Former President Rodrigo Duterte was appointed as the
executive head of the state, the U.S and Philippines’ relationship began to change. President
Duterte began strengthening the state’s relationship with its neighbor China, as he deemed it as a
better and more reliable investment, data and articles online have proved the economic prowess
of China, entering the 2020 China has a 6% economic growth rate compared to America’s
-3.40% growth rate. This act by President Duterte, caused the rift between the U.S and the
Philippine, Duterte formally notified the U.S to withdraw their military units because of his
desire to terminate the Visiting Forces Agreement between the Philippines and the United States.
But in November of 2021, Duterte began to drop his friendly relations with China because of the
South China Sea matter and realigned with the United States, reinstating the VFA.

While the last administration more or less, steered the country's direction towards China,
the one before that abhors China. Former President Benigno Aquino III administration, had its
battle’s with China that lasted until the next administration, and that is the South China Sea or
West Philippine Sea issue, wherein China is claiming territorial right over islands and maritime
resources that are within the territorial borders of the Philippines. President Aquino prioritized
relations with the U.S as they aided in providing security and military assistance regarding the
ongoing China v Philippines issue and in 2014 the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement
was signed by the Philippines alongside the U.S, with its main goal of preventing China from
performing maritime activities in the South China Sea.

The current administration, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s administration, has promised
the people during his campaign; the lowering of Rice, oil, and daily necessity prices, but it seems
like the opposite was happening as evident on the insane increase of oil, rice, sugar, and now
onion prices in the country. As a citizen of the Philippines I have a lack of faith in the current
regime as so far, nothing significant has happened except the recent China visit of President
Marcos, where he discussed the ongoing South China Sea issue, bilateral agreements,
infrastructure and investment promises, which the former administration has already done but
was also evidently unsuccessful.

As a Political Economy student I have some ideas on how the Republic of the Philippines
and the current administration might want to handle the current political economic state of the
country. All of my ideas stem from a singular problem: Imports. Walking through convenience
stores and local markets almost all of the products are important, even at your own homes
gadgets, canned goods, to even your toothbrushes are mostly imported, simply put there’s too
many imported goods in the country. Tariffs are too low for the amount of imported goods in the
country, so it's safe to say that increasing the costs of tariffs may alleviate the economic state of
the country. While this helps it would certainly make importers deviate from our country as an
increase on tariff means lesser profit, so my next alternative idea would be the improvement of
local products, our economy would be reliant on transnational businesses and imports that it
would collapse our country if they withdraw due to an increase of import tax, so the best bet is to
provide high quality local produce on par with foreign products. But in order for local produce to
be improved, the government needs to invest in the business sector, and this is my last idea. The
government should invest more on their local producers to satisfy the consumers/citizens rather
than trying to befriend foreign investors.
Reference

● https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/gdp-growth-rate
● https://asiasociety.org/policy-institute/chinas-political-economy-2020
● https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/11/02/duterte-china-philippines-united-states-defense-mili
tary-geopolitics/
● https://sgp.fas.org/crs/row/R47055.pdf
● https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/seac/2017/08/23/changes-in-contemporary-philippine-foreign-polic
y-unravelling-the-balancing-policy-on-an-emergent-china/
● https://www.rappler.com/nation/updates-marcos-jr-state-visit-china-january-2023/