Philippine lawmakers demand US pays for bases to fund cash-strapped military pension scheme
Philippine lawmakers have pushed the Marcos administration to amend two defence treaties with the US and make the long-time security ally cough up for using Manila's military bases to fund a cash-strapped armed forces pension scheme that is staring at "financial collapse".
Senator Francis Escudero said he backed fellow legislator Ronald dela Rosa's proposal seeking to make American troops pay for their presence in the country to revitalise the pension funds of military and other uniformed personnel (MUP).
Escudero, a lawyer, said the United States "usually pays host countries for its foreign bases to cover the expenses of building, maintaining the sites and paying rent or other financial compensation to the host country".
Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.
"These agreements are usually established through formal diplomatic channels and can be revised or renegotiated over time," he added.
In April the Philippines announced the locations of four more military bases, including near the Taiwan Strait and the disputed South China Sea, that it is allowing the US military to use on top of the five agreed under the 2014 Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA).
China has warned the expanded deal could endanger regional peace.
In 2021 Manila renewed the long-standing Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with Washington after Rodrigo Duterte, who was president at the time, threatened to scrap the pact allowing US troops to operate and train in the Philippines.
There are currently around 500 US military personnel in the Southeast Asian nation.
Dela Rosa last week accused the US of not paying anything for its presence in the Philippines and suggested the government collect money from Washington to prop up the MUP (military and uniformed personnel) pension system that President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr has warned will run out of cash within six years if it does not become self-sustaining.
"We have to amend the VFA and tell [the US] to pay. They have been using our land, but they don't pay for anything," the former national police chief was quoted as saying by the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
He added "there was no reciprocity at all" in the Philippine-US relations and described the alliance as "one-sided" in favour of Washington.
A bill to overhaul the retirement corpus, which is currently fully funded by the government without contribution from its members, has been tabled in the Senate.
According to the finance ministry's estimates, the pension system faced a funding gap of 9.6 trillion pesos (US$171 billion) as of 2020.
Former defence chief Carlito Galvez Jnr told senators last month that about 70 to 80 per cent of enlisted personnel could opt for retirement to make use of the present pension scheme if the proposed changes go ahead.
Senator dela Rosa echoed that view and urged the government not to clear the bill in a haste.
"If they all will file for early retirement, the government would pay trillions of pesos in retirement benefits. That would really lead to a fiscal collapse," he said.
Newly appointed defence secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jnr said last week that reforming the MUP system is a key priority for him, calling on members to contribute to their "secured future" and make the pension fund financially sustainable.
Meanwhile, a Chinese navy training vessel berthed in the Philippines on Wednesday for a rare port visit, as the two countries contest reefs and waters in the South China Sea.
Dragon dances and a brass band greeted the 165-metre (542-foot) Qi Jiguang in Manila to mark its final stop on a Southeast Asian tour through Vietnam, Thailand and Brunei.
"It's a goodwill visit," Chinese ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian told reporters.
The ship "conveys the concept of mutual trust concerning China's peaceful development", read a leaflet distributed by its crew to visitors.
Beijing claims most of the strategic South China Sea including waters close to Philippine shores, ignoring a 2016 international tribunal ruling that voided its claims.
Chinese coastguard or navy vessels routinely block or shadow Philippine ships carrying out supply missions to islands in the disputed sea that host Philippine garrisons, Manila says.
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
Copyright (c) 2023. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
