The U.S. Can’t Afford to Lose the Philippines
If Duterte cancels the visiting-forces agreement with Washington, he will help al-Qaeda and strengthen China’s hand.
Burnt toast.
Photographer: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
The first time I sailed into Manila Bay, I was a young ensign on a Navy destroyer. It was in the late 1970s. I felt I was part of an unbroken line of U.S. sailors going back to 1898, when Admiral George Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet in that natural harbor at the start of the Spanish-American War.
The U.S. took the place of Spain as a colonizing power, and the Filipinos fought a long insurgent struggle for independence until World War II. After the war, thankfully, the U.S. granted independence, but the two nations have maintained very close political, military and person-to-person ties.