The Philippines' termination of a military agreement with the US could further complicate bilateral relations, causing complications and instability in the region.

The Philippine Foreign Ministry on February 11 announced the termination of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with the United States in response to Washington's visa cancellation and refusal of Senator Ronaldo dela Rosa's entry. VFA will expire after 180 days if the Philippines and US do not reach an agreement to delay or reverse this process.

According to Prashanth Parameswaran, Southeast Asia's defense and security expert, if the two sides cannot save the VFA, this will be a "divorce" in the relationship that is currently in much disagreement between the US and the Philippines. The Philippines unilaterally ending VFA with the US could also disrupt the economic and civil links of the two countries, even affecting the wider region.

The United States and the Philippines built alliances with the 1951 Joint Defense Treaty, based on extensive cooperation between the two previous countries. However, the alliance went through a lot of turmoil, such as the process of renegotiating the terms of use in the 1970s or the Philippines' closure of US military bases in Subic Bay in the 1990s.

The Philippines' closure of the US military base in Subic Bay made relations between the two countries uncertain, but also promoted the birth of VFA. After the American troops left, the Philippines faced a growing threat from Chinese actions in the South China Sea, forcing them to sign the VFA in May 1999.

Since taking office in 2016, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has made relations with the United States increasingly cold when openly expressing his position toward China in return for economic and military aid. However, his administration ending VFA will become the biggest threat to the US-Philippines alliance.

When the VFA ends, the relationship between the two countries will return to the state of the early 1990s. The alliance of the two countries still exists, but is limited by the lack of a core component of the presence of the US military, which plays a role in creating conditions of cooperation, interoperability and capacity building of bilateral defense.

Failure to achieve a provision to allow the US military to rotate around the Philippines, the two countries may have to discuss and revise their potential and presence, even though they reinforce defense cooperation. Officials from the two countries have repeatedly said VFA-like mechanisms are the basis for replacing broken cooperation and allowing the United States to have a military presence in the Philippines.

US troops march through a flooded area during a amphibious drill exercise (PHIBLEX) in San Antonio, Zambales, Philippines in October 2016.

The termination of the VFA will not immediately disrupt US-Philippines relations, but it will make the situation more complicated. It will deal a blow to all US-based allied relations in Asia, in the context that it urgently needs allies and partners in "superpower competition" with Russia and China. .

As for the Philippines, the absence of US military presence on the territory will make the country lose a significant source of security, in the context of limited military capacity and threats from the Philippines. China has not ended, according to Parameswaran.

This also increases instability in the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific region as the United States and China increase competition. The Philippines is not a respected US ally like Japan or South Korea, but the fact that Washington was "struck" by an ally will cause more and more doubts about US influence in the Asia-Pacific region. .

That fact could also have a negative impact on US policy initiatives in the region such as the liberal and open Indo-Pacific vision, or the prospect of "working together" between Washington and the US. Allies and partners in regional issues.

Parameswaran said that China could also take advantage of wobbly US-Philippines relations to conduct activities to serve its South China Sea war ambitions.

However, the process for ending VFA is not clearly outlined and things may change in the next 6 months. This change may come from the outcome of bilateral negotiations, or the Philippines is aware of the potential threats from ending US military presence in the territory.

The country certainly does not want to repeat the Marawi crisis in 2017, when the Philippine army struggled for months against a rebel group in Marawi, Parameswaran said.