Philippine coast guard Adm. Ronnie Gil Gavan poses for a photo at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, Honolulu, Aug. 8, 2025. (Allan Criss/Department of Defense)
(Tribune News Service) — During a recent visit to Honolulu, the Philippine coast guard’s top officer, Adm. Ronnie Gil Gavan, told a roundtable of reporters that tension in “the South China Sea is an existential issue not only for the Philippines, but for the world.”
Gavan was in town for the now annual Honolulu Defense Forum, which brought together senior military officials, diplomats and arms manufacturers from around the world as they discussed potential conflicts in the Pacific.
The Philippines and other countries have been embroiled in a bitter dispute with China over territorial and navigation rights in the South China Sea, which Beijing regards as its exclusive sovereign territory. That includes most of an area the Philippines calls the West Philippine Sea.
In 2016 an international court ruled in favor of the Philippines, declaring that China’s expansive claims have “no legal basis.” But Beijing has called that ruling “illegal ” and has continued to deploy its military and coast guard to disputed islands and reefs, building bases on them and has attacked and harassed Filipino fishermen.
Gavan said that “for us Filipinos, it means our dignity as a country, because it is our territory … and also the source of energy, a source of food, a place for conveyance. But that’s only half of the truth.” He said “the other half of the truth” is that the South China Sea holds the sea lane that “links the east and the west.” More than a third of all international trade moves through it, and analysts worry that a blockade or the breakout of a major conflict in the region could throw global supply chains into chaos.
“So it is not just for us, it’s also for the world … and we in the coast guard are very conscious of that,” Gavan asserted. “That’s why we have been reaching out to our friends and partners if they want to have significant footprints on the South China Sea, we will be very glad to offer them opportunities for cooperation.”
Soldiers and Marines from Hawaii-based military units have routinely deployed to the Philippines for joint training exercises, notably the annual Exercise Balikatan, which has grown bigger every year.
Philippine military and coast guard personnel also have trained extensively in the U.S. and have participated in training and exchanges in Hawaii, including the biennial Rim of the Pacific exercise and the U.S. Army’s growing Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center. But they are also increasingly seeking cooperation with those from other countries.
The U.S. once ruled over the Philippines as a colony and the two have a mutual defense treaty. The U.S. military hasn’t had permanent bases in the country since nationalist protests led to its eviction in the early 1990s, but through a series of agreements American forces again have access to conduct operations from some Philippine military facilities.
Last year during Balikatan, the Kaneohe-based 3rd Marine Littoral Division debuted its new missile launching Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System — better known as the NMESIS — taking it to the northern Batanes Islands in the Luzon Strait, just south of Taiwan.
The fate of Taiwan, a self-ruled island democracy that China regards as a rogue province, has become increasingly intertwined with the Philippines. It’s a key source of semiconductors most modern electronics need to function, giving it an outsized role in the global economy, and the Taiwan Strait is one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.
Just before last year’s Balikatan, the Philippine military’s top commander, Gen. Romeo Brawner, told troops in the northern tip of the country to plan for spillover consequences of a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
Brawner, an alumnus of the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Waikiki, told them “if something happens to Taiwan, inevitably we will be involved. There are 250,000 (overseas Filipino workers) working in Taiwan, and we will have to rescue them.”
But Brig. Gen. Roy Anthony Derilo, the military attache at the Philippine Embassy in Washington, D.C., said that the challenges may be even bigger than that, arguing that the Philippines’ close proximity to Taiwan means it likely will be one of the first places other civilians fleeing the conflict will go seeking safety.
“We cannot manage the Filipinos alone, ” Derilo said. “We have to put into consideration managing the French people there, Indonesian people there, American people there, Italians, anyone who is there because we are the nearest.”
China has condemned the United States as an unwelcome outsider, accusing it of interfering in its feud with the Philippines. But Gavan argued that “The U.S. is not a far neighbor, it’s a near neighbor. Guam is close by, and we share water, so it’s not only China who can claim to be a neighbor of the Philippines.”
However, last year the administration of President Donald Trump released its new national security strategy. Though it noted freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and maintaining the status quo in Taiwan as key U.S. interests, it put a much larger emphasis on the Western Hemisphere and prioritized border security, deporting immigrants and fighting drug cartels in Latin America, while also questioning many traditional alliances.
The strategy came out as the administration was launching controversial killing strikes against alleged drug traffickers in the Carribbean and Eastern Pacific, while amassing a military buildup off the coast of Venezuela. Trump rang in the new year by sending the Army’s elite Delta Force into Venezuela to capture its president, Nicholas Maduro, and declaring that the U.S. would “indefinitely ” control the country’s oil.
Since then, Trump also renewed calls for the U.S. to take possession of Greenland and threatened NATO allies with tariffs if Greenland wasn’t handed over until relenting last week after striking an apparent compromise on Arctic issues at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
“We are, I think, fortunate that we are not experiencing what others may be experiencing now, ” Gavan said. “In fact, the engagement has been further enhanced, not only with defense, but with the other instruments of the United States.”
But in recent years, the Philippines already has been seeking increased military and diplomatic cooperation with other countries.
During a stop in Honolulu on the way back to Manila after attending the 2023 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in San Francisco, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. told an audience at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies that “the way forward is to strengthen our partnerships with all our neighbors and with all friendly nations who share our ideals.”
Though its only treaty ally is the United States, Manila also has been buying new warships from South Korea and has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. This year it is looking at new potential agreements with France, Britain and Germany. Derilo said that American leaders have largely voiced support for the Philippines pursuing new military partnerships and relying less on the U.S.
Exercise Balikatan, which began as a relatively small bilateral exercise between the U.S. and the Philippines, has become a large multinational one that Manila has used to showcase its growing list of partners — against China’s vocal objections. The Philippine navy also has been conducting joint patrols with various countries throughout the year. Last year during Balikatan, as the Chinese navy launched a large patrol in the South China Sea, it released a statement asserting that “the Philippines has been frequently carrying out maritime infringement provocations, creating disturbances and pulling in countries from outside the region to organise so-called ‘joint patrols.’”
Gavan highlighted growing cooperation with Canada in particular. In December, the Philippine coast guard used Canada’s Dark Vessel Detection program to identify a Chinese research vessel off the coast of the Philippines’ northeastern Cagayan Province.
Gavan dispatched an aircraft to confirm its presence and the pilot sent multiple radio challenges to the vessel, asking it about its intentions and asserting that it needed prior consent for marine scientific research in Philippine waters. According to the Philippine coast guard, it did not respond to any of the radio calls.
Philippine officials say among their top concerns is that Beijing seeks to “normalize” its claims under the “nine dash line,” a border drawn by China encompassing its vast claims in the South China Sea, with persistent operations in their waters.
After years of facing charges of illegal fishing by Chinese vessels and damaging reefs through its base-building efforts, Beijing flipped the script and accused Filipino fishermen of intruding in their waters. In September China declared the disputed Scarborough Shoal a nature reserve, declaring that Chinese coast guard vessels were trying to defend it from Filipino fishermen.
Gavan said that he believes the move is an “attempt to provide them a pretext to be more present there, and a pretext to their attempt to put up a structure there.” He added, “How can you conserve a place and at the same time field dozens of fishing vessels?”
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