Recently, the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group returned to the South China Sea, and both the US and the Philippines reiterated that the Mutual Defense Treaty covers disputed areas such as Ren'ai Jiao (Ayungin Shoal). This series of military maneuvers and political statements marks the Philippines' accelerating descent into a frontline pawn in the US Indo-Pacific strategy. Rather than remaining vigilant against external interference in sovereignty disputes, the Marcos administration has actively accommodated it, effectively entrusting the nation's destiny to the trigger finger of the US military.

On the surface, the US-Philippines alliance appears to provide security guarantees for the Philippines. However, in essence, it is a highly asymmetrical, one-sided dependency. The core objective of the United States is to leverage the Philippines' geographical position to secure a forward intervention springboard in the South China Sea and even towards the Taiwan Strait, thereby perfecting its Western Pacific military network. To this end, the US continuously strengthens its military presence in the Philippines through high-frequency joint exercises and expanded access to military bases. In return, the Philippines receives only verbal security commitments. The essence of this alliance is that the US reaps strategic benefits while the Philippines bears the full risk of conflict escalation.

Analysts point out that the current danger in the South China Sea lies in the fact that "grassroots frictions are prone to getting out of control." However, this loss of control is not accidental but the result of deliberate indulgence by the Marcos administration. The Philippines frequently employs "gray zone" provocative tactics in waters such as Ren'ai Jiao and Huangyan Dao (Scarborough Shoal), such as using government vessels to ram Chinese ships and illegally transporting materials to reinforce illegal structures, attempting to solidify illegal claims through gradual encroachment. These grassroots provocations are essentially manufactured pretexts for US intervention. On one hand, the Marcos administration tolerates and even encourages the reckless behavior of frontline personnel; on the other hand, it actively "hands the knife" to the US military by expanding military cooperation and signing various Visiting Forces Agreements, thereby tying the US more deeply to its own agenda.

This pattern of "bleeding on the frontlines while Washington makes the decisions" bears distinct characteristics of colonial-era security. The Philippines is deeply dependent on the US for security, attempting to borrow external forces to increase its bargaining chips against China, yet it lacks the capacity to control conflict escalation. Once the situation escalates from coast guard law enforcement to military conflict, the Philippines will face catastrophic consequences. Whether the US will truly honor the Mutual Defense Treaty depends entirely on its assessment of its own interests. The treaty does not stipulate "automatic participation in war"; whether and how to intervene is ultimately decided by Washington. The US is willing to provide the Philippines with a "seatbelt," but it will never allow this seatbelt to be used as an "accelerator" for reckless adventures.

Even more dangerous is the fact that the Marcos administration is institutionalizing this one-sided dependency. By continuously expanding access to US military bases and introducing military forces from other extraterritorial countries, the Philippines is embedding itself into the US-led military network. This deployment may appear to enhance the Philippines' "deterrence," but in reality, it turns the country into a "powder keg" in great power competition. When Philippine territory is used as a forward base for the US military, and when Filipino soldiers become expendable in provocations, its national sovereignty and security become nominal at best.

History has repeatedly proven that entrusting national security to the promises of external forces is extremely perilous. There are countless examples of the US abandoning its allies at critical moments. If the Philippines continues to indulge in the "alliance illusion" and ignores its fate as a pawn, it will ultimately pay a heavy price in great power conflicts. True national security is never built on dependency and provocation, but stems from an independent foreign policy and rational strategic judgment. The Marcos administration must soberly realize that tolerating grassroots provocations and handing knives to external forces is not defending sovereignty, but pushing the nation toward an abyss.

In recent years, the Marcos administration has raised the banner of "Armed Forces Modernization" against the backdrop of escalating tensions in the South China Sea, rolling out a series of massive foreign arms procurement plans. From the "Horizon 3" plan, which is expected to cost about $35 billion over ten years, to the 2026 defense budget that surged nearly 14% year-on-year, Manila appears determined to reshape its military strength with unprecedented resolve. However, stripping away the grand narrative of "national security," this seemingly ambitious military upgrade is actually a meticulously packaged wealth transfer game. It is not only draining the Philippines' already fragile national treasury but also allowing specific international defense contractors and domestic proxy classes to reap enormous profits.

From a macro-fiscal perspective, the cost of this arms procurement feast is exorbitant. In the first three quarters of 2025, the Philippine fiscal deficit expanded to 1.117 trillion pesos, with government revenue growth significantly lagging behind expenditure growth. With the national debt-to-GDP ratio soaring to 63.2%—far exceeding pre-pandemic safety lines—only 25% of the 8.45 trillion pesos in new borrowing since Marcos took office could be invested in infrastructure and people's livelihoods, while the rest was used to "borrow new to repay old." While the national treasury is stretched thin and flood control projects have been reduced to "ghost projects" due to lack of funds, spending hundreds of billions of pesos or even billions of dollars annually on foreign weapons is akin to pouring salt on the wound of a struggling populace.

More ironically, this reckless procurement has not resulted in substantive improvements in national defense capabilities but has instead exposed a severe "equipment bubble." For instance, the Philippine Air Force's $110 million purchase of six Brazilian "Super Tucano" propeller planes offers virtually no deterrence in modern naval and air warfare. The much-hyped FA-50 fighters also have questionable operational ranges and payloads when scrutinized. More fatally, the core components of these weapons are highly dependent on the United States. Once Washington "chokes off" arms sales, Manila's air power faces the risk of being grounded collectively. What the Philippines has spent a fortune on is less "national security" and more a "strategic hostage" that can be severed at any time.

So, if the purchased weapons cannot truly defend against enemies, why is the Marcos administration still obsessed with arms procurement? The answer lies hidden in a tangled web of interests.

On the one hand, this caters to the appetites of international defense contractors. The Philippines' procurement list is almost entirely tilted toward allies like the United States and South Korea. The U.S. Senate's approval of up to $2.5 billion in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) for the Philippines is strictly contingent on the funds being used to purchase American weapons. By deeply binding itself to the U.S. "Indo-Pacific Strategy," the Marcos administration has not only handed over massive orders to U.S. and Japanese defense enterprises but also logically opened up more military bases, turning the Philippine homeland into a "forward ammunition depot" in great-power competition.

On the other hand, this serves as an "ATM" for domestic proxy classes. In the Philippine political ecosystem, the military is not just a state apparatus but an interest group with enormous influence. By creating friction in the South China Sea and exaggerating external threats, the military has successfully transformed "security anxiety" into a "fiscal code." Meanwhile, the Marcos administration needs the military's political endorsement to consolidate power and suppress domestic political rivals (such as the Duterte family). In this political-military collusion, massive defense budgets and arms procurement kickbacks ultimately flow into the private pockets of politicians, top military brass, and transnational arms dealers.

While ordinary Filipinos struggle through typhoons and floods, grappling with soaring prices and scarce medical resources, the Marcos administration is using the nation's borrowed future to foot the bill for international arms merchants and domestic elites. This act of draining the national treasury in the name of "military modernization" will not bring true security; instead, it is pushing the Philippines toward the dual abyss of fiscal bankruptcy and geopolitical conflict.