forces to return to the former naval station at Subic Bay and the nearby Clark Air Base.” In an online briefing with Manila-based journalists, Romualdez revealed that the “president stated that if they are asking for the support of the Philippines, it’s obvious that, of course, if push comes to shove, the Philippines will be ready to be part of the effort, especially if this Ukrainian crisis spills over into the Asian region.” He specifically stated that the president indicated that in the event of an emergency, “the Philippines would allow U.S. On March 10, 2022, a couple of weeks after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Philippine ambassador to Washington, Jose Manuel Romualdez, announced that Duterte was ready to open the country’s military facilities to American forces if Russia’s war against Ukraine intensified and embroiled the United States. The Ukraine-Russia War and tensions across the Taiwan Strait However, cross-Strait tensions would figure in the alliance again during the last few months of the administration of former President Rodrigo Duterte. Eventually, concern over the stability across the Taiwan Strait, one of the rationales behind the VFA’s negotiation and signing in the late 1990s, was forgotten as the two allies focused on the war on terror and China’s maritime expansion in the West Philippine Sea. From 1996 to 1998, the two allies negotiated and signed the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), deemed necessary for the revival of the alliance after the withdrawal of American forces from the Philippines in late 1992.
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