No $500M US military aid to PH; only $100M, if bill passes
First of two parts
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin were misinformed in announcing the other day that the US government is “allocating an additional $500 million military financing to the Philippines.” Blinken called it a “once-in-a-generation investment” to help modernize our military, while Austin said “this level of funding is unprecedented.”
However, US President Joe Biden had made no such request for the Philippines in his budget message to the US Congress for fiscal year 2025 (October 2024 to September 2025). No such $500 million was allocated in the previous fiscal year.
The only way a $500 million military financing allocation could be given to the Philippines is through House of Representatives (HR) Bill 8771, titled “Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2025.” The bill was passed on June 28, 2024 by a close 212 to 200, and received by the Senate on July 8, 2024, which has to pass it, to be signed by the president to become law.
However, the bill allocates $500 million not to the Philippines but to Taiwan. The one for the Philippines is just $180.3 million, $100 million of which is for the US “foreign military financing program” and $80 million for “development assistance.”
(According to the US State Department, its “foreign military financing program” provides “grants for the acquisition of US defense equipment, services and training, which promotes US national security by contributing to regional and global stability, strengthening military support for democratically elected governments and containing transnational threats, including terrorism and trafficking in narcotics, weapons and persons.”)
By comparison, the bill allocates $3.3 billion in military financing grants for Israel and $1.65 billion for Jordan, of which $400 million will be for its government’s budget support and $425 million for the US “foreign military financing program.”
Allocations
The Philippines and Taiwan allocations are provided for in the bill’s Section 7043.
Paragraph G:
“PHILIPPINES. — Of the funds appropriated by this Act under titles III and IV, not less than $180,300,000 shall be made available for assistance for the Philippines, of which not less than $80,300,000 shall be made available under the heading ‘Development Assistance’ and not less than $100,000,000 shall be made available under the heading “Foreign Military Financing Program.”
Paragraph H, subparagraph 2:
“TAIWAN. — FOREIGN MILITARY FINANCING PROGRAM. Of the funds appropriated by this Act under the heading ‘Foreign Military Financing Program,’ not less than $500,000,000 (increased by $10,000,000) shall be made available for assistance for Taiwan.”
Both Blinken and Austin did not explain in their remarks in the Philippines on what pending bill in Congress they are basing their announcement of an “additional $500 million military financing to the Philippines.”
It is unlikely that HR 8771 has been amended by the US Senate to significantly increase the allocations for the Philippines. If it was, Blinken and Austin would have reported so. Despite our last two presidents bending over to allow the use of nine sites as military camps, the Philippines is not just that important to the US. Or they think that Marcos is such a pushover and an asslicker he need not be given a bigger allocation for military financing. Anyway, the Americans may be thinking the US military can use the EDCA sites to respond quickly to Chinese aggression.
Blinken only said, “We’re now allocating an additional $500 million in foreign military financing to the Philippines.” However, Austin implied it requires a US Congress bill: “We’re working with the US Congress to allocate $500 million in foreign military financing to the Philippines.”
Blinken’s trip to Manila the other day was actually his farewell swing to six Asian countries (Laos, Vietnam, Japan, Singapore and Manila). It was strange that in the state department’s website describing his visit, there was no mention of Blinken announcing a $500 million military financing allocation to the Philippines, which is a huge development.
I cannot find in US government announcements any reference to another bill other than HR 8771 allocating $500 million to the Philippines’ foreign military assistance.
$2 billion
There was, however, a July 19, 2024 report in the US-based website defensenews.com titled “US close to sending $2 billion in security aid across the Indo-Pacific,” which reported:
“The US is in the final stages of approving nearly $2 billion in security aid to the Indo-Pacific, one part of a broader effort to help countries defend against an increasingly aggressive China.
“The package includes $1.2 billion for Taipei, $500 million for Manila and around $300 million to spread around other partners, such as Vietnam, parts of South Asia and island nations in the Pacific. The numbers aren’t yet final, since the administration is still briefing Congress, and lawmakers are allowed input.”
The website, however, didn’t refer to any House bill that would authorize such an allocation, and the state department’s bureau in charge of the US “foreign military financing program” cannot on its own authorize such a budget allocation, which only the US Congress can.
This is the second time this year that the US “$500 million military financing” was reported to be on the verge of being allocated to the Philippines, but wasn’t. Our House of Representatives on April 23 issued a press release: “The extensive lobbying efforts of the Philippine delegation, led by Speaker Martin G. Romualdez, paid off as the US House of Representatives approved an $8.1 billion emergency aid package for key allies in the Indo-Pacific, including the Philippines.”
Romualdez
The Manila Standard, the Romualdez-owned newspaper, the next day ran an article with the headline, “$8.1 billion aid includes $500m to PH.” However, there was no such $500 million allocation for the Philippines in that aid package called the “Indo-Pacific Security Appropriations Act, 2024.” It was all Romualdez’s wishful thinking.
That $8.1 billion aid signed by US President Biden into law last February 23 allocated $3.3 billion to build up the US “submarine infrastructure” in the Pacific and $2 billion in foreign military financing programs for Taiwan. There was no allocation at all in the Philippines.
There was a last-minute attempt by California 48th District Rep. Darrell Issa to include an amendment to the Indo-Pacific Security Bill for the US State Department to allocate $500 million in foreign military financing to the Philippines. Issa’s amendment, however, was not included in the bill that the House sent to the Senate, which approved it, along with the bills relating to Ukraine and Israel, and transmitted to President Biden, who signed it into law.
It’s a mystery to me why Blinken and Austin, mere bureaucrats, would announce a huge $500 million for military financing for the Philippines, which only the US Congress is authorized to do. Don’t they care anymore since their boss Biden has practically become a lame-duck president since he announced he wouldn’t run in November, and whether it is Kamala Harris or Donald Trump, they’ll be history by January 2025?
What are these two clowns doing in Asia, when the Middle East is about to explode into war, threatening a global nuclear war, after the assassination of the Hamas leader right in an apartment of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards? Biden should order them to stay in some US Embassy in the Middle East, to be near for some crisis diplomacy.
HR 8771 has significant provisions intended to maintain the US global hegemony. One of these is the huge budget for media and propaganda-agitation operations in a number of countries. One of these institutions is the National Endowment For Democracy (NED) for which the bill allocated $315 million. The NED since 2017 has been funding media outfits Rappler, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, Vera Files and Mindanews. NED, however, stopped releasing information on the outfits it funds in 2022, with the message on the site that used to have this info saying, “Awarded Grants Search – Under Construction.”
More on that on Monday.
Facebook: Rigoberto Tiglao
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No $500M US military aid to PH; only $100M, if bill passes
Source: Breaking News PH
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