APARRI, PHILIPPINES >> Last week the annual Exercise Balikatan — Tagalog for “shoulder to shoulder” — officially wrapped up in the Philippines.
The 40th iteration of the military exercise brought in service members from the U.S. as well as troops from Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, France and Canada. Among them were troops from Hawaii-based units.
“Brings back memories,” said Cpl. Justin Caluya, a member of the Kaneohe-based 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment who was born in the Philippine province of Ilocos Norte. Caluya was one of several Filipino Americans participating in the exercise who did double duty working as an impromptu interpreter helping bridge linguistic and cultural gaps.
“I’ve been here seven times, so I have a little bit of knowledge of the area, and it’s always great to keep coming back and be able to train with everyone,” said Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Mark Zyble. “It’s always good to be able to integrate with other cultures — that’s part of the reason of why I joined — and being able to work with partner forces and understand how other militaries are involved is just something that not many people might get to do.”
Zyble said he feels a special connection to the Philippines. Back in Hawaii he lives in Ewa Beach with his wife in a home close to his Filipino in-laws, including his wife’s grandmother from Ilocos Norte.
He originally joined the Corps as a combat engineer but is now a member of the 3rd MLR’s Civil Affairs team, which is tasked with outreach to civilian government agencies and community groups to gain their trust. Zyble said that in meetings with municipal and provincial leaders, “what we’re trying to do is just give us that placement and access so that we have good relations with those in the civil environment.”
The 3rd MLR and members of the Army’s Schofield Barracks-based 25th Infantry Division participated in Balikatan along with several other U.S. military units based in Japan and the West Coast. The exercise has grown much larger in recent years, especially as the Philippine military has shifted its focus from “internal defense” — fighting rebels and insurgent groups — to “external defense” operations focused on protecting its coastlines and island territories.
“This is a grand departure from the Balikatan exercises that I was first involved with, beginning in 2017,” said Philippine army Brig. Gen. Michael Logico. “Back then we were doing small-unit operations purely at the tactical level … but now we have elevated it to the joint and combined level so where what you’re looking at is integration of not only infantry, but also combined arms operations.”
This year, that included everything from artillery, warships, aircraft, drone and missiles. U.S. troops trained around the country, using several new weapons for the first time in several locations. Participants in the exercise held live-fire training on the island of Palawan and the western coastal province of Zambales looking out into the South China Sea and on the northern coast of Cagayan province near the town of Aparri looking north toward Taiwan.
International military observers
In addition to those who came to train, the exercise brought international military observers to watch from Brunei, the Czech Republic, Germany, India, Indonesia, Lithuania, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
As forces participating in Balikatan trained, the Chinese military also trained nearby, including sending its aircraft carrier Shandong into waters claimed by the Philippines and carrying out flight deck operations about 123 nautical miles off the coast of Ilocos Norte on April 25. The next week, the Chinese military began a new naval patrol in the South China Sea and 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.”
Back in Hawaii, top military brass and diplomats watched the Philippines from afar and took notes. At the same time, groups in Hawaii opposed to the exercise also watched closely and held their own events. On May 4 the Hawai‘i Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines and Anakbayan Hawai‘i, a Filipino youth and student group, held a webinar condemning U.S. involvement in the Philippines.
Anakbayan Hawai‘i said in a statement that it “strongly condemns the increasing presence of the United States military in the Philippines. This not only includes the increasing size of the Balikatan exercises, but also the addition and regularization of other military trainings between the U.S. and the Armed Forces of the Philippines that put the Filipino people at risk.”
Richard Rothschiller of the HiCHRP told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in a statement that the group “is alarmed by the accelerating increase in the size of exercise Balikatan and other military engagements, including the use of Philippine military bases by the U.S. and more frequent port calls by the U.S. and other foreign navies in Subic Bay.”
Rothschiller asserted that “the U.S. seeks to make the Philippines a co-combatant by goading it to confront China. This year’s annual joint U.S.- Philippines Balikatan exercises expanded even farther toward Taiwan than in previous years.”
The exercise comes not long after the return of President Donald Trump to the White House after he won the 2024 election and a Pacific tour in March by his new Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that included stops in Hawaii, Guam, Japan and the Philippines.
The Trump administration has expressed skepticism of alliances and openly embraced a more transactional approach to foreign policy. But Hegseth pledged during his stop in the Philippines — with which the U.S. has a mutual defense treaty — that alliance would stay strong. Filipinos went to the polls this week in their own midterm election.
A senior Philippine marine officer told the Star-Advertiser that “we need to further improve ourselves, because the security environment is continuously evolving, and we need to also nurture our relationship since we are both democratic countries. … Democratic countries change their leadership, so we need to always reinforce our relationship. Policy changes as leadership changes.”
South China Sea tensions
The South China Sea — a busy waterway that nearly one-third of all global trade travels through — has become increasingly militarized over the past decade. Beijing claims nearly the entire sea as its exclusive territory over the objections of neighboring countries, and tensions have been mounting over territorial and navigation rights.
In 2016 an international court ruled in favor of the Philippines and found that China’s claims have “no legal” basis. Beijing rejected the ruling and has doubled down by building bases on disputed islands and reefs. The Chinese military has also harassed and sometimes attacked fishermen and other marine workers from neighboring countries — especially the Philippines.
Tensions have also ramped up as China has also stepped up military operations around Taiwan, a self-ruled island democracy that Beijing regards as a rogue province. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has vowed to bring Taiwan under Beijing’s control, by force if necessary. On April 1 the Philippine military’s top commander, Gen. Romeo Brawner, courted controversy when he told troops in the northern tip of the country to “start planning for actions in case there is an invasion of Taiwan.”
Brawner, an alumnus of the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Waikiki, asserted in his remarks to his troops that “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. And it will be the task of Northern Luzon Command to be at the front line of that operation.”
This year the Luzon Strait was a major focus of exercise Balikatan. U.S. and Philippine troops trained in the northernmost province of Batanes — a small island chain just south of Taiwan — and the 3rd MLR brought its brand-new NMESIS anti- ship missile system. Col. John Lehane, the 3rd MLR’s commander, said that it’s a key strategic area, noting that “the Bashi Channel, the Luzon Strait runs through there, so all the world’s key waterways kind of cut through.”
It’s not the first time Balikatan has brought U.S. troops to Batanes; they’ve come at least three times prior. In 2024, German Caccam, mayor of the provincial capital, Basco, told Radio Free Asia that many residents welcome Exercise Balikatan “because it makes us feel more secure,” but also told the outlet, “However, as the mayor of Basco, I am not so amenable with the presence of foreign forces, especially the U.S., because that will make us a target.”
‘Untraditional training areas’
A senior Philippine marine officer told the Star-Advertiser that during this year’s Balikatan “we were able to execute our counterlanding and live-fire exercises in areas which I think would be the most probable areas that this kind of conflict might arise.”
Logico said that this year there was a shift toward “untraditional training areas,” taking troops from the bases and training ranges they’re used to. He said, “We have learned from these traditional training locations. So now for us to take a step further, we have to look for areas that we are unaccustomed to, and these are one of the areas we have to make us get used to training in these locations.”
This year also included use of moving targets as troops shot drones out of the sky and pounded floating targets in the ocean with airstrikes and artillery. Logico said, “That is something that we have never used before, so that adds a element of realism. We are not shooting at the stationary targets.”
But for some Filipinos it was nerve-wracking. When the Star-Advertiser joined a group of Philippine troops for lunch at a restaurant in Aparri during the exercise, the owner nervously asked them if they were there because a war was about to break out. They assured him it was an annual exercise and that it was nothing to worry about.
Col. Xerxes Trinidad, spokesman for the Philippine military, told the Star-Advertiser that this year various groups spread rumors about the exercise to stoke fears, and insisted that the Philippine military had been working to keep local governments and organizations informed of the exercise and where training was taking place.
Sgt. Jon Rafus, an infantryman with the 3rd MLR who took part in the live-fire exercise in Aparri, said, “If we have to go forward into into the next fight up north, on the the island chain, I think it’s absolutely critical that we are here doing this (training) with the (Philippine marines), with the Philippine air force, with the Philippine army, working in tandem. Because we all have the same goals in mind, right? Keeping all this land over here free and making sure certain people aren’t encroaching where they don’t need to be.”
