{"id":27971,"date":"2021-04-16T19:33:57","date_gmt":"2021-04-16T19:33:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2021\/04\/16\/dont-sell-arms-to-the-philippines\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T20:56:53","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T20:56:53","slug":"dont-sell-arms-to-the-philippines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/commentary\/2021\/04\/16\/dont-sell-arms-to-the-philippines\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t sell arms to the Philippines"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Given its location in the South China Sea and its utility as a place to station American forces, the Philippines has long been able to count on American military support as a deterrent to antagonism from China. Historically, this support has included a steady flow of arms transfers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2002, the United States has sold the Philippines nearly $900 million<\/a> in weapons and provided over $1.3 billion<\/a> in security assistance. In February 2021, the Philippines said it would move ahead on a purchase of 15 Black Hawk helicopters<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Selling weapons to countries like the Philippines that have disastrous human rights records and chaotic leadership, however, is a recipe for disaster. Neither the helicopter sales nor most of the previous arms sales have any utility for deterring Chinese aggression. Continuing American arms sales to the Philippines, in fact, is both bad for the Philippines and dangerous for the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most obvious downside of arming the Duterte government is that the regime is actively using American firepower to kill and imprison its own people. In 2016, President Rodrigo Duterte told a televised audience that citizens had his support if they wanted to kill drug dealers themselves, telling them<\/a>: \u201cShoot him and I\u2019ll give you a medal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, as Amnesty International noted<\/a> recently, thousands of civilians have been executed in extrajudicial killings by the Philippine police and military in Duterte\u2019s \u201cWar on Drugs,\u201d many of whom are armed with American handguns, machine guns, and semiautomatic rifles. Duterte has also used a strong police force backed by recent weapons deliveries in combination with a COVID-19 lockdown to execute and arrest<\/a> over 30,000 people who oppose the regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

None of these horrors should have come as any surprise. The Philippines has long had a terrible human rights record<\/a>, and it has only gotten worse under Duterte. Sadly, despite occasional attempts to halt arms sales to the Philippines, the country remains one of the top five<\/a> recipients of American handguns. There are nearly 2 million unregistered firearms in the country, which has in turn fueled a vigorous black market and amplified the problems of gun violence and vigilantism in the Philippines.<\/p>\n\n\n\t