EDCA Sites in the Philippines
- Tony Boccia
- Jun 28
- 3 min read
I've recently done some reading on the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) sites in the Philippines over at the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI). There's been a lot of work done throughout the archipelago, and Southeast Asia in general, to shore up defenses for an eventual conflict in the Western Pacific, however likely (or unlikely) that may be. In addition to the international defense and maritime security spheres, EDCA is clearly designed to help the Philippines stabilize some regions of the country that have seen low-intensity conflict for nearly 60 years, and this page will help illustrate that. Here's the map from the website, zoomed out to show the approaches to and from the Philippines from the South and Central Pacific as well as the Indian Ocean (via the Malacca Strait).
In an archipelago as large as the Philippines, which encompasses 7,641 islands across 300,000 square kilometers, location is everything. In addition to the country's position on the map, standing astride the shortest distance between the Malacca Strait and the Pacific Ocean, the Philippines have several waterways that have historically been at the center of world events. For example, the EDCA site on Cebu is a short flight from the Sibuyan Sea, where the superbattleship IJN Musashi lies in the mud under 1km of seawater, or the Surigao Strait, where the last battleship-to-battleship action in naval history occurred. The San Bernardino, Mindoro, and Luzon Straits are heavily trafficked by local, regional, and international vessels, and the island of Itbayat is only 338 km from the southernmost point of Taiwan. I've added these locations to the AMTI map.
As you can see, most of the EDCA sites are on Luzon, the largest and most northernmost of the islands. Two bases lay between the South China and Sulu Seas, on Palawan and Balabac. One site is on Mindanao, and another on Cebu. At a glance, it's not difficult to see that the United States and the Philippines are both getting what they need from this arrangement. Several bases cover the shortest (and safest) distance between Luzon and Taiwan, or Palawan and the Spratly Islands. Others are close to friction points in Mindanao, where a conflict has been ongoing since the late 1960's between the Philippine Government and majority-Muslim militias over regional independence and religious freedom.
The history of the Philippines both domestically and internationally is as long and complex as the physical makeup of the country, and situated as it is in the crossroads of the Western Pacific, it is unlikely that it will become less important. I encourage all of you to check out the AMTI website, and the unclassified portions of the EDCA that are there for our understanding and knowledge. Many of these locations are listed on or near other sites in the Philippines that are listed on the Pacific History Guide Google Maps list. The Guide also has a dedicated Philippines page that is designed to get you started if you happen to be down that way for a port call, vacation, or TDY trip, and you'll find a link to the EDCA on that page as well.
The AMTI website has been added to the Pacific History Guide resources page and several important books on the South and East China Seas are on the reading list, including Robert Kaplan's Asia's Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific and Richard McGregor's Asia's Reckoning: China, Japan, and the Fate of U.S. Power in the Pacific Century. There's a lot of great reading out there, and if you are a part of the Pacific Command in any capacity, even as a civilian dependent or DoD Civilian, it is in your best interests to learn all you can about this complex and fast-moving region. I leave you with this last image, the state of marine traffic in and around the Philippines at the time of this writing; June 26 2025.
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