– CIMSEC – Illicit maritime activities are at the root of Abu Sayyaf Group funding and operations, and ensuring the group’s defeat will require focused government efforts to improve maritime security in its area of operations.

– War on the Rocks – A storm is brewing in America’s oldest security alliance in the Indo-Pacific and the administration needs to act quickly to head it off.

– Nikkei Asian Review – High stakes internal battle under way over direction of Philippine foreign policy.

– CNN – Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte said Thursday he has ordered military personnel to occupy all Philippines-claimed islands in the disputed South China Sea.

– Reuters – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered the navy to put up “structures” to assert sovereignty over a stretch of water east of the country, where Manila has reported a Chinese survey ship was casing the area last year.

– National Interest – There is a Goliath menacing the western Pacific. China’s construction of three huge artificial islands with obvious military capacity in the South China Sea has already destabilized the security equilibrium in the region. Given the rising tensions and outright challenges to the established international security order in the western Pacific, it is time for the United States to align its Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program with its Pivot to Asia initiative, in order to strengthen the region’s Davids.

– USNI News – The Philippines’ armed services modernization program took a strange and alarming turn recently as President Benigno Aquino III’s final term comes to a close.

– The Diplomat – Amidst the tensions generated by China’s development of artificial islands in the South China Sea, Philippine Secretary of National Defense Voltaire Gazmin reiterated the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ (AFP) plan to rehabilitate the air and naval facilities in Subic Bay Freeport in the central part of the mainland island of Luzon.

– USNI News – The Philippines government has begun efforts to reinforce the tiny outpost of BRP Sierra Madre, a dilapidated World War II-era landing ship deliberately beached on Second Thomas Shoal in 1999.

– Manila Times – Undersea patrols in West Philippine Sea may roll out by year end.

– The Diplomat – Tokyo and Manila are preparing for yet another joint maritime drill.

– USNI News – Like many of its regional peers, the Philippines is in the midst of a defense buildup, motivated in no small part by China’s assertive moves in the western Philippine Sea and the resource-rich Spratly islands.

– The Diplomat – Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam are all striving to bolster their maritime capabilities.

– The Diplomat – How realistic are plans for the Philippines to acquire submarines?

– War is Boring – Manila has to make up for decades of neglect.

– Reuters – Thousands of Philippine and American soldiers began annual war games on Monday near disputed waters in the South China Sea, testing the readiness of the two oldest security allies in the southeast Asian region to respond to any emergency.

– Wall Street Journal – The Philippine Navy’s newest warship, BRP Ramon Alcaraz, is more like a middle-aged transfer than a fresh recruit. But newness is relative for what was until very recently Southeast Asia’s most run-down fleet, a navy rendered defunct by years of neglect and underfunding.

– Reuters – Philippine and American troops are set to hold naval exercises this month near a disputed shoal, which will almost certainly anger China with tension already high in the South China Sea.

– BBC – Journalists on board a Philippine ship have witnessed Chinese coast guard vessels trying to block access to a disputed shoal in the South China Sea.

– Reuters – When Philippine President Benigno Aquino compared China to the Germany of 1938 and called for global support as his country battles Beijing’s claims in the South China Sea, he put the focus on a case that Manila has filed in an international court. The Philippines has taken its dispute with China to arbitration under the United Nations’ Convention on the Law of the Sea and its lawyers say that the tribunal has discretionary powers to allow other states to join the action. China is refusing to participate and has already warned Vietnam against joining the case being heard at the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, sources have said. Hanoi has so far kept its options open. Any final ruling by the court on the dispute, one of the most tense flashpoints in Asia, cannot be enforced but will carry considerable moral and political weight, analysts say.