Philippine Vice-President Sara Duterte has vehemently opposed the move as not being in Manila’s national interest
The facility is set to be built beside Subic Bay, where a former US naval base north of Manila once housed the largest American military installation in Asia before it was closed in the early 1990s and converted into a free port.
The revelation confirms that the project – seen by both sides as a keystone of defence and economic cooperation – has advanced beyond preliminary discussion. However, it has already stirred domestic political opposition, most notably from Marcos’ own deputy and estranged political rival.
A day earlier, Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio urged Filipinos to reject the project after Jose Manuel Romualdez, Philippine ambassador to Washington and a cousin of Marcos, touted it as a “good way of being able to help a combination of both defence and economic cooperation”.
Your personal data will be processed and information from your device (cookies, unique identifiers, and other device data) may be stored by, accessed by and shared with 88 TCF vendor(s) and 20 ad partner(s), or used specifically by this site or app.
