Australia Philippines Defence Pact: What the New Deal Does

The Philippines and Australia have signed a Defence Cooperation Arrangement intended to speed up joint activity between their maritime, air and land forces, with Philippine Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro and Australian Ambassador Marc Innes-Brown putting their names to the document at Manila South Harbor on November 15. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese witnessed the signing ahead of the 49th ASEAN Summit, which the Philippines is hosting as the bloc’s chair. Teodoro described the arrangement as an anti-red tape measure for the two countries’ existing Status of Visiting Forces Agreement, stating: “Rather than 100 steps to do a single thing, it will just now take 10.” The deal matters less for any new commitment than for what it removes, with Teodoro stating that the multiple permits previously required for each Australian activity in the country would no longer be needed.

The arrangement builds on a Memorandum of Understanding on Defence Cooperation dating from 1995, and follows a statement of intent that Teodoro and Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles signed in August 2025, when Marles said the two sides would seek to conclude a new agreement within a year. Its framework covers maritime awareness and information sharing, strategic dialogue, training, interoperability, humanitarian and disaster response and the development of defence infrastructure, while Teodoro said it would also support cooperation on military hardware procurement and joint exercises on land, at sea and in the air. Albanese announced further Australian investment in the Philippines’ maritime domain awareness, including drone technology, equipment and training to detect maritime and cyber security threats, although no figure for the funding has been disclosed.

Teodoro stated that the deal would strengthen what Manila calls its credible deterrence posture, particularly in the South China Sea, while China is building a runway of about 2,700 metres at Antelope Reef in the Paracel Islands. Australian forces have already been training in the Philippines on a growing scale, with Exercise Alon bringing together about 3,600 personnel from the Philippines, Australia, Canada and the U.S. around Palawan and Luzon between August 15 and 29, 2025, in what Australia’s Department of Defence described as its largest overseas exercise of that year. The arrangement is far from Manila’s only new defence tie, with a Reciprocal Access Agreement with Japan in force since September 11, 2025, and a visiting forces agreement with Canada signed in November 2025.

China has repeatedly opposed joint military activity between the Philippines and its partners, stating that such drills heighten regional tensions, and has kept its own defence diplomacy with the ASEAN chair at a low level, sending only its defence attaché to the ADMM-Plus meeting in Cebu in October. Beijing also continues to reject the 2016 arbitral ruling which found that its sweeping claims across the South China Sea had no basis under international law, a ruling that Australia has consistently backed.