Is the Philippine military ‘massively underfunded’?

In 2024, Marcos approved a revised 1.9 trillion Philippine pesos (US$30 billion) plan to acquire newer military assets until 2034, aiming to enhance the capability of the military to project power in parts of the South China Sea that Manila considers its territory, in line with the emphasis on archipelagic defence.

In his State of the Nation Address in July, Marcos vowed to “do all that is necessary to continue upholding” the 2016 arbitral award, under which a tribunal’s ruling in The Hague negated China’s nine-dash line, which overlaps with the Philippines’ claims in the contested waterway.

Defence and security analyst Manuel Mogato called Marcos’ promise “mere lip service”, adding that the yearly budget should be at least 100 billion pesos to achieve military modernisation by 2034.

Mogato said: “He [Marcos] promised to prioritise modernisation. But he did not give any money [for new military hardware] for next year.”