At the end of the day, deterrence, whether in or out of the West Philippine Sea, is primarily about presence.

In Philippine-occupied features in the west and the north, it means having bases, outposts, and equipment that can support soldiers who, for months at a time, keep watch over these islands.

For the rest of the country's maritime areas, it means having vessels -- be it from the Philippine Navy or civilian agencies like the Philippine Coast Guard or even the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources -- on patrol 24/7.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS)'s 2024 Military Balance estimates the Philippine Navy's personnel at around 25,000 -- lower than Indonesia's 53,000, but higher than South China Sea claimant Vietnam's 13,000. Those numbers combined are dwarfed by the approximately 252,000-strong military personnel of China.

The Philippine Navy does not only have a modest number of personnel, it is also burdened by the slow pace of modernization in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) as a whole.

In the government's proposed 2026 national budget, for example, only P40 billion was allocated for the AFP modernization program, or the Revised AFP Modernization Program (RAMP). Some P50 billion for RAMP was lodged under unprogrammed funds, which means it can only be funded with new sources of revenue that are not from new or non-tax sources, or through foreign loans. The defense department's original ask for modernization in 2026 was over P133 billion.

Indeed, it's been a road of hits and misses for the AFP's modernization, especially regarding its maritime service, the Philippine Navy.

The modernization push began officially three decades ago, in 1995, nearly a decade after the ouster of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

Three years before that, under the late Corazon Aquino, the Philippine Senate made an unprecedented move of rejecting the military bases agreement between Manila and Washington, which had allowed allowed the US to establish and maintain bases in the Philippines. This scarred security ties between both countries, leaving the AFP with little to speak of in training and equipment that the US used to provide.

Succeeding Aquino, the late president Fidel V. Ramos pushed for a law to modernize the military. "It is hereby declared the policy of the State to modernize the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to a level where it can effectively and fully perform its constitutional mandate to uphold the sovereignty and preserve the patrimony of the Republic of the Philippines," reads Republic Act Number 7898, which he signed into law on February 23, 1995.

As early as then, the importance of the Philippines' maritime features and claims were emphasized.

The law's objectives included developing the AFP's "capability to uphold the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic and to secure the national territory from all forms of intrusion and encroachment" and its "capability to assist civilian agencies in the preservation of the national patrimony, including the country's living and nonliving marine, submarine, mineral, forest and other natural resources located within its territory and its exclusive economic zone (EEZ)."

Consider, too, the incidents in the South China Sea and beyond in 1995.

The year prior, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea or UNCLOS had just come into force, which defined the extent and limits of a nation's territorial waters and exclusive economic zone (EEZ), among others. UNCLOS is among the foundations of the Philippines' West Philippine Sea policy today.

In 1995, too, China began construction on Mischief Reef, a feature that's just over 184 nautical miles from Puerto Princesa in Palawan. Back then, China claimed it was merely a fisherman's wharf. Today, it is a military base located within the Philippines' EEZ.

Just two years later, however, military modernization was "effectively defunded" because of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, according to a 2016 report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

By the time a second Aquino, Corazon's son the late Benigno Aquino III, was elected president in 2010, the Philippines was light-years behind modernization. In 2012, seven months after a tense standoff between the Philippines and China in Scarborough Shoal, the Philippines passed the Revised AFP Modernization Act, a 15-year plan that the Philippines follows to this day.

Under Horizon 1, the first four-year period in the military's modernization program from 2013 to 2017, the Navy acquired two Jose Rizal-class frigates (FF-150 and FF-151), two Tarlac-class landing platform docks (LD-601 and LD-602), and several fast attack interdiction craft and multi-purpose attack craft.

From 2018 to 2022, under Horizon 2, the Navy purchased the two Miguel Malvar-class frigates (FFG-06 and the forthcoming FFG-07), several offshore patrol vessels, as well as one more landing platform dock vessel.

In the Philippines' EEZ and waters, the Navy's old reliables are still its work horses. West of the mainland, for instance, the Del Pilar-class patrol vessels, which were once Hamilton-class cutters of the US Coast Guard, continue to log in hours for maritime patrols.

It is was June 2025 when the BRP Andres Bonifacio (FF-17) sailed from Pag-asa Island, Parola, to Likas, and back. On board was a group of journalists and military public affairs officers for a days-long maritime patrol in the West Philippine Sea.

BRP Bonifacio has seen better days.

In the week aboard the ship, air-conditioning ran at half power and was due for repair once the patrol concluded. Parts of the sewage system conked out a few times -- whether it was because of her visitor's failure to follow protocols, or her age, or the sheer number of individuals who now added to her crew, was but a minor detail.

Bonifacio wasn't the newest and flashiest even if she'd just been through major upgrades in 2020, one officer conceded -- but she's still pulling her own weight.

"Ang pinapakita lang natin dito is that we have the right to be conducting maritime patrols in these islands - not necessarily to fight or defend.... Importante na maikutan natin ang mga isla because this is how we establish our naval presence," Lieutenant Jade Marlon Pontillo, Combat Information Center officer of the Bonifacio, told reporters aboard the ship.

(What we're showing here is that we have the right to conduct maritime patrols in these islands. This isn't necessarily an exercise to fight or defense. It's important to patrol these islands because this is how we establish our naval presence.)

Because while the Bonifacio and her sister ships, BRP Gregorio del Pilar and BRP Ramon Alcaraz, patrol the Philippines' EEZ, newer ships like the BRP Jose Rizal and the newest as of mid-2025, the BRP Miguel Malvar, are busy training with allied and partner navies in the West Philippine Sea.

Case in point: the Malvar's maiden voyages after its commissioning in May 2025 were all for Maritime Cooperative Activities (MCA), first with the United States and then with Japan.

For her crew, the back-to-back joint sails were a chance not only to learn how to operate with the Philippines' partners; it was a chance to understand better how the new frigate worked. The Philippines has conducted more than 20 MCA and Multilateral Maritime Cooperative Activities (MMCA) with countries like the United States, Australia, Japan, Canada, New Zealand, France, and India since November 2023.

Amid all this, modernization funds, covering not just the Navy but the entire AFP, have steadily increased through the years.

Marcos' first full budget for 2023 set aside P27.5 billion for modernization under programmed funds and P17.5 billion under unprogrammed funds. In the following year, P40 billion for modernization efforts were placed under programmed appropriations and only P10 billion under unprogrammed funds.

The set-up changed in 2025, when only P35 billion was funded through programmed appropriations, and over P40 billion through unprogrammed funds.

The Marcos administration had initially wanted a different set-up for 2025.

According to the 2025 National Expenditure Program or its proposed budget for 2025, a total of P50 billion for modernization was meant to be lodged under programmed appropriations, and just a little over P12 billion under unprogrammed appropriations.

Somewhere along the budget deliberation process before Congress, that flipped.

At a hearing for the proposed 2026 budget, the Department of National Defense confirmed that it had not made requests for additional funding from the P40 billion under unprogrammed funds in the 2025 General Appropriations Act.

Rappler's resident economist JC Punongbayan sees the change -- of the bulk of modernization going to unprogrammed appropriations instead of programmed appropriations -- as part of a larger trend, where important items such as flagship infrastructure projects under the transportation department and even social programs become "casualties" in the budget.

Why does this matter? Having the bulk of modernization funds as unprogrammed means less certainty in the sourcing of funds.

So what happens, then, to the urgency and primacy of modernization?

The apparent de-prioritization of modernization strikes an even deeper cord as deep-seeded corruption in infrastructure projects become the subject of probes in Congress and by an independent body set-up by the executive branch.

Teodoro told Rappler that he'd rather big-ticket modernization projects be funded by loans or foreign sources, so long as the budget for regular operations -- including the purchase as ammunition and bullets, for instance -- is increased.

Teodoro, speaking before a House panel on September 16, proposed a "standby fund... to capture the latest technology." He said: "Deterrence capabilities cannot be fixed... a fixed capability is an inviting target and it will be a first target."

Presence is not just about patrols. It also means making sure even the most remote of Philippine-controlled features are manned at all times.

For several months at a time, male Marines stand guard at Naval Detachment Likas, one of the Philippines' nine outposts in the West Philippine Sea. They brave bad weather, the rare encounter with other claimants in the West Philippine Sea, and loneliness -- to make sure the Philippine flag is planted in the feature at all times.

It's the Marines who also stand guard on the BRP Sierra Madre, a rusting World War II-era warship that serves as an outpost in Ayungin Shoal, where rotation and resupply missions can become dangerous, no thanks to China's harassment. Navy men also man Pag-asa Island, Panata island, Kota Island, Patag Island, Lawak Island and Rizal Reef, all in the West Philippine Sea.

RORE missions are a flashpoint for tensions in Ayungin Shoal. Sail close enough to Mischief Reef, the "fisherman's shelter" that's since turned into a military base, and you're bound to soon see a Chinese ship. In Scarborough Shoal, under Chinese control since 2012, harassment can begin as far as 30 nautical miles away from the opening of the shoal.

The Philippines' hardware pales in comparison to superpower China's -- three (soon, four) frigates compared to Beijing's 49. China, unlike the Philippines, has in its inventory 59 submarines, 42 destroyers, 8 cruisers, and 2 aircraft carriers, according to the IISS Military Balance 2024.

It's why the DND and AFP are looking to newer technology to fix the asymmetry. In a September 2025 budget briefing, Teodoro singled out "missiles, space technology, drones, and other capabilities" as the department's modernization priorities. He has also proposed updating the country's modernization law, which prescribes a 15-year horizon for modernization. "It's too long and too impracticable," he said in August 2025.

What it lacks in manpower and assets, the Philippines tries to make up with through a "latticework" of friends and allies.

Under the second Marcos administration, the Philippines has made a hobby of expanding military ties through strategic partnerships or access agreements.

Since 2022, Manila has gained three new strategic partners in Australia, South Korea, and India.

Military access and training agreements have also doubled, with even more either awaiting signature or the close of negotiations. The Philippines has long had a Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with its treaty-ally the United States and a Status of the Visiting Forces Agreement (SOVFA) with Australia.

In July 2024, the Philippines signed a Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) with Japan which has since come into force. In 2025, it concluded negotiations and then signed a SOVFA with New Zealand. It's done negotiating a SOVFA with Canada, which is expected to be signed before the year's end.

Negotiations are either ongoing or about to kickstart with two North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members for SOVFAs, France and the United Kingdom.

As negotiations are taking place, the AFP has been making up for lost time in activating its forward operating bases up north, with the latest being the base in Mahatao town in the northernmost province of Batanes just in August 2025.

There is, of course, the northernmost detachment in Mavulis island, manned in part by the Marines of the 4th Marine Brigade.

The Navy has also reorganized its forces up north and to the west. Naval Forces West is now the Western Naval Command while the Naval Forces Northern Luzon has been reorganized to the Northern Luzon Naval Command.

The Western Naval Command based in Puerto Princesa watches over the entire of Palawan, including the Kalayaan Island Group, which features like Likas are under. The Naval Forces Northern Luzon based in San Fernando, La Union, is tasked to secure Scarborough Shoal in the west, the Balintang Channel in the north, and the Philippine Rise in the east. The expansion of these units were made in preparation for future assets and tasks that have, perhaps, yet to be finalized.

There is a calm that eventually settles into many areas where you find the Philippine Navy -- whether in Camp Cape Bojeador in Ilocos Norte, the BRP Andres Bonifacio, the BRP Miguel Malvar, Pag-asa Island, or Likas Island.

It's a calm that comes from both the stillness of the waters that surround these camps, outposts, and vessels. It's also a calm that's derived from unease -- because of external threats that are much more powerful than the Philippine Navy or the AFP. -- with research by Mads Quiaoit/Rappler.com

Presence is deterrence: The Philippine Navy's pivot