The AP reports the US and the Philippines have signed a basing agreement.  Details about troop, aircraft and ship numbers are yet to be determined.  US forces will be based on Philippine installations to circumvent the Philippine constitution that prohibits US military bases.  Basing on Philippine bases also makes the US military presence more palatable. 

The Philippine Senate voted in 1991 to close down Subic and Clark bases.  Eight years later in 1999 it ratified a pact with the United States allowing temporary visits by American forces, four years after China seized a reef the Philippines contests.  Recent Chinese actions threatening Philippine claimed islands have caused a dramatic shift in the Philippines’ attitude since Clark AFB and Subic Bay were abandoned.  Chinese paramilitary ships took effective control of the disputed Scarborough Shoal, a rich fishing ground off the northwestern Philippines, in 2012. Last year, Chinese coast guard ships surrounded another contested offshore South China Sea territory, the Second Thomas Shoal, where they have been trying to block food supplies and rotation of Filipino marines aboard a grounded Philippine navy ship in the remote coral outcrops.  China has warned the U.S. to stay out of the Asian dispute.