I agree with your assessment. And we both understand that the Philippines do not want Chinese in the area at all. But the US presence is there as a diterrence to keep them out and open up the shippping lanes to make the areas more attractive to investors, and ultimately the freedom to expand their economy which is still spending more than it is taking in. So it really all comes down to the bottom line.
And I’ll ponder a future time when as soon as they get themselves back in the black, they will toss us out just like they did a few years ago. This is why they are letting us use the space, but not own. We are renting the land. They can eveict us any time they want. And will.
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I think you misunderstand the Philippine fiscal situation - It is NOT about getting back in the black. The Philippines has very sound government finances relative to the world. Its a low-tax location with relatively little debt and very decent economic growth over the last decade. US Aid is simply a token.
It is however unable to afford the kind of expensive military power required to protect its sea and sky; this sort of air force and navy (which will cost several dozen billion just to start to get something credible) is something only great powers can hope to do. It can’t depend on a cheap, mass army to serve as a deterrent as Vietnam does, it is a bunch of easily isolated, heavily populated islands that are easily cut off from each other. Simply cutting off internal inter-island trade would starve large parts of the country. Its a very easy place to blackmail.
This is not just a Philippine problem, it is a global problem, because a Chinese presence there (air bases say) means that China gets to dictate to all of East Asia. On their word, no trade westward from Japan/Korea.
The 1991 bases fiasco happened in the early post-cold war days of the “peace dividend” when there were no threats visible to either the Phils or the US. The US didn’t try very hard to hold on to the leases and they got out of the whole thing cheaply, helped along by a volcano. Many of the ant-base people in the Phil leadership were rather surprised the whole thing actually went through and were at a loss afterwards - sort of like the dog that chased the car and actually caught it. A short sighted vision on both sides.