MANILA, Philippines — With President Barack Obama scheduled to arrive in the Philippines on Monday, the administration announced Sunday that the United States will sign a defense agreement with the island nation that will give American troops, ships and aircraft more access to the Philippines than they’ve had since the last U.S. military base closed here in 1992.

The accord, which will be signed by U.S. ambassador Phil Goldberg before Obama’s plane lands, “is the most significant defense agreement that we have concluded with the Philippines in decades,” said Evan Medeiros, the administration’s senior director for Asian affairs.

It had been unclear whether U.S. and Philippines negotiators, who’ve been working on the accord for eight months, would agree before Obama’s visit, the first by a U.S. president since 2003. Signing it will symbolize American support for the Philippines as it confronts China over competing claims to vast stretches of the South China Sea. It will also give Obama something solid to crow about as he returns to Washington Tuesday night.

In an interview with a Philippines media outlet, ABS-CBN News, released Sunday, Obama said the agreement helps reaffirm the “incredible ties” between the U.S. and the Filipino people. But he was careful to note it will not mean new U.S. bases in the Philippines, which would rile up nationalists and anti-war demonstrators, some of whom have protested in advance Obama’s visit.

“Given the long history between our nations, some Filipinos have questions about what any new defense agreement might mean,” Obama said. “I want to be absolutely clear _ the new defense cooperation agreement that we are negotiating is not about trying to reclaim old bases or build new bases. Rather, any new agreement would give American service members greater access to Filipino facilities, airfields and ports, which would remain under the control of the Philippines.”

Medeiros described the 10-year agreement as a way for the U.S. military to have “enhanced rotation presence” in the islands. “It’s a framework that will allow us to train and to exercise with the armed forces of the Philippines on a range of missions.” As examples, he cited “humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, maritime security, countering transnational crime, (and) proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.”

Relations between the U.S. and Manila soured in 1991, when the Philippines’ senate rejected a long-standing security agreement with the United States and ordered it to leave the Subic Bay naval base, the last of its military installations, the next year. The naval base had been a mainstay of the U.S. Navy’s presence in the Pacific since 1902.

Manila gradually has asked the U.S. back, first to help fight Muslim insurgents on the southern island of Mindanao and also to help train and equip the Philippine’s meager military. elbows its way into the South China Sea.

(EDITORS: BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)

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