By Guy Taylor - The Washington Times - Monday, January 2, 2017 
SUBIC BAY, Philippines — It was once the rock-solid symbol of one of the deepest and most enduring U.S. alliances in the region. Today this massive but long-shuttered U.S. Navy base is just one more question mark in a confused and evolving relationship at a time of major strategic changes in both Manila and Washington.
But even before China’s navy seized an American underwater drone near here last month, speculation swirled over how the Subic Baymilitary base — a 262-square-mile expanse that at one time was America’s largest U.S. militaryinstallation outside the borders of the U.S. — might be transformed once again if tensions with China turn truly hot during the soon-to-be-installed Trump administration. Factor in the changes already wrought here by populist President Rodrigo Duterte, and the future of the once equally rock-solid U.S.-Philippines alliance is as uncertain as at any time in decades.
The politics and diplomacy may be murky, but, based on a visit to the area late last month, the infrastructure here is ready to roll.
“Everything’s in place; the facilities still exist,” says Jack Walker, a retired Marine Corps sergeant among the some 14,000 American veterans who reside around Subic and nearby Angeles city, the former home of Clark Air Base.
While both bases closed more than two decades ago, U.S. Navy ships have been making port visits here since 2012, and Mr. Walker predicts things “could be quickly repopulated” if Mr. Trump decides to confront China over its airstrip construction and other activities in the heavily contested water of the strategic South China Sea.
“There’s empty hangars galore that could be refurbished,” the 65-year-old former Marine noted, looking out at the surf along Waterfront Road in the heart of what locals here used to call “Little America.”
But the extent to which U.S. forces, whose 1992 departure from Subic came amid a flurry of anti-colonialist fervor in the Filipino government, might suddenly try to re-engage on a mass scale here — or anywhere else in the Philippines, for that matter — has become an increasingly difficult thing to forecast.
Analysts say the future of U.S.-Philippinesrelations, and quite possibly of America’s overall footprint in the region, now hinges on a huge unknown: Will incoming President Donald Trumpget along or clash with his equally unpredictable Filipino counterpart, Mr. Duterte?