BASED ON OSINT (open-source intelligence), the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) -- our version of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) -- comes across as a bland spy organization that exists in relative obscurity, as do its spies.
Anonymity is the name of the game in spycraft, however. The history of espionage has proven the most effective intelligence agents are also the most inconspicuous. Spies whose covers are blown wind-up dead or behind bars. Agents stay alive only by remaining "secret."
"Superstar spies" like "Tony Falcon, Agent X-44" (our 1960's version of James Bond played by the late Tony Ferrer) and James Bond, Agent 007 himself would be dead meat in the actual world of espionage. True spies are hardly ever flamboyant, and are forced by the demands of their lethal trade to remain anonymous wallflowers.
Looked at from this perspective, it seems NICA and its spies are doing a good job at masking their existence. Most Filipinos don't even know this spy agency exists or what it does. NICA’s website is bare bones and boring. There’s hardly any substantive information about NICA on search engines and large language models.
Nice work, NICA, for staying out of the public eye and keeping your local and global operations in the shadows like all good spy agencies should. This murkiness, however, conceals an intelligence agency that can be compared to a flawed double-edged sword -- deathly sharp on one edge and blunt on the other -- based on publicly available information.
NICA's competence lies in its domestic counterinsurgency and anti-crime operations where it has over 70 years’ experience. This is the sharp edge of the NICA sword. On the other hand, NICA is a novice in foreign intelligence operations compared to the "Big Boys" such as the CIA and the Ministry of State Security of the People’s Republic of China. There is no public record or evidence to suggest NICA conducts covert and clandestine operations outside the Philippines, as can be gleaned from OSINT. International inexperience is the blunt edge of the NICA sword.
Sharpening the sword
The good news is the blunt edge is getting “un-blunted.” NICA and the other arms of the Philippines' security services are shifting further away from local counterinsurgency and moving deeper into the mostly unexplored terrain of global geopolitics and strategic intelligence.
A national security reorientation by the administration of Pres. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. against threats to our territorial integrity means NICA is bolstering intelligence activities against China. This is now seeing Filipino spycraft and its tools (human, electronic, signals, imagery and technical intelligence) brought to bear to protect our frontiers against Chinese aggression, especially in the West Philippine Sea.
In June 2022, NICA Director-General Ricardo de Leon said he wanted NICA to focus on our West Philippine Sea dispute with China. He said the country should strengthen its military presence in this hotspot to assert its sovereignty over Philippine waters.
“We also have to give focus on the West Philippine Sea,” he pointed out. “Any development with our neighbors, especially in that area, will certainly affect domestic security. We have to view everything, integrate, and harmonize our efforts.”
“We need to strengthen our security forces in the West Philippine Sea so that we can guarantee the safety of our fishermen.”
De Leon said NICA “(will look) at our own national interest as a priority.” He thanked the president for supporting NICA’s acquisition of equipment and facilities that will allow it to strengthen and protect the Philippines’ territorial integrity.
A retired Police Lieutenant General of the Philippine National Police, de Leon was appointed to his post as NICA boss by the younger Marcos in June 2022.
This primacy of national sovereignty is reflected on the NICA website. It’s the number one strategic objective in NICA’s “8-Point National Intelligence Agenda and Strategic Objectives for 2022 to 2028.” The second and third objectives also support the aim of defending national sovereignty: building an agile organization staffed with competent people and accelerating operations to address all national security threats. The acronym for NICA’s agenda and strategic objectives is S.O.A.R. H.I.G.H.
NICA currently defines its mission as, “To take the lead in directing, coordinating and integrating all government activities involving national intelligence,” which is roughly similar to its original mission crafted in 1949.
The first line of defense
One offshoot of its "think-local" bias is that NICA has remained "bogged down in internal security efforts against various insurgent groups” that could hinder its plans to prepare for regional challenges, contends Joshua Espeña, a Resident Fellow at the nonprofit policy research firm, International Development and Security Cooperation, based in Manila. Espeña said “much is unknown about its (NICA’s) efforts in foreign intelligence collection and analysis at the strategic level.”
NICA’s record in strategic intelligence was faulted for being "ineffective in intercepting Chinese espionage (in the Philippines).” This appreciation came from Rhon Ethelbert Ducos and Amadeus Quiaoit, co-authors of the article, "Tagging the Red Dragon: The Future of the Philippines’ Strategic Intelligence," published in the May 2022 edition of "The Diplomat," an international current-affairs magazine for the Asia-Pacific.
Ducos and Quiaoit advocate "transitioning strategic intelligence from the dominance of internal security towards a greater focus on external security as the first line of defense in the Philippines’ national security strategy." They see imagery intelligence (IMINT) and signals intelligence (SIGINT) as best suited to unveiling warship and maritime militia deployments of the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) in the West Philippine Sea and South China Sea, as well as the strategic intentions of its command.
These outcomes become possible if NICA reorganizes itself "in parallel with the transforming strategic environment." Reorganization should include streamlining counterintelligence operations and adopting organizational models similar to those in other foreign intelligence agencies.
These moves should better enable NICA to combat Chinese intelligence and cyber operations against the Armed Forces of the Philippines, as well as the Department of Foreign Affairs and Department of National Defense. Intelligence operations against the PROC were derailed by the pro-China bent of former President Rodrigo Duterte, who in October 2016 announced the Philippines’ economic and military “separation” from the United States and its alignment with China.
Ducos and Quiaoit also contend Duterte’s dalliance with China led to an influx of illegal Chinese immigrants, “who potentially represent a host of homeland security threats.” Duterte’s National Security Adviser, Hermogenes Esperon Jr., in 2019 said he considered the influx of mainland Chinese due to Philippine Online Gambling Operations (POGOs) a threat to national security.
Ducos and Quiaoit argue NICA's inexperience against foreign foes "invites institutional weakness, and such weaknesses invites external aggression" based on anecdotal evidence. As a solution, they advocate external security must become the first line of defense in the Philippines’ national security strategy. They warn Chinese espionage is a challenge the Philippines’ entire apparatus of state must prepare to resolutely combat.
“Philippinedization”
Ducos and Quiaoit declare the Philippines fell victim to a process now known in geopolitics as “Philippinedization,” which sounds like the Asian version of Finlandization but isn't, said the man that coined this term. Philippinedization is a portmanteau created by Chester Cabalza Ph.D. Cabalza and Espeña co-authored the book, "The Rise of Philippinedization: Philippinedization is not Finlandization," published in 2021.
As defined by Cabalza, "Philippinedization is the process whereby a weaker state, backed by a powerful country, goes through great lengths in temporarily refraining from opposing a neighboring great power by resorting to economic and diplomatic rapprochements at the strategic level, but strengthening its national security infrastructure on the operational level with an eye for potential conflict in the foreseeable future."
This definition stands in stark contrast to Finlandization, which refers to the undue influence the influence the former Soviet Union wielded on its neighbor Finland. Coined in 1961, this word has come to mean "the process whereby a country is induced to favor, or refrain from opposing, the interests of a more powerful country, despite not being politically allied to it."
Philippinedization was the norm under Duterte. Marcos has moved sharply away from Philippinedization towards more assertiveness against China. His current attitude likely means the emasculation of Philippinedization, and its replacement with a more muscular foreign policy in concert with the Philippines' traditional military allies. What this change of direction adds-up to is a further un-blunting of the NICA sword’s dull edge.
NICA and EDCA
Marcos has left no doubt as to his true strategic colors. In February 2023, he granted the U.S. armed forces access to four more Philippine military camps, apart from the five existing locations agreed on in the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement or EDCA.
Under the original EDCA signed in 2014, the national government and the U.S. will enhance facilities at the Cesar Basa Air Base in Floridablanca, Pampanga; the Fort Magsaysay Military Reservation in Nueva Ecija; the Lumbia Airfield in Cagayan de Oro City; the Antonio Bautista Air Base in Puerto Princesa, Palawan and the Benito Ebuen Air Base in Cebu.
Marcos said four new sites have now been identified. He said these bases will also defend the country’s unprotected eastern coast and the Philippines' continental shelf.
“So, there are four extra sites scattered around the Philippines. There are some in the North, there are some around Palawan, there are some further South. So iba-iba talaga (They’re really in different areas),” he said.
EDCA allows U.S. troops access to designated Philippine military facilities. It also gives the Americans the right to build facilities and preposition equipment, aircraft and warships. EDCA does not allow permanent basing of U.S. troops in the Philippines.
Marcos has committed his administration to upholding the international ruling in favor of the Philippines and against China over the West Philippine Sea. On July 12, 2016, an Arbitral Tribunal in The Hague constituted under the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention delivered a unanimous decision firmly rejecting China's expansive South China Sea maritime claims and its nine-dash line as having no basis in international law.
The Tribunal affirmed China has no lawful claim to the area determined by the Arbitral Tribunal to be part of the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone and continental shelf. China and the Philippines are legally bound to comply with this decision. Needless to say, China has rejected this decision.
National intelligence
Under Executive Order 235 that created it, NICA is responsible for “coordinating all government activities with respect to national intelligence and preparing intelligence estimates and summaries of both the local and foreign situations to be made available to the President and his policy-making body.” This legislation was signed by President Elpidio Quirino on July 10, 1949.
President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. abolished NICA and established the National Intelligence and Security Authority (NISA) on November 16, 1972, two months after he declared Martial Law. Under Presidential Decree 51, NISA had the same mission as NICA but was granted broader powers
NISA was abolished by President Corazon Aquino following the People Power Revolution of February 1986. She reestablished NICA as we know it today through Executive Order 246 signed July 24, 1987. EO 246 made NICA “the focal point for the direction, coordination and integration of government activities involving intelligence, and the preparation of intelligence estimates of local and foreign situations for the formulation of national policies by the President.”
EO 246 also created the Directorate for Operations headed by the Assistant Director-General for Operations to take charge of information collection. It also made NICA responsible for preparing intelligence estimates about local and foreign situations. These reports serve as inputs used in day-to-day decision-making and long-term policy decisions by the President, the National Security Council and the Cabinet.
The presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (2001-2010) saw the further reorganization of NICA and the addition of new functions affecting intelligence gathering, counterintelligence and anti-terrorism. Administrative Order 68 (AO 68) issued in 2003 gave NICA “principal authority to direct, coordinate and integrate all government activities involving national intelligence and continue to serve as the focal point for the preparation of intelligence estimates of local and foreign situations for the formulation of national policies by the President. As lead intelligence collection agency of the national government it shall operate directly under the Office of the President and shall be accountable to the President of the Republic of the Philippines.”
AO 68 created the Directorate for Counterintelligence to lead the national government’s counterintelligence operations. It also established the National Intelligence Committee (NIC) as an advisory body to the Director-General for the coordination, integration and fusion of all intelligence activities. NIC is the principal adviser to the President on intelligence matters. The NICA of today is the sum total of these and other changes.
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