MANILA -- The Philippines has started to wind down its military alliance with the U.S., suspending joint maritime patrols in the South China Sea, as President Rodrigo Duterte spearheads a foreign policy that is less dependent on Manila's former colonial master.
"We have informed our [U.S.] counterparts that there [would be] no joint patrols in the meantime," Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told reporters on Friday.
