An effigy crafted by Bayan portrays President Benigno Aquino III as a dog pulling a chariot steered by US President Barack Obama, symbolizing the government's perceived subservience to American dictates. (photo by Bernard Testa, InterAksyon.com)
The ink had barely dried on the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), more known as the agreement for the increased rotational presence of US troops in the country, than activists bashed the pact they see as proof of American “expansionism” abetted by the “subservience” of the Philippine government.
Various activist organizations have planned protests on Monday, the day the defense agreement was signed and when US President Barack Obama arrives in Manila for a two-day visit, several of them intending to march to Mendiola Bridge, a stone’s throw away from Malacanang Palace, despite tight security.
Earlier, former Vice President Teofisto Guingona Jr. and former Senators Wigberto Tanada and Rene Saguisag of the so-called "Magnificent 12" -- the senators who, in 1991, voted to reject the extended stay of American military bases in the country -- joined signatories in a statement of concern over "the lack of transparency" in negotiating the EDCA and the "rush to have the deal signed in time for the Obama visit."
The Partido ng Manggagawa slammed the government, accusing it of “unconditionally” tying itself to “Obama’s hegemonic agenda called ‘pivot to Asia’,” for lack of a “clear independent foreign policy.”
“Militarily, ‘pivot Asia’ establishes strategic military alliances in the region through permanent and temporary basing arrangements with regional allies. Economically trade expansion will be done through the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreements, a US-led trading platform that represent about 40 percent of world trade,” said PM spokesperson Wilson Fortaleza.
Drumbeating for war
Fortaleza said Obama’s four-nation Asian tour, of which his visit to the Philippines is part, is part of the US president’s “drumbeating for war.”
He also slammed the government’s acquiescence to the EDCA, saying it allowed Obama to “project himself as redeemer and a man of peace when in truth he is a warmonger, while back home, he is considered a failure by the American working class.”
Fortaleza said PM and the Scrap VFA Movement “are demanding the demilitarization of Asia, and disputed territories be declared as regional commons and war-free zones.”
The party-list group Anakpawis accused the Aquino administration of the “highest betrayal of Philippine sovereignty” with the signing of the defense agreement, which it called “the resurrection of US military bases in the Philippines using the Chinese incursion hysteria to justify the return of (more) troops and nuclear-powered war vessels …”
‘Duplicitous’
The human rights group Karapatan, on the other hand, blasted the US and Philippine presidents for the “duplicitous” invocation of the slogans “anti-corruption, pro-peace and human rights” to disguise their “war agenda” and tied American military assistance directly to the continued violations of human rights in the country.
The group said the US should be held just as responsible as the Aquino government for human rights abuses because “it is the main funder of the” Armed Forces of the Philippines.
It blamed the US’ lifting of restrictions tying military aid to human rights for having “emboldened the … Aquino government and the Armed Forces of the Philippines to go on a killing spree, which resulted in 21 victims of extrajudicial killings and 23 victims of frustrated killings for the first quarter of 2014 alone.”
“We should learn from history that America’s military, economic and political presence in the country has spelled disaster for thousands of Filipinos for years now,” the National Union of Students of the Philippines said. “From the pillaging of our lands, to the dominance of pro-US and anti-Filipino laws and provisions, to the rape of our women and country, and to the wanton environmental destruction brought about by military and toxic wastes, what Aquino has done via EDCA is a total disservice to this nation.”
Here is what other groups have to say:
‘10 years a slave’
Kabataan party-list Representative Terry Ridon: “The signing of this new 10-year pact between Washington and Manila would usher in a decade of slavery for the Filipino people who will be forced to again witness rapacious American expansionism and militarization, a decade which will be marked not by increased peace and stability -- but rather increased tension and unease.
Our countrymen do not deserve this new travesty against our national sovereignty. The Aquino administration keeps harping about how this new pact would supposedly shield us from Chinese incursions in our seas, yet a deeper analysis would reveal that such agreement would only advance Washington’s economic and political interests, especially its bid to finally secure China’s support and allegiance.”
Women targets for abuse
Gabriela party-list Representatives Luz Ilagan and Emmi de Jesus: “The Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement puts the Visiting Forces Agreement to shame. This agreement allows an unlimited number of troops to stay in an unlimited number of areas in the Philippines. It is an outright transgression of our Constitution and an outright sell-out of our sovereignty. This agreement likewise puts Filipino women and children in a vulnerable situation, making us open targets for abuse.
From Rosario Baluyot to Nicole and Vanessa, no US soldier, not even one, has been made accountable for the violence that Filipino women and children are subjected to during their presence.” Sellout of Sovereignty
From Balangiga to Tubbataha to EDCA: ‘Obsequiousness like no other’
National Union of People's Lawyer: “The Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement spites, ridicules, and lays to waste the lessons learned from the sordid tales from the howling wilderness of Samar, the gritty and seedy world of Subic and Clark, and the damaged reefs of Tubbataha. Today the EDCA says it will welcome back US troops – but they never really left, did they?
The continued and continuing violation of the Philippine Constitution, laws and public policies, principles of international law, sovereignty and self-determination all the more remind us that we are slaves, insecure and suffering, in our own land --alipin sa sariling bayan.”
Plunder of resources
Kalikasan People's Network for the Environment: “The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement is being railroaded by Obama in the Philippines and other Pacific Rim countries to add to the 12 countries that are already signatories in the agreement. The TPPA aims to dismantle all controls and regulations on big corporations in a free-trade zone where the US can control trade routes, plunder untapped natural resources, and even file harassment suits against governments.”
Exploitation of workers
Migrante International: “Charter change will pave the way for the signing of the US-PH Transpacific Partnership in trade which will further aggravate forced migration and the labor export policy. Under the Aquino administration, the number of OFWs leaving the country increased from 2,500 daily in 2010 to 4,884 in 2013. This is the result of massive unemployment, low wages, landlessness and privatization of social services under the Aquino regime. Obama’s visit will further prey on the country’s worsening economic situation brought about by Aquino government’s unreformed policies.
Its only recourse will be to further seek job markets abroad and intensify its labor export policy at the expense of the rights and welfare of Filipino workers. The labor export policy is nothing but a big business venture from which both the US and PH governments profit, with OFWs as milking cows.”
Intensified land grabbing, displacement
Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas: “We expect US troops to once again directly participate in the local military’s counter-insurgency and combat operations that will result to increasing militarization, human rights abuses, and massive displacement of farmers in the countryside.”
http://www.interaksyon.com/article/85608/activists-blast-edca-signing-us-expansionism-and-ph-govts-subservience-and-betrayal
You can't tell the horse from the jockey without a program. lol
ReplyDeletePartido ng Manggagawa (PM-Labor Party) is a breakaway labor formation that was formed in the aftermath of the split that took place within the Communist Party of the Philippines in the mid-to-late 1990s. PM falls within the "Rejectionist" faction of the Philippine Left that is comprised of groups that reject the primacy of Mao Tse Dong thought and the strategic line peasant-based warfare to surround the cities from the countryside and seize state power.
Virtually all of the other groups mentioned are Communist Party of the Philippines sectoral, cause-oriented, or political front organizations.