US: Drone from Guam war games; CPP: It’s a spy plane

From the Daily Tribune (Jan 7): US: Drone from Guam war games; CPP: It’s a spy plane

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) yesterday said the recovery off the coast of Quezon of a drone which the United States Navy claimed it owns was a clear indication of the continuing US surveillance and intervention in the country.

The drone, recovered by fishermen in Patnanungan, Quezon last Jan. 4, has property markings of the US Navy. It is similar to a drone recovered by fishermen off the coast of Masbate in 2013.

The American ownership of the drone was confirmed in a statement by the US Embassy in Manila.

“(The drone found) is an expended BQM-74E Aerial Target that was launched during naval exercise Valiant Shield 2014 which took place Sept. 15-23 in the waters off Guam,” the statement added.

The aerial target does not carry weapons and is not used for surveillance, the statement claimed. “The BQM-74E Aerial Target is used by surface ships and aircraft during exercises to help train our sailors in a realistic environment that provides the best possible training,” the US Embassy said.

“During the exercise, all aerial operations were conducted in international airspace or with appropriate coordination and approval in Guam airspace,” the statement went.

The drone is now under the custody Patnanungan Municipal Police Station.

It was the second incident involving the recovery of a US Navy drone in Philippine territory.

In January 2013, a similar aircraft was recovered by the Philippine Navy in Sitio Tacdugan, San Jacinto, Masbate.

The CPP said that the US, in connivance with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), has been flying surveillance drones in the country.

“The US military, in connivance with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), has been flying and operating surveillance drones in the Philippines for more than ten years now, in clear and outright violation of Philippine sovereign airspace,” said the CPP.

“US drone surveillance has been targetting operations of the New People’s Army (NPA) in the hope of feeding intelligence information to the AFP,” pointed out the CPP.

The CPP said that similar crash landings of US drones have occurred over the past several years.

“The Filipino people condemn US military intervention in counter-guerrilla operations in the Philippines. The US has long been making use of the AFP in its proxy war against the Filipino people’s anti-imperialist forces,” the CPP said.

“The US-designed and -directed Oplan Bayanihan of the AFP and the Aquino regime have brought great hardships to millions of Filipinos who have borne the brunt of militarization in the countryside and widespread abuses of human rights,” it added.

The US Embassy junked insinuations that the drone was used for surveillance.

Partylist Rep. Terry Ridon of Kabataan suggested that the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) of the US Navy may be conducting covert military surveillance operations in Quezon.

Ridon said the drone was recovered by local officials in the island town of Patnanungan, Quezon on Sunday afternoon.

The lawmaker claimed Washington’s covert military surveillance activities undermine Philippine sovereignty and President Barack Obama should explain what the crashed drone was doing in Quezon.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) earlier confirmed that US Navy surveillance planes are conducting routine maritime patrol in the contested areas of the West Philippine Sea.

However, Quezon is nowhere near the West Philippine Sea, Ridon argued.

“These revelations may constitute serious breaches in both local and international law and severely lambasts our national sovereignty. Even citing the Visiting Forces Agreement as justification would be a stretch,” he added.

“We fear that the US military is exploiting the growing tension in the Philippine Sea to deploy spy planes and warships in our territory. In the guise of protecting the Philippine claim over the disputed shoals and reefs, the US military may in fact be surveying the area to assess the value of its oil and mineral reserves which their country surely has interest in,” Ridon explained.

“While there is a need for us to strengthen our hold over territories that China has systematically grabbed from us, we should be wary of other foreign countries intervening in the conflict, particularly the US – a country that has aggressively pursued economic and political supremacy in Asia-Pacific in recent years,” he noted.

The youth legislator has called on Washington to account for the deployment of surveillance drones in the Philippines.

“This issue should not pass unnoticed. This is our national sovereignty being trampled right under our noses. Foreign military operations in our seas and skies, even in the guise of support, should be condemned rather than tolerated,” Ridon said.

The discovery of the US spy plane also reignited the issue of US spy operations in the Philippines through the US National Security Agency’s (NSA) Mystic program.

Leaked documents from National Security Agency (NSA) contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden last year exposed the existence of Mystic, a spying program developed by the NSA for surveillance operations in several countries, which include the Bahamas, Mexico, Kenya, the Philippines, and another unnamed country.

According to the website The Intercept, which published the documents provided by Snowden, Mystic was “established in 2009 by the NSA’s Special Source Operations division, which works with corporate partners to conduct surveillance.”

Documents in the Snowden archive describe it as a “program for embedded collection systems overtly installed on target networks, predominantly for the collection and processing of wireless/mobile communications networks.”

One of the leaked documents that pertain to Mystic revealed that the program serves as “legitimate commercial services for telcos” while covertly doing “signal intelligence,” thus leading to speculations that the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) is involved in its operation.

Ridon has earlier filed House Resolution No. 1164, which urged the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and Committee on Information and Communications Technology to conduct a joint congressional inquiry to investigate and ascertain the scope of Mystic and “other similar spying programs that have yet to be exposed.”

“The mere existence of a large-scale spy program that monitors the content of text messages in the Philippines reveals the US government’s double standards with regard to defense and security,” Ridon said.

“While the US continually peddles lopsided agreements such as the newly-inked Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) as a way to supposedly boost the Philippines’ national defense, the US government is at the same time covertly expanding its web of intelligence through aerial and mobile snooping – a move that is inimical to the Philippines’ very own national security,” he added.

“In no instance can surveillance by a foreign power over another sovereign state be justified. Congress must not only demand an explanation from the US government with regard to surveillance programs like Mystic, but also compel US officials to disclose the real scope and breadth of Washington’s spy operations in the country,” Ridon stressed. 

http://www.tribune.net.ph/headlines/us-drone-from-guam-war-games-cpp-it-s-a-spy-plane