Duterte urged to review defense pacts with US on VFA 17th anniversary

From InterAksyon (May 27): Duterte urged to review defense pacts with US on VFA 17th anniversary

The Bagong Alyansang Makabayan urged incoming president Rodrigo Duterte to “take a long, hard look” at the Visiting Forces Agreement and other defense pacts with the US.

Friday marked the 17th anniversary of the VFA’s signing. The defense agreement allows the “rotational” presence of American forces in the country, but nationalists say it is tantamount to letting foreign troops stay permanently.

In 2014, the two countries signed the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, described as an adjunct of the VFA but which critics describe as a de facto basing agreement since it allows the Americans to use local military facilities. Recently, the government bared five locations around the country, including former American military bases, which will be opened to US use under the EDCA.

“We urge the incoming Duterte administration to conduct a review of the 17 years that we've had a VFA with the US, taking note of the violations of national sovereignty as well as ascertaining the supposed benefits that we are supposed to get from the agreement,” Bayan secretary general Renato Reyes Jr. said in a statement.

“We also urge the new administration to suspend the implementation of the five agreed locations offered by the Philippines under EDCA to the US for the setting up of new bases,” he added.

“The review and termination of these defense agreements are well within the power of the next president,” Reyes stressed. 

The Bayan officer said that aside from violating the country’s sovereignty, the VFA has led to the actual involvement by US forces in local military operations, citing the January 2015 Mamasapano incident, in which 44 police commandos, 17 Moro Islamic Liberation Front fighters and three civilians were killed in the disastrous covert mission to get the Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, alias Marwan.

American operatives were confirmed to have provided intelligence during the operation and helped evacuate casualties. A finger taken from the body of the slain Malaysian was also handed directly to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Through the VFA, Reyes said, “the US has also undermined and disrespected our own legal system when it insists on custody of American soldiers facing trial in our courts.”

He also dismissed what he called “the biggest and most laughable myth” to justify the VFA and EDCA – “that the US, by stationing troops and setting up bases in the Philippines, will defend our sovereignty versus China.”

“The US does not take sides in the dispute with China. The US is merely looking after its own interest in the region,” he said. “Our strategic dependence on the US has made us weak. It is time to break free from the neo-colonial relations with the US and start strengthening our own economy and capacity for external defense.”

http://interaksyon.com/article/128314/duterte-urged-to-review-defense-pacts-with-us-on-vfa-17th-anniversary