“WHAT is our fight with Taiwan? Why are these new bases all in North Luzon, where we are doing all these military exercises a stone’s throw away from Taiwan, if the purpose is really as stated, for calamity and humanitarian assistance? We are going to fight for another country, the US… is that correct?” Sen. Imee Marcos questioned in the Foreign Relations Committee hearing, whether the US intends to use the new EDCA sites to join a fight over Taiwan and not to help the Philippines.
When EDCA was expanded, the Americans celebrated and said that the additional EDCA sites would provide additional targeting challenges for China. What does this mean? Simple… that China has to target the Philippines as well, aside from Guam and Okinawa… even the US media is talking about this,” international relations expert Sass Rogando Sasot revealed.
None of the Defense officials answered when the video of US bombers flying out of North Luzon en route to Taiwan, produced by White-House-linked think tank CNAS, was shown. The video showing plans of a future US war scenario with China over Taiwan was broadcast in mid-2022 in an NBC program and was first reported by Dr. Dan Steinbock in The Manila Times in August 2022. Was the Department of Defense (DND) or Foreign Affairs (DFA) informed by the US about this?
Foreign Secrety Enrique Manalo and Defense Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. maintained that the EDCA sites will be used more as staging platforms for humanitarian activities, which Senator Marcos and Cagayan Gov. Manuel Mamba questioned.
Governor Mamba revealed that it is only recently that the Americans did it. “The US donated two second-hand rubber boats and some boxes of supplies and tissues. It was demeaning, as if we could not buy those things on our own. If they really want to capacitate us, it should have started back then, not only now.”
“Many nations have donated and given us assistance without having asked us to put up their military bases,” another legislator said.
Donations of emergency weapons by China and Russia at the height of the Marawi crisis also prevented the Philippines from becoming an IS failed state, and saved countless Filipino soldiers, reminded IDSI President George Siy. “The US, during the Marawi siege, blocked the procurement of rifles for the PNP. They did not help us,” reminded Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, who was then PNP chief.
“The Philippines’ geopolitical situation is very complex and is particularly suffering from economic problems, including recession, inflation, etc. The Philippines is not at the same economic level or standing or even structure. Some say that their (US) economy is based on war, our economy is not based on war,” reminded Sen. Koko Pimentel.
Of meat in the grinder and of cannon-fodders
Senator Marcos also voiced concern that the EDCA sites may become targets of attack, especially from any of the enemies of the US. Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Andres Centino admitted that “military camps will always be a target for adversaries.”
“Under the Caroline test under customary international law, a territory of a neutral state, such as the EDCA sites in Northern Luzon — which is the location of stockpiles of weapon systems of a belligerent state such as the US — can be a legitimate military target of another belligerent state, such as China, North Korea, Russia, or Iran. And under EDCA Article 4 Paragraph 1, the US has the unmitigated right to stockpile not just supplies for humanitarian aid but also military weapons,” reminded Dr. Melissa Loja, a constitutional and international law expert.
In addition, unlike other US EDCAs with Poland, Bulgaria and Australia where there are express provisions in their EDCA calling for the prior notification and consent as to the type of weapons that will be stockpiled on their EDCA sites, there are no such provisions with the Philippines.
These foreign military bases and facilities inside “Philippine” military bases have not been subject to any full inspection by any Filipino, not even by the Philippine President.
THE US maintains its stand that it will never confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons in all its military bases and facilities all over the world, including in its submarines, ships and airplanes. This stand of the US violates the anti-nuclear weapons provisions of our Constitution.
In addition, in contrast to what DFA and DND officials told the senators in the Foreign Relations hearing on EDCA, when Galvez himself told Senator Marcos that the additional locations are still under negotiations, in November 2022, former Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Lt. Gen. Bartolome Bacarro said there were five additional proposed sites under EDCA which include two in Cagayan, one in Palawan, one in Zambales and another one in Isabela. Sources said one of the five additional proposed EDCA sites was not approved due to a “political issue.”
Local governments apparently are often not consulted, e.g., Ilocos and Cagayan; American officials just drop in, inform that bases are being set up, ask for assistance and if there is no full support from any official, these officials are just bypassed.
EDCA also poses grave threats to our environment as happened in the former US military bases in Subic, Zambales and Clark, Pampanga.
US military pollution in the Philippines is linked to deaths, reported by the Americans themselves in “Stars and Stripes” by Travis J. Tritten who wrote about this as early as 2010.
“The US military is long gone from bases in the Philippines, but its legacy remains buried here. Toxic waste was spilled on the ground, pumped into waterways and buried in landfills for decades at two sprawling Cold War-era bases. Today, ice cream shops, Western-style horse ranches, hotels and public parks have sprung up on land once used by the Air Force and the Navy; a benign facade built on land the Philippine government said is still polluted with asbestos, heavy metals and fuel.
“Records of about 500 families who sought refuge on the deserted bases after a 1991 volcanic eruption indicate 76 people died and 68 others were sickened by pollutants on the bases. A study in 2000 for the Philippine Senate also linked the toxins to ‘unusually high occurrence of skin disease, miscarriages, stillbirths, birth defects, cancers, heart ailments and leukemia.’
“Philippine President Joseph Estrada formed a task force in 2000 to take on the issue, but it fell dormant and unfunded after he was ousted a year later.
“The Navy pumped 3.75 million gallons of untreated sewage each day into local fishing and swimming waters at Subic Bay. The bases poured fuel and chemicals from firefighting exercises directly into the water table and used underground storage tanks without leak detection equipment, according to a 1992 report by what was then known as the General Accounting Office.
“At least three sites at the Subic Bay Navy base, two landfills and an ordnance disposal area, are dangerously polluted with materials such as asbestos, metals and fuels, the Philippines government found after an environmental survey there.
“Clark Air Base was a staging area during the Vietnam War. Its aviation and vehicle operations contaminated eight sites with oil, petroleum lubricants, pesticides, PCB and lead, according to a 1997 environmental survey by the Philippine government.
“Before the US closed the bases, it drew up a rough bill for cleaning the hazardous pollution…. The Air Force and the Navy estimated cleanup at each could cost up to $25 million… [but] any real chance for an environmental cleanup was scuttled by the two governments in an agreement absolving the United States of any responsibility for the pollution.”
What is the guarantee that these things will not happen again in the “Philippine” military bases that are now designated under EDCA as the sites for the establishment and stationing of US military bases, troops and facilities, more particularly in Cagayan Valley, the so-called Philippines’ Last Frontier with its lush forests and pristine waters?
We welcome logical feedback and possibly working together with compatible frameworks (idsicenter@gmail.com). A similar version was also published in ManilaTimes.