AMERICAN forces who will be allowed access to Filipino military bases under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement are only allowed to stockpile humanitarian assistance and disaster relief equipment, the spokesman for the Armed Forces said Thursday.
“The storage of equipment right now is limited to HADR equipment, so no tanks, no war fighting equipment for the moment,” said Col. Restituto Padilla, Armed Forces spokesman.
The stockpiling of HADR equipment such as water purifiers, generators, lighting equipment, trucks and heavy lift vehicles would allow for a quick response to disasters or calamities, Padilla said.
Padilla also said there would not be a sudden flood of American troops as a result of Edca, saying the strength of the US presence would depend on the recommendation of the Mutal Defense Board-Security Engagement Board.
Among the Filipino military bases that will be open to US troops are Fort Magsayay in Nueva Ecija; Crow Valley in Tarlac; Basa Air Base, in Floridablanca, Pampanga; Benito Ebuen Air Base in Mactan, Cebu; Camp Lapu-Lapu, Cebu; Camp Macario Peralta in Jamindan, Capiz; Naval Station San Miguel in San Antonio, Zambales, Antonio Bautista Airbase, Puerto Princesa, Palawan; Lumbia Airfield in Cagayan de Oro and Edwin Andrews Air Base in Zamboanga City.
Defense Department spokesman Peter Paul Galvez said Edca, which was declared constitutional by the Supreme Court in a decision Jan. 12, will help boost maritime security and the country’s HADR capabilities.
Galvez said this also puts the Armed Forces in a better position to improve inter-operability with the US military.
Malacañang said Thursday the Edca would strengthen ties between the Philippines and the United States.
“For the Philippines, the reality is this: We have a strategic partnership with the United States. We have the Mutual Defense Treaty, we have the Visiting Forces Agreement, and the Supreme Court had declared the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement as legal,” said Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr.
“For the benefit of the country, we would like to strengthen this [strategic partnership with the US] and that is the relevance [of what President Barack Obama said] regarding the situation in the Philippines,” said Coloma.
Under the agreement negotiated by President Benigno Aquino III’s government, the US will be allowed to build structures, store as well as pre-position weapons, defense supplies and materiel, station troops, civilian personnel and defense contractors, transit and station vehicles, vessels, and aircraft for a period of 10 years.
The constitutionality of the pact was upheld amid an ongoing dispute between the Philippines and China due to overlapping claims in the South China Sea.
Delivering his final State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Barack Obama stressed that the United States, and not China, should “set the rules” in the Asia-Pacific region.
Obama mentioned China as he pushed the US Congress to approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement among 12 countries in the region signed in October last year. China has not been invited to the TPP.
“You want to show our strength in this century? Approve this agreement. Give us the tools to enforce it,” Obama told Congress.
Members of the TPP are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam.
Restrictive economic provisions in the Constitution, among other things, have prevented the Philippines’ membership in the TPP, which China and Russia have criticized as an exclusive club.
Obama has said China must end artificial island building in the South China Sea, increasing the pressure on Beijing during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders’ Summit.
Anti-American groups have opposed Edca, with the youth group Anakbayan calling it worse than the 1947 US Military Bases Agreement that the Senate junked in 1991.
“We junked the US bases in Subic and Clark only to transform the entire nation into one big US military base under Edca,” said Anakbayan chairman Vencer Crisostomo. With Rio N. Araja and PNA