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SIGHTINGS of a US aircraft carrier on southern waters
in the Philippines have been reported by coastal local
governments.
One barangay captain who
reportedly spotted a carrier from a hilltop described the ship as
looking “like a huge parking lot with planes instead of cars.”
There will be more such stories
since the newspapers reported US President George Bush’s decision
to send an aircraft carrier, the nuclear-powered USS Ronald Reagan,
to help rescue operations in Romblon. Filipino officials have
reacted to the news with grave concern.
The stories said Bush made the
commitment to visiting Filipino President Gloria Arroyo who had
asked for life vests and inflatable lifeboats. She got an aircraft
carrier instead.
Sen. Rodolfo Biazon, a Philippine
Military Academy “mistah” and an expert on modern warfare, is
aghast that the US would send such a formidable military machine to
the Sibuyan Seas to help save lives.
The Ronald Reagan is not the
appropriate vessel for rescue operations, Biazon said, asking:
“What will the F-18 [jet fighters] do for the Princess of the
Stars?” Strafe the offices of Sulpicio Shipping?
Another senator, Aquilino
Pimentel Jr., a staunch nationalist, said the arrival of the carrier
could violate the Constitution and national sovereignty.
Other correspondents’
dispatches from Washington added Bush is sending not only an
aircraft carrier but also a naval battle fleet consisting of a
carrier, two destroyers, a frigate and a number of support vessels.
As reports on the size of the
naval group grew, rumors spread that the US was also sending a
nuclear submarine to put a blockade on terrorist-held islands in the
South. Another rumor said the US Defense Department was sending a
long-range B-52 bomber to boast US military power.
The US considers southern
Mindanao as an outpost of US vigilance against global terrorism.
Apart from taking part in the Balikatan war games, the Pentagon
maintains troops on several parts of Mindanao, training Filipinos
and testing new weapons and new weapons systems.
A CPP-NDF-NPA message on the
Internet warned the arrival of the Ronald Reagan and the naval group
was a cover for increased US power in the South and an effort to
crush the communist insurgency, which is on the State Department’s
list of international terrorist groups.
“The Pentagon is determined to
end the Abu Sayyaf terrorism and the al Qaeda terrorist network on
Sulu Island,” an expert at the National Security Council, who
refused to take off his camouflage mask, said.
While the Philippine Department
of National Defense and the Armed Forces of the Philippines have not
confirmed the arrival of the US naval ships, a new training camp has
reportedly opened in Camp Aguinaldo to help Filipinos identify US
war vessels and their distinguishing marks.
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