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By Al Jacinto, Correspondent
ZAMBOANGA CITY: Anti-war coalition opposed to the continued stay
of US forces in the Philippines said it would picket in front of the
Senate building to demand the closure of American military bases in
Mindanao.
The said group noted that US troops have put up
small bases inside Philippine military facilities in Zamboanga City
and in other parts of central Mindanao where the American forces are
supposed to be participating in combat operations against rebels.
Sen. Rodolfo Biazon and members of the
Legislative Oversight Committee on the Visiting Forces Agreement (LOVFA)
who had inspected US facilities in Zamboanga City last week said
they found no military bases but administrative buildings used by
the US forces in humanitarian missions and joint trainings with
local troops in Mindanao and Sulu archipelago.
“The US military base in Zamboanga City poses
a clear and present danger to the Constitution and to the lives of
people, but it seems that the LOVFA is more interested in covering
up for the Americans instead of protecting the constitution and
promoting peace in the country,” Mitzi Chan, a spokesperson of the
Stop The War Coalition, said in a statement.
Chan’s group has criticized the LOVFA’s
pronouncement that it found no US bases in Mindanao. “This is
clearly a case of feigned ignorance or a deliberate cover-up,” she
said, adding, the inspection headed by Biazon was a “sham”
considering that it was hosted by those who were supposed to be
investigated.
She said the LOVFA failed to interview anyone
besides those who have a stake in maintaining the base.
“How can we expect anything impartial from the
so-called inspection when it was organized by VFA proponents,
defenders of US military presence in the country, and officials who
directly benefit from perpetuating the US base?” asked Chan.
“As a former soldier, Biazon could not know
that the US troops in Mindanao are not filing reports, doing
bookkeeping, or other boring clerical work. They are very much at
war and their presence is contributing to fanning its deadly
flames,” she said. “Senator Biazon could not be unaware that the
US military has been transforming the form that US military bases
take. They may no longer look like [the US] Subic [naval base] and
Clark [air force base], they may not fly American flags—but they
are still US bases in essence and purpose regardless of the
nomenclature that pro-US politicians prefer.”
Biazon was a former military chief before he
became a senator.
“The LOVFA members are either blinded by their
ideological preference for US basing or by the Philippine
military’s dependence on US military aid, genuinely ignorant of
the ways by which the forms of US basing have been transformed in
recent years, or are deliberately attempting to cover-up the US
bases in order to perpetuate their stay,” Chan said.
Chan also assailed former military general and
now VFA Executive Director Edilberto Adan, who once headed the
Southern Command headquarters, for failing to monitor the bases put
up by the US forces.
“The VFA commissioner has an impossible job:
On the one hand, he is mandated to go after Americans who commit any
wrongdoing in the country. On the other hand, it also appears to be
his task to tell the public that the Americans can’t possibly do
anything wrong,” Chan said.
The Southern Command headquarters, now called
Western Mindanao Command, houses the US Joint Special Operations
Task Forces-Philippines.
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