THE question is raised because without the majority of Filipinos realizing it, the Philippines is so saddled with American encumbrances, to put it lightly, that the country cannot ever hope to prosper without getting rid of them. Although America is reputed to have granted Philippine independence in 1946, it has actually tied down the Philippines to its economy to this day by virtue of various military treaties: the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) of 1951, the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) of 1998 and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) of 2014.
The MDT is the mother of all military treaties binding the Philippines to America, specifically providing that an attack on the Philippines by any foreign power will be treated as an attack on America, requiring its defensive, retaliatory reaction or vice versa, an attack on America in the Asia-Pacific will be treated as also an attack on the Philippines, requiring its defensive, retaliatory reaction.
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