The Philippine government should disclose the terms of the 9 agreed locations for US facilities in the Philippines. What are the specific uses, duration of use, and deployment of US forces in these locations? Will the American troop deployment be rotation but for 365 days a year? Isn’t that permanent presence already? Isn’t this what the US has been doing in Mindanao since 2002? It is a blatant circumvention of the Constitution.
EDCA says that these facilities will be under the operational control of the US. There is no “joint control” in EDCA, contrary to what Philippine authorities are saying.
The EDCA allows the US to use these Philippine facilities rent-free. They are also given tax exemptions in using utilities and the PH gov’t will pay the taxes. They can also use our radio frequencies for free. Why did the Philippine government allow these perks?
PH has no say what goes in and out of these agreed locations. The US will have “unimpeded access to Agreed Locations for all matters related to prepositioning and storage of defense equipment.” Prepositioned equipment shall be for the “exclusive use” of US forces.
Same privileges are also given to private military contractors as with regular US forces. Let’s not forget experiences with Blackwater/Xe and similar contractors that operated in Iraq.
There is no “joint control” in EDCA. Such is a myth since the US facilities will remain under the exclusive control of the US forces, and Filipinos will be reduced to providing perimiter security for a foreign army. This is again an affront to our sovereignty.
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