Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 12) — The United States must declare all assets it will bring inside the sites under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), the spokesperson of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) said Wednesday.
During a public briefing, Armed Forces Spokesperson Colonel Medel Aguilar said that the Philippine government would still be the owner of EDCA sites as well as all related properties and facilities.“And therefore everything that will be brought inside those facilities will have to be coordinated and cleared with the Armed Forces of the Philippines,” he said.Aguilar also noted that the facilities would be completely turned over to the AFP.
However, Article 4 of EDCA stipulates that “United States forces and United States contractors shall have unimpeded access to Agreed Locations for all matters relating to the prepositioning and storage of defense equipment, supplies and materiel, including delivery, management, inspection, use, maintenance, and removal of such equipment, supplies and materiel.”
Critics of the current administration’s decision to expand the American military presence have raised concerns about that provision.The Philippine government earlier this month identified the additional four EDCA sites located in Cagayan, Isabela, and Palawan.
Marcos either ‘misinformed’ or ‘misleading’ Filipinos on use of EDCA sites – Rep. Castro
House Deputy Minority Leader and ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. France Castro said President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. may either not have accurately known the country’s EDCA with the United States or was not telling the truth when he assured Filipinos that sites under the deal would not be used to launch attacks.
“It seems that Pres. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was misinformed on the true text of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) or he is misleading the Filipino people,” the lawmaker said in a statement on Tuesday.
Echoing arguments by Bayan Muna Chairman Neri Colmenares, Castro said the 2014 deal provides that the US will have full control over the kind of military supplies it will place in the EDCA sites and over how these will be deployed.
READ: US dictates the terms of EDCA – Bayan Muna
She also noted that the EDCA “does not prohibit the use of these prepositioned armaments in covert or overt military operations in the Philippines or abroad.”
The critics of the military deal pointed to a line in the agreement which states, “United States forces shall have control over the access to and disposition of such prepositioned materiel and shall have the unencumbered right to remove such prepositioned materiel at any time from the territory of the Philippines.”Colmenares earlier said the Philippines would not even be able to monitor if the US is storing chemical or nuclear weapons in the facilities.“Ang papel lang ng mga sundalong Filipino doon ay tagapagbantay sa labas, in short mga security guards na bawal ding pumasok o silipin man lang ang nangyayari sa loob,” Castro said.[Translation: The only role of Filipino soldiers there is to act as guards who cannot even enter or check what is happening inside.]The lawmaker maintained her view that the EDCA is being used to make the Philippines a military base of the US.Di man ito diretsong sinabi sa teksto ng kasunduan ay ito ang esensya at aktwal na nangyayari sa ngayon,” she said. “Marapat na ibasura na ang tagibang na kasunduang ito na kasama ang Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) ay halos ibalik tayo sa pagiging kolonya ng US.[Translation: While this was not expressly stated in the text of the agreement, this is what is essentially happening now. The government should scrap this deal which, along with the VFA, is almost making us a colony again of the US again.]In a media briefing on Wednesday, Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo reiterated that the two countries will still have to discuss the extent of American troops’ use of the EDCA sites.
He first made the statement when earlier asked if the Philippines will allow the US to store its military assets in the EDCA sites for the defense of Taiwan.
“We have to identify the terms and references, how these activities will be undertaken,” Manalo said during the briefing. “So I don’t think we’re really at any stage yet to answer how they might be used. They’re still open to discussion.”
He also maintained that the “basic purposes” of the sites would be to strengthen interoperability between Philippine and US forces, better address security challenges, and improve relief operations and disaster response.
