The recent deaths of two US soldiers in Sulu have also strengthened calls for the abrogation of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) between the Philippines and the United States.
By ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat.com
MANILA — The recent deaths of two US soldiers in Sulu have strengthened calls for the abrogation of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) between the Philippines and the United States.
Staff Sgt. Jack Martin and Sgt. First Class Christopher Shaw were killed together with a Philippine Marine identified only as a Private First Class Estrada on Sept. 28 when their vehicle struck a landmine in Barangay Kagay, Indanan town, Sulu.
Members of the Mindanao-based human rights group Kawagib visited Sulu in the wake of the Sept. 28 explosion and reported being informed by residents of Barangay Kagay that the vehicle which carried Martin, Shaw and Estrada was on its way to Barangay Batu-Bato, also in Indanan, transporting supplies.
“But they didn’t know what kind of supplies these were,” Kawagib secretary-general Bai Ali Indayla told Bulatlat in an interview. “These could have been food; these could also have been bullets.”
Kawagib members also reported that since the explosion, the military has conducted indiscriminate aerial bombings not only in Indanan, but also in nearby Panamao. A bridge leading to Maimbung and Parang was also shelled.
According to Indayla, the deaths of Martin and Shaw have raised fears among Sulu’s residents that the US may intervene and cause the escalation of the armed conflict in their province. “In fact, so many have evacuated for fear of being caught in the crossfire,” she told Bulatlat.
Indayla said the deaths of Martin and Shaw only serves to underscore the urgency of abrogating the VFA.
Passed by the Philippine Senate in 1999 and signed that same year by then President Joseph Estrada, the VFA grants extraterritorial and extrajudicial “rights” to US servicemen visiting the Philippines. It made possible the Balikatan military exercises, which have been held annually since 2002; and is also invoked to justify the presence of the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines (JSOTF-P).
The VFA has several times courted controversy in the last decade, with critics assailing it for violating sovereignty, among other reasons. Others have also pointed to the social costs of US military presence in the Philippines, not the least of which, they say, are the rise in prostitution and other forms of abuse against women.
The explosion that killed Martin, Shaw, and Estrada took place just days after the passage of a Senate resolution calling for the renegotiation or termination of the VFA.
On Sept. 23, the Senate passed without objection Senate Resolution No. 1356 calling for a renegotiation or termination of the VFA. Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, chairperson of the Legislative Oversight Committee on the VFA (Lovfa), sponsored the resolution, with senators Rodolfo Biazon, Joker Arroyo, Richard Gordon, Gregorio Honasan II, Panfilo Lacson, and Francis Pangilinan as co-sponsors.
But for Roland Simbulan, an expert on Philippine-US foreign and military relations, the call should go beyond renegotiation.
“Why just renegotiate when we do not need an onerous treaty like this?” Simbulan said in an interview with Bulatlat. “The call should be for immediate abrogation.”
Among the issues Santiago raised in her sponsorship speech for SR 1356 was that of the length of time that US troops are allowed to stay in the Philippines. This is an issue on which the VFA is silent. The VFA’s preamble merely states that “from time to time elements of the United States armed forces may visit the Republic of the Philippines.” Within the VFA, the term “United States personnel” is defined as “United States military and civilian personnel temporarily in the Philippines in connection with activities approved by the Philippine Government.”
“In the language of constitutional law, the VFA is void for vagueness, because it fails to define the terms ‘visit,’ ‘temporary,’ and ‘military activities,’” Santiago said. “Under the vagueness doctrine, it is impermissible for a statute to delegate basic policy matters to administrators, to such a degree as to lead to arbitrary and discriminatory application.”
I have read so many articles or reviews on the topic of
the blogger lovers but this paragraph is actually a fastidious paragraph, keep it up.
The US soldiers were not killed by a landmine. That supposed landmine attack was just a cover-up in order to show that the American soldiers were not killed in combat. But the truth is, they died during a retaliatory attack by the people of Sulu against those who bombarded them during Eid celebration.
The crusaders suffered heavy casualties in the said attack. Two of their APC's were left burning while the rest run away. All the soldiers on board the said vehicles were killed and among them were a number of US soldiers.
By the way, we never feared invaders. In fact, our excitement to see them is overflowing. Our politicians love their grants and dollars, the would-be 'collateral damages' love their 'humanitarian aids' and 'medical missions' while our mujahidin love to meet them in battlefields.
None should entertain any thought that the children of Bud Dahu and Bud Bagsak warriors would ever fear any one, especially if they are Americans.
The September 26th Eid bombardment of Sulu proved without doubt that the crusaders are back in our homeland. It is sad that after trying to make us part of the Philippine Republic for more than a hundred years, the government are now treating us like complete aliens.
Perhaps, we have been too naive to believe we are being treated as citizens ever since. Massive poverty, government neglect, open corruption, huge militarization of our homeland are more than enough to prove that we have never been treated as part of this country.
The presence of American soldiers to help kill our people and the collective punishment we suffered during Eid have unmasked all the pretensions of this republic to bring the 'blessings of democracy' to our homeland.