Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts

Issue No. 40                       November 18 - 24,  2001                          Quezon City, Philippines







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Arroyo Hit on Secret Basing Deal with Bush

Expect more protests late this week once President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo flies back to Manila after a brief visit in Mexico.

BY BULATLAT.COM

Is Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo reviving a proposed deal with the United States which former president Fidel V. Ramos failed to clinch early 1990s?

This question is being raised in the light of reports that Arroyo, who is visiting Washington – her ninth in her 10 months of presidency – will return to the Philippines with a secret agreement she will forge with United States President George Bush.

The secret deal, the militant Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan – New Patriotic Alliance) said Saturday citing reports, is a rehash of the old Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA) earlier rejected by the Filipino people into a “Mutual Logistics and Support Agreement (MLSA).” ACSA would revived extraterritorial rights of American forces in the Philippines – the same rights they had enjoyed for almost a century until their former airforce and naval bases were withdrawn following the Philippine Senate rejection of a proposed bases renewal treaty in 1991.

The agreement will be finalized in a series of meetings the Philippine president will hold with US Vice President Dick Cheney and officials of the State Department and Pentagon, Bayan spokesperson Renato Reyes Jr. said.

If true, the new agreement will practically give back basing rights to US military forces in exchange for military aid as well as new loans expected to be awarded by the World Bank this coming week.

“Fifty years of the unlamented Mutual Defense Treaty has produced a Philippine defense establishment that is abusive, corrupt and highly dependent on US military advice, forces and materiel,” Reyes said. “How the return of the bases would help solve the situation, only puppets like Arroyo and (Defense Secretary) Gen. Angelo Reyes would know.”

Reports also indicated that Arroyo has been advised by Philippine defense officials – whom leftist groups in the country said follow orders from Washington – to reiterate her government’s support for Bush’s anti-terrorism campaign and to revitalize the two countries’ “special relations” along this call. Bush, in turn, is expected to support the Arroyo presidency including a renewed military offensive against Marxist and Muslim guerrillas.

Already, Arroyo – even without being asked by Pentagon officials – has allowed the intervention of American “military advisers” in her military offensives against the Abu Sayyaf extremists in southern Philippines. Among the “military advisers” were agents of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which has received a blanket authority from Bush to assassinate “suspected terrorist leaders.”

Arroyo has also been reported to have sought increased Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) presence in the country.

“Arroyo should have raised the issue of US military toxics (in its former military bases in the Philippines) but she did not,” Reyes said. “She could have demanded immediate clean-up of the old bases, the rehabilitation of areas affected by US military toxics and compensation for children and other persons who have long suffered from an issue that the US has consistently rejected. But she did not.”

Reyes demanded that details of the secret basing agreement be made public. “Jurassic defense arrangements such as this would surely die when exposed to patriotic elements,” he said.

The Bayan leader said that protests would hound Arroyo during her entire trip especially in New York, Washington D.C. and Los Angeles.

Earlier, 200 protesters picketed a San Francisco hotel where Arroyo spoke. Allied organizations of Bayan International and Migrante International have vowed to “hound” the President with protests in New York, Washington DC and Los Angeles.

Bigger protests will meet the president when she flies back to Manila after a brief visit in Mexico late this week. Bulatlat.com


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