At a global forum in Manila in May, President Marcos Jr. warned that “if by a willful act” committed by China a Filipino is killed in the West Philippine Sea, it would be “very close” to an “act of war” that could cause the Philippines to invoke the 1951 Phl-US Mutual Defense Treaty.
The Visiting Forces Agreement is in “full force again” as President Rodrigo Duterte recalled his earlier order to terminate the lopsided military pact between the Philippine and US government.
The VFA and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) have not modernized the armed forces. Military training between the troops ensured allegiance to US interests and adoption of counterinsurgency strategies, which have been brutal to the core.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin, Jr. unwittingly said something at odds with what his boss, President Rodrigo Duterte, has been saying since he came to power in 2016. The Philippines, “Teddy Boy” declared during a reception last July 4, the 243rd anniversary of American independence from Britain, cannot live without the United States of America…
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld Most Filipinos — 85% of them, according to a survey by the US-based Pew Research Center — may think the US their lord and savior. But no matter how convinced they are that their devotion to the US is reciprocated, and that the latter will go to…
The Philippines is contributing to the spending requirement for the expansion here of US military facilities.
The Mutual Defense Treaty has been in force for 60 years. it is the mother of all military treaties between the US and the Philippines. As it is, it is not a treaty between equals but one that binds the Philippines into subservience and dependence on the US in exchange for World War II vintage…
By MARYA SALAMAT
“This treaty and the US have not really helped in AFP modernization. It only enhanced its dependence and derogated Philippine sovereignty.” – Satur Ocampo
By MARYA SALAMAT Bulatlat.com 1st Part: After 60 years, US-RP defense pact ‘proved useless, disadvantageous to Philippines MANILA — “Confirmed reports” about the deployment of US special operatives in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines and probably on the ground in Libya, too, abound in newspapers, said Roland Simbulan, an expert on US-Philippine relations. These special operatives,…
Sen. Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan, author of a Senate resolution calling for the abrogation of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), Evalyn Ursua, lawyer of Subic rape victim “Nicole”; Pacifico Agabin, dean of the Lyceum of the Philippines College of Law; Renato Reyes, Jr., Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan or New Patriotic Alliance) secretary-general; and Neri Javier Colmenares,…
Amid snowballing calls for the termination of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), Malacañang through one of its spokespersons has argued that the said pact cannot be abrogated since doing so would affect the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) between the Philippines and the US. But lawyer Neri Javier Colmenares, secretary-general of the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL), disagrees.