Foreign troops visiting the Philippines will soon be a thing of the past.

In line with his decision to chart an independent foreign policy, President Duterte has bared plans to make the Philippines free of foreign military troops “maybe in the next two years.”

On the second day of his three-day official visit to Tokyo, the President even expressed willingness to rescind a defense deal that expanded US military presence in the country just to keep troops out.

“I have declared that I will pursue an independent foreign policy. I want, maybe in the next two years, my country freed of the presence of foreign military troops. I want them out and if I have to revise or abrogate agreements, executive agreements, I will,” the President said in his remarks before an assembly of Filipino and Japanese businessmen in Tokyo yesterday.

“This will be the last maneuver, war games between the United States and the Philippines’ military.  Then, in the fullness of God’s time, I am President for six years, no more,” said Duterte, who earlier announced his “separation” from the United States for treating the Philippines “unfairly.”

The President said he does not intend to pick a fight with the country’s neighbors but explained the Constitution provides that the Philippines must adopt an independent foreign policy.

“I would like to make it clear to everybody that we do not pick quarrels with our friends and neighbors but to me it is high time that the President stands up to its dignity as a people,” he said.

‘We will survive’

Still hurting from criticisms from the country’s “supposed friends” on his intensive campaign against illegal drugs,  the President lashed anew at the United States for treating the Philippines “like a dog on a leash” to follow its every whim.

But Duterte asserted the country will “survive” even without the assistance from the United States and other western allies critical of his anti-drug campaign.

“They would say to you, ‘Stop it because we will withdraw or suspend aid and assistance to your country.’ It’s like saying ‘I am a dog on a leash’ and it said, ‘if you do not stop biting the criminals, we will not throw the bread under your mouth. We will throw it further so that you’ll have to struggle to get it,” he said.

“That is what America wants me to be. A dog barking for the crumbs of their favor,” he added.

The United States is a “great country” which helped the country “in so many ways in the past” but has treated the Filipinos unfairly too, according to the President.  “We are also under a colony of America for 50 years and they lived on the fat of my land,” he added.

“We will survive without the assistance of America. Maybe a lesser quality of life but I said, we will survive and if there is one thing I would like to prove to America and to everybody, there is such a thing as the dignity of the Filipino people,” he added.

“I may have ruffled the feelings of some but that is how it is,’’ the tough-talking Philippine President said.

Make a distinction

Senate Minority Leader Ralph G. Recto weighed in on the President’s latest independent foreign policy  pronouncement.  Recto, a former National Economic Development Authority (NEDA)  director under the Arroyo administration said the Philippine government must have the funds and logistics to help its citizens when they are hit by natural disasters should President Duterte decide to mothball the RP-US Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA).

“The vacuum (to be created by American troops when they will not come to the Philippines) would be felt more in disaster relief operations because in many typhoons in the past, Americans have been the first responders, even sending entire carrier battle groups to help in rescue and reconstruction,” Recto said.

“And in this era of climate change, with its powerful typhoons, we need all the help we can get due to our lack of resources to airlift aid to damaged places,” he said.

“If Duterte’s latest announcement morphs into policy, the government should be able to make the distinction, that while it no longer welcomes foreign boots on the ground to fight our wars, it would welcome them still if they’re from workmen doing non-security chores,” Recto said.

Senate bypassed

Recto said his position on EDCA from Day One is to have it ratified by the Senate.  “And I have issued statements, signed reports and voted for a resolution that the consent of the Senate must first be secured to make it binding,’’ he stressed.

“There was a proper way in doing it, but the Senate was bypassed, and I think one of the reasons for EDCA’s vulnerability is that it did not get the seal of approval of an institution that was supposed to ratify it,” he explained.

Recto said EDCA’s “sidelining” would not radically alter US-Philippine relations.  “EDCA sprang from the 1951 US-PH Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) and the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA signed during the Estrada administration). It is the offspring of these two pacts. And we’re not abrogating them,’’ he explained.

Recto said many quarters believe that the objective of the MDT “can be advanced sans EDCA.”

In the event of EDCA’s downgrading, Recto said it would be up to the diplomatic skills of Duterte officials to negotiate the retention of EDCA’s “humanitarian assistance and disaster response (HADR)” component.

EDCA allows the ‘storage and prepositioning of HADR equipment, supplies and material.

“It is to our country’s benefit that such an arrangement will continue to be in force,” he said.

In the aftermath of typhoon Yolanda in November 2013, the US military sent the USS George Washington carrier strike group, dispatched 13,400 personnel including Marines in two ships, deployed 66 aircraft and 12 other ships.

In June 2008, the USS Ronald Reagan carrier strike group also parked itself in the Visayan Sea to bring aid to victims of typhoon ‘’Frank.’’

Purely economics

In the same forum, President Duterte assured Japan, a major US ally in the region, that there was nothing to worry about his revitalized relations with China.

Duterte explained that his recent visit to Beijing centered on economic cooperation, not on military alliances.

“I went to China for a visit, I would like to assure that all there was economics,” he said, shortly before his scheduled bilateral meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo.

“We did not talk about arms. We did not talk about stationing of troops. We avoided talking about alliances, military,” he added.

The President said he wants to be “a friend of China” but does not need any arms and missiles established in the country.

Source:
courtesy of MANILA BULLETIN

by Genalyn D. Kabiling and Mario B. Casayuran

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