PRESS RELEASE
28 January 2012
"The intensified joint military exercises in the West Philippine Sea off Palawan coasts only suggest an impending war for the gas-rich Spratly Islands."
This is the statement of Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay), an urban poor group who calls for the immediate scrapping of the Visiting Forces Agreement between the US and the Philippines, to counter the warmongering scheme of the US government.
Several militant groups troop to the US embassy this morning to rally against the seeming US intervention in the Philippine military and political affairs.
Gloria Arellano, Kadamay national secretary said, "The US faltering economy has survived in the last decade by stirring up wars in Iraq, Afghanistan at Libya at the expense of the hundreds of thousands of innocent lives."
Impending war
The group also said that since Aquino's statement during last Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit, where he made a declaration on the presence of a bounty natural gas field underneath the Spartlys, the situation in the West Philippine Sea has been very alarming, and there “is an urgent need to end VFA to prevent war from coming into our shores," Arellano added.
Kadamay is also wary of the visits of US envoys to the country that had been thrice in the last 10 months. The last was Senator John McCain, a member of Senate Armed Services Committee, who visited Aquino with three other US Senators this month.
News said that the US wants to intensify its 'joint-military training' with Filipino soldiers, reportedly as part of the counter-insurgency program Oplan Bayanihan.
Yesterday, the Department of National Defense (DND) has identified 138 military contracts worth P70 billion that include the acquisition of fighter jets, warships and modern equipment to boost the depleted military assets especially of the Philippine Air Force and the Philippine Navy.
"We need not look into the US bases in Australia and Singapore to see the presence of US military, as the warships that will soon dock on the Palawan coast would carry Filipino soldiers manned by the US military," Arellano pointed out.
VFA's constitutionality questioned
Since its approval in 1999, the Supreme Court had junked twice petitions led by Bagong Alyansang Makabayan to junk the said agreement.
Kadamay added that since VFA was approved, the bilateral agreement has already incurred scores of lives of Filipino soldiers who fought in different US-led war of aggressions.
"We call on the Supreme Court, whose credibility is now on the grill, to declare VFA 'unconstitutional', Arellano said.
As to the president, "Aquino's shooting hobby should be confined within the firing range," Arellano addressed. ###
Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay)
Militant Center of Urban Poor in the Philippines
Reference: Gloria Arellano, national secretary-general (09213927457)
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