Give and take
Since the timing was completely off, as President Rodrigo Duterte said this while accepting the historic delivery of the donated Sinovac vials, many missed his revelation of what many Filipinos suspected — that it is possible that the American military had stored nuclear weapons in the country.
The urban legend is that the US military exploded nuclear armaments hidden beneath Mt. Pinatubo that caused the long dormant volcano to explode. The eruption happened following the Senate vote to terminate the 1947 military bases agreement.
It is not far-fetched that during the cold war with the Soviet Union, the United States may have kept missile silos in the country, probably not within the huge military bases it kept since these would easily be detected.
The President said he will “immediately terminate” a bilateral military deal with Washington if US nuclear weapons are found being dumped in the Philippines.
His warning is valid since the 1987 Constitution prohibits the entry of nuclear armaments, which the yellow mob had stretched in opposing the opening of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant that would have immensely solved the problem of electricity supply and its high costs had it operated.
During the term of President Noynoy Aquino, the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) was signed that provided the framework for the return of US forces stationed in the country although supposedly for short intervals.
Nonetheless, the deal allowed the Americans to build structures inside military camps or even use agreed parts of the country for the storage of equipment.
“I have made a declaration that we will adopt an independent foreign policy… I assured China that I will not allow nuclear armaments of America to be stored in the Philippines,” Duterte said in a news conference at the Villamor Air Base after personally receiving the Sinovac vaccine delivery.
“We do not want it… but I am warning you that if I get hold of… information that the nuclear armaments are here brought by you (US), I will immediately ask you to go out and I will terminate the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA),” he said.
The VFA was signed in 1999 and provided for mainly joint exercises between American and Filipino forces.
It also exempted US military personnel from passport and visa regulations when they come for joint exercises and training of troops in the Philippines.
The EDCA, although supposedly a mere executive agreement in support of the VFA, has a broader implication as it instituted the guidelines for the rotational presence of both US military personnel and equipment.
Thus, if indeed facilities were left by the Americans, which they need to retrieve or refurbish, then the EDCA covers their tracks.
EDCA is meant to reignite the cold war, now with China, which is becoming more economically powerful than the US, and seeks to reinforce American hegemony in the Pacific region.
It was conceived during former President Barack Obama’s Asian rebalancing policy in which US military focus were shifted from the Middle East to Asia with the aim of containing China and North Korea.
Mr. Duterte’s independent foreign policy that removed the country’s utter dependence on the United States changed the American designs in the region.
Now the country has expanded its circle of allies, and it is China which seems to deliver whenever the nation is in dire straits, such as in the current health malady.
The era of exploitation has ended and Filipinos are all the more proud for it.
“Mr. Duterte’s independent foreign policy that removed the country’s utter dependence on the United States changed the American designs in the region.
“If I get hold of… information that the nuclear armaments are here brought by you, I will immediately ask you to go out and I will terminate the Visiting Forces Agreement.