GMA issues 10-point guideline for conduct of RP-US ‘games’
Mrs. Arroyo issued the guidelines in her capacity as commander-in- chief of the Armed Forces, amid criticisms from some sectors that the conduct of the war games in the Abu Sayyaf stronghold would be a breach of the Charter.
Meanwhile, the President thanked opposition leaders yesterday for dropping their objections to the deployment of US troops against the Abu Sayyaf rebels.
"I thank the opposition senators for their decision on the joint military exercises of the Philippine and American troops," Mrs. Arroyo said in her weekly radio/TV show, referring to a Senate hearing Friday.
The 10-point guidelines are:
• Balikatan will be purely an exercise, involving military training of professional troops from the US and the Philippines, and primarily designed to strengthen the AFP forces. US forces are not authorized to conduct offensive operations.
• Balikatan is a facet of the global fight against terrorism.
• Balikatan is sanctioned by the Constitution and the Visiting Forces Agreement.
• Balikatan is backed by the National Security Council which includes the leadership of both Houses of Congress, as it is an exercise to strengthen both national security and political will.
• The command structure of Balikatan consists of separate US and RP units under the overall command of the AFP, and at no point in time will the US forces be allowed to operate independently
in Philippine territory, meaning American soldiers will be getting orders from the Filipino commander.
• The AFP chief of staff will have complete control of all the forces with the Balikatan, which is understood at the political and operational level of both sides, and I have the assurance of President Bush himself that the American troops will take their cue from the Philippine government.
• The Balikatan is time-built, meaning it will last six months with some 600 US troops involved, the bulk of them to be composed of support service personnel, and 203 US troops will go to Mactan to train our personnel.
• Only a total of 160 US trainors will be deployed in Basilan as observers, and of this only two American trainors will accompany each AFP company, and the Americans will not be involved in combat operations but they will stay in tactical headquarters.
• Human rights violations during the exercises will be severely sanctioned, and to ensure this I am reactivating the Presidential Commission on Human Rights to be chaired by Justice Secretary Hernando Perez to monitor the exercise.
• Socio-economic projects will be conducted in the second half of the exercises because Balikatan has military and community development aspects.
The President said that as a result of Friday’s Senate hearing, "they (opposition) believe the government regarding the true mission of the American soldiers" who have been arriving in the southern Philippines.
"They don’t have any doubts about the participation of the soldiers of the US in war games to be conducted in Basilan and Zamboanga City," she said.
About 660 US soldiers will eventually be deployed in the South where some of them will join local troops in operations against the Abu Sayyaf, a kidnapping band with links to the al-Qaeda network of terror suspect Osama bin Laden.
The Abu Sayyaf are still holding American couple, Martin and Gracia Burnham, and Filipino nurse Deborah Yap in the dense jungle of Basilan island.
The three captives are the last remnants of a kidnapping spree that began in May. The Abu Sayyaf have beheaded another American hostage, Guillermo Sobero, and more than a dozen Filipino captives.
Opposition figures had challenged the deployment of the Americans on constitutional grounds.
At the Senate hearing, government officials and legal experts defended the US deployment, apparently convincing many of the opposition members to drop their objections.
Philippine officials have stressed that the Americans will participate in the operations as observers, advisers and trainers and will be held back from actual combat with the Abu Sayyaf.
However, they will be armed and allowed to fire back in self-defense.
Gov. Parouk Hussin of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, also said he had no objections to the deployment of the Americans, even in Basilan which is part of the ARMM.
Radio station dzMM quoted Hussin, a former Muslim rebel himself, as saying that the arrival of the Americans was constitutional and was just part of long-standing military ties between the two countries.
However, he said that he hoped the military operations in the south would be kept low-key so as not to upset Muslim civilians in Basilan or cause the violence to spread throughout the impoverished region.
No combat
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said yesterday he welcomes the arrival of US soldiers but stressed that he does not want them to engage in combat with the Abu Sayyaf.
Pimentel said that while US troops would be helpful in training local soldiers and upgrading military equipment, their possible "involvement in the war against the rebels will be a slap on the face of the country."
"Our own soldiers are capable of handling the situation in Mindanao. All they need are more training in combat and possibly, an upgrade in machinery," Pimentel said in an interview.
He added that the US government is trying hard to link the Abu Sayyaf rebels to Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, "so they can have a good enough reason to come here."
"I welcome their coming here to the country, but we all have to make sure that the US military does not go overboard," he said.
Last year, Pimentel welcomed the idea of the United States "being a third party" between the present administration and the Abu Sayyaf.
At the same time, an advocacy group denounced yesterday the P93 billion allocated to supposedly accelerate development projects in Mindanao this year.
According to Rey Teves, secretary general of Kusong Mindanaw, only about 11 percent of the P780 billion national budget would be allocated to the South.
"This is not proportionate considering that Mindanao’s contribution to the national growth is about 22.2 percent and it supplies almost half of the country’s food basket," Teves said.
Pimentel, meanwhile, said that they will fight for a bigger share for the south. He said that many parts of Mindanao do not have the basic infrastructure like roads and bridges, or transportation, electricity and water.
"Just because there are more people in Luzon, it does not mean that Mindanao should only have such a small budget. Population is a criterion to allocate more funds, but it should not be the only reason," Pimentel said.
Anti-poverty drive
Speaker Jose de Venecia has proposed a massive economic program in Basilan, which President Arroyo has described as "the poorest province in the archipelago," as a parallel effort to the ongoing military campaign to smoke out the Abu Sayyaf.
He said the anti-poverty program should be "launched shortly" and not at the end of the six-month Balikatan exercises.
"A military solution alone will not suffice," said De Venecia. "We need to address the grinding poverty and social alienation of the Muslims and the injustice against them over the years that have bred terrorism."
The Speaker said Mrs. Arroyo endorsed his proposal and the National Security Council, convened by the President last Wednesday, strongly supported his request to advance the timetable for implementing the program in the province’s non-combat zone.
High morale
Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes said yesterday the morale of the Armed Forces of the Philippines got a boost with the presence of American soldiers participating in the RP-US "Balikatan 2002" war games.
In an interview during the anniversary celebration of the Philippine Military Academy Alumni Association, held at Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City, Reyes also sounded upbeat over the support expressed by Basilan residents for the joint military maneuvers.
According to Reyes, the AFP troopers in the joint war games will benefit in the maneuvers by familiarizing themselves in modern war equipment brought in by their counterparts from the US Pacific Command.
"They (AFP soldiers) are excited to get hold of those modern equipment," he added.
The state-of-the-art military hardware, including night vision equipment, long range sniper rifles, sophisticated communication facilities and radar tracking system, will eventually aid the Filipino soldiers in hunting down the Abu Sayyaf.
Participants in the Balikatan are ferried from training sites to their base commands on board modern combat helicopters brought in by the US authorities. — Matthew Estabillo, Sandy Araneta
- Latest
- Trending
