SC asked to stop ‘Balikatan’ games

Two Mindanao-based lawyers asked the Supreme Court (SC) yesterday to stop the government from continuing the joint military exercise between the Philippines and the United States in Zamboanga City and Basilan.

This developed as a Muslim scholar charged that the US troops in Mindanao would test their latest portable high-tech weapons including the newest version of the so-called thermal imaging gadgets "which penetrate thick vegetation and isolate targets according to living and non-living objects."

Petitioners Paulino Ersando and Arthur Lim, both former officers of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, branded the joint exercise as a "governmental misadventure."

They asked the high tribunal to order Executive Secretary Alberto Romulo and Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes to call off the war games for lack of legal basis.

Ersando and Lim argued that the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) and the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) between the two countries do not have provisions allowing for the annual joint exercise.

"Certainly, there is no provision in the VFA that allows US troops to be deployed even only as trainer or adviser or chaperon for Filipino troops in a war zone area like the one in Basilan," the lawyers noted.

"The VFA simply does not allow US troops to engage in combat disguised as an exercise. The VFA does not authorize American soldiers to fire back even if fired upon by the common enemy," they added.

In their 13-page petition, the lawyers said the deployment of US combat troops violates Article 18, Section 25 of the Constitution which bans US troops or military facilities after the Senate voted to shut down the US bases in 1991.

They opined that the war games dubbed Balikatan 02-1 was just a coverup to crush the Abu Sayyaf bandits still holding an American missionary couple and a Filipino nurse in the jungles of Basilan.

The petitions asserted that the Abu Sayyaf is an internal problem that does not need US assistance to resolve.

"To unleash American GIs to subdue them (Abu Sayyaf), even under the cover of expanding the US-led war against global terror, is not only an unmitigated insult against the Filipino soldier, but a negation of our self-respect as a people, and a mockery of the Philippine Constitution," the lawyers stressed.

They said American soldiers cannot be deployed to augment or assist Filipino troops "in their elusive and frustrating campaign against the Abu Sayyaf."

"Balikatan 02-1 is illegal and unconstitutional insofar as it allows US troops to be in the actual area of operations against the Abu Sayyaf group," the petitioners said.

Datu Norodin Lucman believed that the US troops will test their latest weaponry and jungle warfare with tactical air support in Basilan, and probably also in Sulu.

Lucman said thermal imaging devices were first tested by the US in Vietnam, but they lacked the complementary weapons to penetrate the foliage.

At the same time, Lucman expressed concern that participants of the military exercise might collide with the 3,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front in Mindanao, triggering another outbreak of hostilities.

Meanwhile, National Security Adviser Roilo Golez urged leftist groups to go slow on the military exercise and view it more objectively.

In a press briefing at Malacañang, Golez also denied allegations that the war games would adversely affect relations between the Philippines and the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC).

Golez noted that those opposing the Balikatan were basically leftist groups.

"Of course, we all recognize that their protest is ideologically based and basically, anti-US. Anything that has to do with the United States, they would oppose," Golez said.

He claimed that leftists groups were still living in the past and could not go beyond the "historical slights committed by the US and other colonial powers against the Philippines."

"We should look at the present and look at the future and move on. I think that’s the more healthy attitude and realize that it is impossible right now to continue living as a viable nation without relationships with such countries as the US, Japan, China, Spain, United Kingdom, Europe, the ASEAN, for that matter," Golez said.

This developed as the militant Promotion of Church People’s Response (PCPR) and Bayan Muna pressed their verbal assault on the war games.

"Even in the absence of clear terms of reference, we are outraged that US President George Bush speaks as though US troops can invade the shores of all countries in the guise of anti-terrorism," PCPR said in a statement.

The group also assailed President Arroyo for releasing more funds to the exercise at the expense of basic social services and land reform.

Bayan Muna Representatives Satur Ocampo, Liza Maza and Crispin Beltran slammed Reyes for allegedly opening the country to the US forces.

"While he speaks of sovereignty, his actions show that he has accommodated American interventionist designs at the expense of the national interest," Ocampo said. — With reports from Perseus Echeminada, Paolo Romero, Sandy Araneta, Romel Bagares