Volcano, visa, and VFA

Amidst the catastrophic threat of Taal Volcano, the president threatens to scrap the VFA when the US cancel the visa of Sen. dela Rosa. President Duterte may cancel the accord “with or without a reason,” said Sen. Pimentel III who added “that agreement (should) always be subject to review…times have changed and it is no longer needed by the country.”

Senators Lacson and Drilon affirm Duterte’s power to terminate the VFA. Defense Secretary Lorenzana confirmed the termination can be done unilaterally. Meanwhile, Prof. Jose Maria Sison asks, "You are again posturing or joking? Why only Visiting Forces Agreement, why not also Military Assistance Agreement, Mutual Defense Treaty, and Enhance Defense Cooperation Agreement?"

As to how and why the Philippines has military treaties with the US, it’s timely to look at their rationale and history. The military might of the US paved the way for the seizure of the Philippines by the Americans. Politico-economic agreements were paired with military treaties. The National Defense Act which conceived the AFP succeeded the Philippine Bill of 1902 which dramatizes a "free election" with US subservient candidates.

Other notable laws were the Flag Law of 1907 and the Payne-Aldrich Act of 1909. The former prohibits any move towards independence, e.g. disallowing the display of Filipino flag, harassing media, banning patriotic literature, etc. The latter results in freeing US finished goods from tariff duties and to lifting up the quota of Philippine raw materials export to the US. Subsequently, the United States Special Armed Forces in the Far East continued to operate during the post-WWII administrations.

It was during the presidency of Manuel Roxas when the US-RP Treaty of General Relations was signed to provide the Americans military bases in the Philippines as the American entrepreneurs in the country enjoy property rights equal to Filipinos'. Ensuring US hegemony in the Philippines, the Roxas administration signed unjust agreements with the US: the Property Act respecting the pre-WWII acquired properties of Americans in the Philippines, and the Bell Trade Act allowing US exploitation of Philippine resources, run public utilities, prolonging free trade relation, etc.

The US-RP Military Bases Treaty and US-RP Military Assistance Pact came along with these unjust economic treaties. The former inked the 99-year extraterritorial rights in US military bases at tens of strategic locations in the Philippines. The latter, through Joint US Military Assistance Group, cloak the US control of the AFP. Hence, the US military advises the AFP and lend and/or sell equipment fattening the western military-industrial complex, suppressing the growing strength of the Pambansang Kaisahan ng mga Magbubukid, and pulverizing the remaining members of the HUKBALAHAP who remain critical of American benevolence. Up to the eleventh president since the Roxas administration, social volcano continue to flare up both in armed and none-armed resistance.

Canceling the VFA is right but with the wrong reason. Anyways, the president’s emotivist expression inspires rethinking the military treaties and operations quelling the people's longing for sovereignty and genuine democracy.

Noe M. Santillan

Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Social Studies

University of the Philippines Cebu