PHILIPPINES
US War Games Resume
-
Murray Horton
The years 2000 and 01 have been tumultuous in Philippine politics. In late 2000, a massive scandal erupted with the revelation that President Joseph Estrada was the single biggest beneficiary of the country’s illegal numbers racket, netting hundreds of millions of $US in the process, enabling him to keep himself, his cronies and his multiple mistresses and children in the highest possible style. If you’d seen it in a B movie, you wouldn’t have believed it. In short order, he was impeached and the trial started in December. It reached its anti-climax in January 2001, when the Senate (by a majority of one) refused to accept crucial prosecution evidence; the prosecution team walked out in disgust; and, as in 1986 when People Power overthrew the Marcos dictatorship, hundreds of thousands of people continuously rallied in Metro Manila and throughout the country; the military and police withdrew their crucial support from Estrada and he was forced from office (he never actually resigned, stating that he was merely taking a rest, while his Vice President, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, “temporarily” runs the country). But he was gone, and he lost two subsequent appeals to the Supreme Court asking for his Presidency back. 13-0 was the verdict each time. He had lasted a mere two years of his six year term, having blown the largest mandate ever given any elected Philippine President.
Worse was to come for him – for the first time ever in Philippine history a former President was arrested, imprisoned and charged with the capital crime of plunder (by contrast, none of the Marcos family, who stole billions and murdered, tortured and imprisoned thousands, has ever spent one minute in prison). This was all too much for him and his supporters, both inside and outside traditional political circles. Hundreds of thousands of them staged their own rallies in Metro Manila, calling for his release, and reinstatement. Whipped into a frenzy by reactionary politicians who date back to the Marcos martial law years, the mob attacked the Presidential Palace on May Day – in the ensuing riot, several were killed on both sides and major damage was done; President Macapagal-Arroyo declared a “state of rebellion”; rounded up large numbers of the lumpen proletariat who had been used as cannon fodder (being paid to attend rallies is so common in the Philippines that there’s a Filipino word for it – hakot); and arrested some of the politicians behind it. Others went into hiding.
So it’s been an action packed year,
even by the volatile standards of Filipino politics (the May 2001 half term
elections for Congress and local government featured an even higher than usual
death toll from political assassinations and bombings). But one thing doesn’t
change – the US military is in the Philippines. Forced out by the 1991 Senate
vote (including Senator Estrada) which terminated the century old bases treaty,
the US military has had no bases in the Philippines since 1992. This was a
major blow to the Pentagon. But it assiduously worked away at its former
colony, under the Ramos and Estrada presidencies, finally getting the
US/Philippines Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) ratified by the Senate in 1999
(under Estrada). This allowed it to frequently conduct large scale exercises in
the Philippines at will, without having to bother with the expensive
infrastructure of bases. As with its Status of Forces Agreements with Japan and
South Korea, where it does still have many bases, the VFA offers virtual
immunity to US servicemen accused of crimes in the Philippines.
Joint exercises started in 2000 and
from the outset there were incidents. In March 2000, there were joint naval
exercises; three US sailors were arrested and charged with bashing up a Cebu
City taxi driver in a dispute over his fare. The case was dropped after the US
paid the cabbie $US5,000. A more deadly situation occurred in August 2000, also
on Cebu. US Navy SEALs (Sea, Air, Land special forces) and their Philippine
Navy counterparts held a secret exercise in the former Atlas Mine, at Toledo,
in the island’s interior. All went swimmingly for the Navy boys, but they left
an unexploded rocket-launched grenade behind. Local kids found it, the thing
blew up, killing two and injuring another. This was the first that relevant
Filipino authorities even knew about the Flash Piston exercise. They filed
homicide and injury charges against 39 US SEALs and Philippine Navy commandos.
That did not go down well with the US military, which claimed immunity for its
men. Once again, money solved the problem. In January 2001, the parents of the
dead boys were a paid a total of 1.5 million pesos (divide by 50 for $US) and
duly asked the prosecutors to drop the charges.
Thirty four large, medium and small VFA
joint exercises are scheduled for 2001. But it hasn’t been a smooth ride. In
January, 200 US Air Force personnel and five aircraft arrived at the former
Clark Air Force Base to take part in the Teak Piston exercise with the
Philippine Air Force. The exercise never got off the ground – literally. It
coincided with the peak of the protests demanding Estrada’s ouster. The US, in
the final week of Clinton’s Presidency, was hyper sensitive to any suggestion
that its military was involved in Filipino politics, or providing any sort of
an escape service for Estrada (in 1986, the USAF flew the Marcoses and their
loot from their besieged Metro Manila palace to Clark, then out of the
country). The exercise was called off, the US military forces left, and it was
rescheduled for January 2002. George Bush was sworn in the same weekend as
Estrada was overthrown.
The next big exercise was Balikatan
2001, involving 1,700 US troops, from late April until mid May, and taking
place over several provinces. The US tried to get the Philippines to accept the
involvement of Thailand, Singapore, Australia and Canada, but the Philippines
government baulked, fearing diplomatic problems with China and Vietnam. It is
wary about getting dragged into Bush’s increasingly confrontational
relationship with China.
Of course, in the good old days of the
US bases, everybody’s military got to play in the Philippines. Even little old
NZ. Special Air Service troops practised counter-insurgency there (two were
killed, in the 1981 crash of a US military aircraft, near Subic Bay Navy Base).
In the 1980s, NZ Skyhawks used to practice bombing runs in the regular Cope
Thunder exercises at the Crow Valley Bombing Range, near Clark. Now, of course,
the RNZAF air combat wing is being consigned to redundancy and those geriatric
Skyhawks are up for sale. Maybe the Philippines can buy them and practice
bombing their own country. Although, knowing the Philippine military, any such
planes will be used for real bombing.
It is unlikely that other countries’ military
forces will get back into the Philippines, but the Pentagon is working very
hard to cement the US military back into its oldest colony and client. Every
one of these exercises is met by large scale protests – the Filipino people
fought for 100 years to get rid of the US military; they are not going to just
sit idly by and allow them back into their country.
-----------------------------------