Filipinos concerned over expanding military cooperation with U.S.

MANILA, March 1 (Xinhua) -- Filipinos have become concerned over the enhanced military alliance and strategic partnerships between the Philippines and the United States to build collective security with regional allies Australia and Japan.

Many have been gripped by fear of danger brought by an increased flurry of activity among the allied militaries, including more extensive joint military exercises involving an enormous number of American troops in the Philippines, which is at the center of the Indo-Pacific region.

Expanding the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) sites in the Philippines has alarmed experts. The four new locations, on top of the five existing bases, will allow the U.S. military to deploy its troops, weapons, and equipment in Philippine military bases.

Experts believed the U.S. ulterior goal is clear and simple -- preserving U.S. dominance in Asia even at the cost of provocation and even war, from which the Filipinos, who will be caught in the crossfire, will suffer the most.

"Participating in any war does not serve our national interest. We must never allow our territory to become a launch pad for an offensive attack against another state," former Philippine presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said in his column published in the Daily Tribune.

Echoing Roque's remarks, Mario Ferdinand Pasion, director of the Phil-BRICS Strategy Studies, said that expanding the EDCA sites in the Philippines will put the country in danger.

Pasion said the Philippines must learn from the countries destroyed by U.S. military occupation and interference, such as Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, and Iraq.

"Almost all unconstitutional, anti-democratic, and chaos-resultant regime changes all over the world have been orchestrated by the United States and its allies or both through their obedient local military in that country," Pasion added.

Rigoberto Tiglao of the Manila Times warned that allowing more U.S. military presence in the Philippines "endangers" the Philippines' national security and economy, and that a strengthened EDCA might bring "severe economic backlash."

"Filipinos must ponder whether the nine EDCA sites and the EDCA are beneficial or detrimental to the Philippines," said Anna Malindog-Uy, senior research fellow of the Global Governance Institution and vice president of external affairs of the Asian Century Philippines Strategic Studies Institute.

"The Philippines should also denounce and move toward the abrogation of the EDCA and, by extension, the Visiting Forces Agreement, revisit and subject the Mutual Defense Treaty to a public debate to determine if we still need such a military treaty with the United States or not," she added.