LEFT-leaning Makabayan bloc lawmakers yesterday filed House Resolution No. 1119 opposing the stockpiling of defense equipment, supplies, and materiel, including weapons, ammunition, and missiles in Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) sites around the Philippines.
“We cannot ignore the potential risks and implications of allowing foreign military forces to stockpile weapons and defense equipment within our territory,” said Rep. France Castro (PL, ACT), who led the group in filing the measure. “The presence of such stockpiles can potentially compromise our sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
The Makabayan bloc filed the resolution even if President Marcos Jr. has already said that the Philippines will not allow these sites to be used by United States troops for launching offensive attacks.
“Despite the pronouncement that his government will not participate in any offensive activities in the region, the text of EDCA would show that his pronouncements may be rejected by Washington in the event of escalating tensions in the Indo-Pacific,” the resolution said.
The Makabayan bloc warned that the “continued presence of US military forces and their activities, including covert ones, in our country only fuel further tensions and even further emboldened China to escalate its equally deplorable aggressive militarist posturing in the region.”
“If the current trajectory of US-PH military relations continues, there should be no doubt that the Philippines can be made as a target of Chinese military strike, as the Marcos government continues to play into the big power game of Washington,” they said.
The militant lawmakers pointed out that EDCA provisions state that: “(T)he Philippines hereby authorizes United States forces… to preposition and store defense equipment, supplies, and materiel (“prepositioned materiel”), including, but not limited to, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief equipment, supplies, and materiel, at agreed locations.”
The resolution cited a 1998 US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report which states that: “The U.S. military stores, or prepositions, reserves of military equipment and supplies near potential conflict areas to ensure that the material would be quickly available to forces in the event of a crisis. During a crisis, prepositioning would speed U.S. response times because only the troops and a relatively small amount of materiel would need to be brought by air to the conflict area.”
“This shows that prepositioning equipment is ultimately a part of Washington’s strategic plan in its EDCA sites, which is vastly different from current declarations by both Manila and Washington that the sites will mainly be used for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief,” the resolution said.
The Makabayan bloc also quoted Bayan president Renato Reyes Jr. statement that the choice of the locations in Cagayan and Isabela, taken with the provisions of the EDCA and the US military’s definition of prepositioning of materiel, “leads us to conclude that this is a preparation for war, for conflicts with Taiwan.”
“No assurances made by the DFA at this time can change this grim reality. The Philippines must not allow itself to be used for conflicts abroad that are against our national interest and that would be contrary to peace in the region,” the Makabayan said.
The group also cited the observation of geopolitical analyst and University of the Philippines professor Roland Simbulan that the deployment of US troops here through the EDCA bases clearly focuses on the US strategy to restrain the growth of China.
