In 10 paragraphs, Chinese Ambassador Huang Xilian made known last Sunday, April 16, his government’s anger over the decision of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. allowing the United States military to preposition and store defense equipment, supplies and materiel in sites “only a stone’s throw away from Taiwan.”
He warned what China, which boasts of the strongest military in Asia and third in the world, might and can do: “… we will not renounce the use of force, and we reserve the option of taking all necessary measures.”
Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin and U.S. Ambassador Phillip Goldberg after signing the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement.In their ecstasy over the Supreme Court decision declaring the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement constitutional and need not be ratified by the Senate, government officials are telling the Filipino people that the country is now in a better position to take on China in the territorial conflict in the Spratlys in the South China Sea.
The military’s spokesman even said from where the American troops would be based in the Philippines, it would take a shorter distance to the South China Sea where China has done massive reclamations around the reefs and rocks they occupy.
As if the American troops based in the Philippines would simply and quickly rush to the Spratlys and battle with Chinese Navy if China clash with the Philippine Navy in the disputed waters.
It would be good to refer to the Senate hearing in on EDCA in December 2014 when Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin was compelled to tell the public what EDCA is really about upon incisive questioning by Sen. Miriam Santiago, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin and U.S. Ambassador Phillip Goldberg after signing the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement.Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin had no choice but to say what EDCA, the agreement he signed with the United States Ambassador Philip Goldberg last April 28, really is under strict questioning by Sen. Miriam Santiago, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
EDCA stands for Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement which allows the U.S. to set up camps within Philippine military camps despite the Constitutional prohibition that “military bases, foreign military bases, troops, or facilities shall not be allowed in the Philippines except under a treaty duly concurred in by the Senate and, when the Congress so requires, ratified by a majority of the votes cast by the people in a national referendum held for that purpose, and recognized as a treaty by the other contracting State. “
To sell EDCA to the Filipino public, the Aquino government led by Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario and Gazmin demonized China and said with the agreement, the U.S. will come to the aid of the Philippines in case there will be an armed conflict with China in the Spratlys, where both the Philippines and China have conflicting territorial claims.
Last Monday, Gazmin admitted that there is no such guarantee.
Today, various individuals and groups, appalled by the mockery of the Constitution and complete disregard of the historic Senate vote ending the U.S. bases era on Sept. 16, 1991 by the Aquino government, are filing with the Supreme Court today a petition to declare the recently-signed PH-US Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement as unconstitutional. Former senators Rene Saguisag and Wigberto Tañada
Leading the petitioners are former Senators Rene Saguisag and Wigberto Tanada, two of the 12 who voted to kick the US Bases out in 1991. Steve Salonga, will be signing the petition for his father, former Senate President Jovito Salonga. (The other nine senators who voted to oust the U.S. bases were Agapito “Butz” Aquino, Joseph Estrada, Teofisto Guingona Jr, Sotero Laurel II, Ernesto Maceda Jr, Orlando Mercado, Aquilino Pimentel Jr, Victor Ziga, and Juan Ponce Enrile.)
In the Facebook wall of Dennis Carcia, musician, advertising executive, painter and Abante columnist, there’s a picture of Obama signaling something with two fingers.
Dennis captioned it: “EDCA:I can summarize the agreement in two words- NO RENTAL. “
The post elicited a comment from Noy Dy-Liacco: “I can do it in one: FREE!
The banter is a spoof of the TV musical game show “Name the Tune.”
EDCA is Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, a document so detestable it makes a mockery of the Philippine Constitution and ridicules Philippine sovereignty.
