Philippine incoming gov't urged to drop defense pact with U.S.

A Philippine columnist on Saturday called on the incoming Philippine government to drop a defense pact between the Philippines and the United States, arguing it was reducing the country into one big U.S. military base.

"For as long as we have foreign military bases on our soil, the country can never formulate its own independent foreign policy," Rod Kapunan wrote in an article published on Saturday, calling the foreign policy of outgoing Benigno Aquino's government "a carbon copy of the U.S. policy for the Asia-Pacific region."

Manila and Washington signed the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement in 2014, which allows the U.S. troops to build facilities to store equipment in the Philippines, in addition to giving broad access to Philippine military bases.

"As a lawyer, (incoming President Rodrigo) Duterte could see the implication in allowing the reinstallation of the U.S. bases," Kapunan wrote in an English newspaper the Standard.

He called on Duterte to drop the defense pact, which he said would be used as an example by future administrations to sign agreements that would allow other countries to establish their own military bases in the Philippines.

He slammed the Aquino administration for bringing the dispute with China in the South China Sea to the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, saying it would give the United States the leverage to continue "its provocative patrol in the South China Sea."

Kapunan pointed out that the defense pact has been unduly stretched by the United States to allow it to conduct regular naval patrol and reconnaissance flight in the disputed waters, and that invoking freedom of navigation to conduct regular naval patrol would lose its viability if the Philippines decides to scrap the pact.

"Nobody would believe that its continued patrol in the area is to secure the freedom of navigation. Rather, the whole military infrastructure it built would be exposed as a facade to contain China," Kapunan wrote. Endit