Church People Cry: Out with US Troops Now! Uphold Philippine Sovereignty

Unity Statement
4 February 2002


Church People Cry: Out with US Troops Now! Uphold Philippine Sovereignty
“Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ
has made us free
and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.”
(Galatians 5:1)

We, peace advocates and freedom-loving Christians,
join the various sectors in opposing the entry and
operations of 66o US troops in the guise of “war
games” that actually involve use of live bullets and
high-tech weaponry in actual combat zones in the
country.

The terrorism of Abu Sayyaf Group is repeatedly
invoked to justify the entry of US troops in Mindanao.
But we are not convinced that “US assistance” will
save the people from the ASG bandits. The real
challenge is for the Macapagal-Arroyo administration
to decisively break up the collusion of military and
government officials with the ASG as attested by a
Catholic priest and local parishioners in Basilan.

Direct US military intervention pose a serious threat
in the escalation of military abuses in the area
rather than solve this internal matter. Apart from the
constitutional/legal issues, we stand firmly against
US military presence as we want to spare our nation,
especially the women and youth, from further
degradation due to abuses, prostitution and other
social ills previously suffered in the former military
bases.

For a nation supposedly free and able to assert its
sovereignty in the community of nations, any move that
would demean and lessen this freedom must be resisted
by all means. No self-respecting nation would bend
its back and willingly take a yoke of slavery upon
itself without losing its national dignity and without
degrading its own people in the process.

The current moves of the Macapagal-Arroyo to justify
the re-entry of US troops, facilities and possible
rebuilding of permanent bases, expose the capitulation
and subservience of the government to the US President
Bush’ administration’s war on terrorism, which is
interventionist and disrespectful of the sovereignty
of the target nations.

Time and again, in various contexts, the pages of
Scripture warn us of returning to our former condition
of being in bondage. The Apostle Peter even puts it
in a nauseatingly graphic form: “A dog returns to its
vomit” and “a sow, having washed, returns to her
wallowing in the mud.” (2 Pet. 2:22).

At the time of Moses, in the wilderness journey,
several Hebrew leaders attempted to sway the people to
return to Egypt— the place of their former bondage –
rather than take a bold step of faith into the
possibilities of freedom. These leaders played on the
people’s fears as well as their longing for security
by offering the false security and seeming stability
of renewed enslavement. For this vacillation and
fear, the blessings of full liberation were withheld
from them for another generation. Eventually, with
the people’s resolve, the march to full freedom was
achieved.

These things we recall as we look at the state of our
nation that has been subjugated by the US on its
foreign policy directions. In 1991, we said NO to the
extension of the US-RP Military Bases Agreement, but
the votes of senators allowed our sovereignty to be
trampled anew by allowing the presence of US troops
all over the country through the 1999 US-RP Visiting
Forces Agreement (VFA).

Recently, the draft Mutual Logistics Support
Arrangement (MLSA) was secretly signed by Gen.
Diomedio Villanueva, AFP Chief of Staff and Admiral
Dennis Blair, commander-in-chief of the US Pacific
Command, in the presence of Gen. Angelo Reyes,
Secretary of National Defense. This onerous
“arrangement” practically aims to reinstall US bases
by providing support services such as “communication
services, billeting and construction of bases for
operations” in the Philippines.

The lessons of history are worth remembering. In the
Vietnam War, the US government started sending
military advisers who eventually laid the groundwork
for sending troops and war materiel then turned
Vietnam’s internal strife into a full-scale war. Over
600,000 Filipinos were killed in the US war of terror
that was launched on the pretext of quelling bandits
and insurgents.

In the final analysis, it is not for the best
interest of the Filipino people that the US landed on
Philippine soil, but only its own. We are the ones
who bear the sufferings as the US pursues its
interests. As peoples of faith, we therefore unite to
oppose the wholesale trampling of our rights as a
sovereign people and demand the following:

1. Immediately pull-out US troops and uphold the
provisions in the Philippine Constitution banning
foreign military bases, troops and facilities on
Philippine territory.
2. Seriously investigate, prosecute and punish all
military and government officials who serve as
protectors of the Abu Sayyaf Group and other terrorist
syndicates.
3. Review and junk the 1999 US-RP Visiting Forces
Agreement and the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT)
that are repeatedly invoked to justify US military
intervention in the country.
4. Reject the Mutual Logistics Support Arrangement
(MLSA) and other overt and covert attempts to justify
direct US military presence and operations in the
country.


Church People Cry: Out with US Troops Now!