500 Filipino troops to secure RP-US military exercises

Five hundred Filipino troops will guard the sites for large-scale military exercises with the US which resume next week after a five-year lapse, a top military official said yesterday.

Armed Forces intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Jose Calimlim said the US will also bring its own security force which will be deployed with the 500 Filipino troops at the exercise sites.

The local security personnel will be drawn from the Intelligence Services of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

"They will secure sites or the places of events, and will see to it that the participants will not be harmed," Calimlim said.

Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado said the security force will guard against possible attempts by communist rebels to disrupt the joint exercises, called Balikatan, or "shoulder to shoulder."

The rebels, who strongly oppose the exercises, withdrew from peace talks with the government last May after the Philippine Senate approved the Visiting Forces Agreement which allowed the resumption of major US joint exercises and ship visits.

The exercises are to begin with a one-week seminar starting next Monday. Land, air and sea exercises, including live-fire activities, will be held from Feb. 21 to March 3.

The exercises, to be joined by 2,383 Philippine troops and 2,380 US personnel, will be held at the Fort Magsaysay army camp in northern Nueva Ecija province and at the nearby former Clark Air Base and Subic Naval Base, which were vacated by US forces in the early 1990s.

Military ties with the US remain a highly sensitive topic more than seven years after the last US base was closed by the Philippine government, ending nearly a century of heavy American military presence.

Philippine officials say safeguards have been put in place to prevent any abuses by US troops in local communities. Critics of the exercises claim US troops are likely to commit crimes and encourage prostitution.

The last Balikatan exercise was in 1995. The US halted major military exercises and ship visits to the Philippines in December 1996 after the Philippine government canceled a loophole shielding US military personnel from prosecution for crimes committed in the country.

In a related development, Health Secretary Alberto Romualdez said yesterday the government is prepared to respond to any health problems that may arise during the Balikatan.

"The Department of Health has already put in place the necessary measures to ensure quick response to any health emergency," Romualdez said.

He pointed out, however, that there was no need to implement quarantine measures for the US servicemen.

"There are very few illnesses in the world requiring quarantine," the health chief said. "I don't think we need one in this particular activity."

Romualdez also ruled out the possibility of health hazards, based on the results of military exercises conducted by the US in other countries.

"There will not be any toxic contaminants from the military exercises," he said.

Meanwhile, the militant Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) said the US-RP war exercises could further strain the government's already rocky relationship with China.

"The joint military exercises fit nicely into the US security agenda in the Asia-Pacific which is mainly aimed against the so-called Chinese threat. This will certainly antagonize China," said Bayan secretary general Teodoro Casiño.

He pointed that any military activity delivers a political statement to Philippine neighbors that the government is part of the US security network in the region, and that the Armed Forces of the Philippines is "merely an extension of the US military."

"This will not help in the peaceful settlement of our territorial dispute with China and other Southeast Asian countries," Casiño said. --