SWS: Military aid, not US troops

Private pollster Social Weather Stations (SWS) clarified yesterday that its survey showed 84 percent public approval of US military assistance in fighting terrorists and not specifically the deployment of US troops in the Philippines.

"The public approval found in the SWS survey of November 2001 literally concerns ‘military assistance in fighting terrorism in the Phi-lippines... and is not specifically about US troops," SWS president Mahar Mangahas said in a statement.

"Whether the general approval includes or excludes assistance from US troops in particular is something not yet polled and is to be discovered in forthcoming SWS research," Mangahas added.

SWS disputed claims that it "did not disclose the size of its survey sample and the margin of error" as absolutely false.

During a survey review he conducted on Tuesday, Mangahas said SWS distributed a complete list of 12 surveys it conducted nationwide, one in Metro Manila and two among Metro Manila enterprises together with the sample sizes and error margins.

Mangahas also said the SWS should not be referred to as a "firm" because of connotations that the corporation is commercially motivated.

"Use of the term ‘firm’ is an irritating insinuation that SWS is commercially motivated," Mangahas said.

But whether the overwhelming support was for military assistance to fight terrorists or for US troops in general, former Senate president Jovito Salonga downplayed the results of the SWS survey.

He said the few who believe otherwise can turn the world upside down if the truth is on their side.

The 81-year-old elder statesman said the anti-US bases movement in its early years faced the same dilemma, with most Filipinos back then thinking that the withdrawal of the American military presence from the country would spell disaster to democracy.

"The figure is not important," Salonga said, departing from a prepared speech delivered yesterday at a forum organized by Bantay Katarungan at the UP College of Law.

The former senator, whose long career in government service and politics spans over half a century, led the Philippine Senate when, on Sept. 16, 1991, it voted against the continued stay of US military bases in the country.

He noted that when the anti-US bases started, many people thought it was sheer foolishness to campaign for the ouster of the Americans from Clark Field and Subic Bay. But he said the campaign snowballed into a force to be reckoned with until that historic Senate vote.

Salonga, a devout evangelical Christian, referred to Scripture to prove his point, saying that Christianity started from a ragtag band of 11 disciples who, after the death and resurrection of Christ, "shook the Roman empire and turned the world upside down."

He said the world changed forever "because these few believers believed in the truth and were willing to die for what they believed."

Salonga said it is tragic that Filipinos do not understand the implications of the Mutual Defense Treaty of 1951 and the Visiting Forces Agreement of 1999, bilateral pacts that do not deal with a domestic problem like kidnapping.

Salonga warned that if the war games proceed and the US troops eventually get drawn into a shooting war with the Abu Sayyaf, a greater tragedy would result.

That would be the first time in the history of any supposedly independent nation when American troops were allowed to enforce the provisions of its very own penal code against kidnapping, he said.

He also said the Americans may have other things in mind other than the rescue of two its citizens when they agreed to send troops to Western Mindanao.

Worse, he said, the decision of the government to allow the US military to run after the Abu Sayyaf in the guise of joint war games "robbed the Filipinos of whatever self-respect remained in them."

"Let us not play the semantic game," Salonga said, reacting to repeated statements that the US troops would be sending only advisers and trainers in the fight against terrorism. — With Romel Bagares