Loren seeks deferment of Balikatan war games

MABALACAT, Pampanga – Senate Majority Leader Loren Legarda sought yesterday a deferment of US-RP joint military exercises amid the Iraq war.

"We should consider the cost of deferring such exercises and asking up to when they should be deferred," Legarda told journalists at the Jose Feliciano College here.

She also opposed granting the US military access to Philippine air space, ports, and other facilities without some "security requirements such as (military) equipment, not necessarily in monetary terms."

"I personally think that we should stay out of the war (in Iraq) although I value our relations with the United States. We should not join a war that is not ours, as we have many domestic problems," Legarda said.

Legarda recalled that during a meeting of the National Security Council last week, the government adopted a policy of not extending any help to the US military operations in the Middle East without any such request from the US government.

But Legarda said it was President Arroyo’s prerogative as chief executive to express her support of the US military operations in Iraq.

"She has always been consistent of her position supportive of Bush. That’s the product of her assessment and I don’t think it was a spur of the moment decision," she added.

"From the very start I have signified my reservations and apprehensions on the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA)," she said, conceding however that the matter was already up to the defense establishment.

Hundreds of US soldiers are expected to arrive this April to participate in the "regular" Balikatan 03 to be held from April 25 to May 7 at Clark Field here, Fort Magsaysay in Laur, Nueva Ecija and other unspecified venues in Luzon.

Such exercises, Legarda noted, have become an "irritant in our relations with some rebel movements" and "sympathy attacks" could be stoked by the government’s support for the US military.

Already, the National Democratic Front (NDF), the umbrella group of communist organizations in the country, lauded its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA), for its "sympathy raid" on a paper mill in Mindanao which netted 92 high-powered firearms from its security armory.

In lauding the raid, NDF chief international representative Luis Jalandoni said the raid was carried out in sympathy for the US government’s "crimes against humanity" in its war against the regime of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Jalandoni said the administration of US President George W. Bush has trampled on universally recognized principles and norms of international humanitarian law protecting civilians caught in an armed conflict.

"Bush and his cohorts are brutally inhuman in carrying out their illegal and inhuman act of aggression against the Iraqi people. Eyewitnesses in Baghdad report how buildings that are targeted are hit twice. After the first time, a second hit is made 15 or 30 minutes later," Jalandoni said.

"The purpose is to kill and maim the medical aid workers who come to the aid of the wounded. Because of this devilishly malicious practice, aid workers are prevented from giving immediate aid. The effect is that many of the wounded die due to loss of blood and lack of immediate first aid," he said.

Jalandoni said the NDF is in solidarity with the Iraqi people in their "heroic resistance against the US-led war of aggression."

He said a recent attack carried out by the NPA on the plantation of the Paper Industries Corporation of the Philippines (PICOP) in Surigao del Sur on March 21 was in sympathy for the Iraqi people.

"We really timed it with the war on Iraq to make a clear statement that we abhor this aggression on Iraq by Bush and President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s support without consulting the people," said Jalandoni.

"The NDF condemns the US-led war of aggression in Iraq also because it endangers the lives and livelihood of 1.5 million overseas Filipinos in the region," said Jalandoni. "It also denounces the Macapagal-Arroyo administration for supporting the US and disregarding the safety of the overseas Filipinos and not providing any assistance to them." — With Romel Bagares