Batara: No need to worry about Balikatan

ZAMBOANGA CITY – The military allayed apprehensions on the deployment of about 6,000 American soldiers for the joint Philippine-US Balikatan exercise in selected areas in southern Philippines next month.

This, as a civic-oriented Muslim group urged the government to stop hosting the exercise in Mindanao, claiming that alleged human rights abuses in the past have remained unresolved.

Maj. Eugene Batara Jr., spokesman of the Armed Forces Western Mindanao Command (Westmincom), said no training will be conducted when the Balikatan resumes on Feb. 18 in Sulu, Basilan and parts of the Lanao provinces – the area nearest to the stronghold of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Central Mindanao.

“They don’t have to worry. What will be staged will be more on humanitarian missions,” he said.

Batara said the Balikatan will involve joint training in medical and engineering capability as well as medical missions and the rehabilitation of impassable roads and dilapidated health centers and school buildings in Sulu and Basilan.

“Similar programs will be implemented in selected areas in Central Mindanao,” he said.

Amira Lidasan, who chairs the Suara Bangsamoro, said there are still unresolved human rights violations which the government should look into.

The group cited a 50-year-old woman hit by shrapnel of a grenade rifle believed fired by a US soldier in a Sulu town two years ago, and a teenage boy hit by a bullet while gathering firewood near a target range in Zamboanga City.

But AFP chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr., in a recent trip to this city, said the commanders of the AFP and the US continuously meet to address possible hitches in the Balikatan.

Currently, US military personnel under the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines have been giving technical training to their Filipino counterparts in Sulu and Central Mindanao, and conducting humanitarian missions.