ANGELES CITY- Amid expectations that Pres. Obama’s visit to the Philippines this month would forge a final agreement on the “rotational presence” of the US military in the country, former Senator Nikki Coseteng, known for her crusade against US military bases, urged the Aquino government to “stand your ground against Washington.”
“Stand your ground. You can’t serve two masters without sacrificing the other,” Coseteng said in an interview with Punto here the other day, as she noted economic progress in this city since the US Air Force abandoned its former base at nearby Clark Field in 1991.
“I don’t want to prejudge our (national) officials, but I’d like to think there will be sobriety and soundness that will prevail (on the US military rotational presence),” she said.
But Coseteng lamented that “sometimes, we don’t know what our national interest is. Our national interest is defined, depending on what Washington says.” Coseteng noted that as a student activist in 1970 even before she entered politics as congresswoman in 1987 then as senator in 1992, she had already started a crusade against US military facilities in the Philippines, particularly at the Clark and Subic bases.
These bases were later shut down in 1992 after the Senate terminated the Military Bases Agreement between the Philippines and the US. “It should be incumbent upon our new leaders to uphold what their predecessors had already decided on,” she said, referring to provisions in the 1987 Constitution against allowing US military bases in the country.
She noted that “the senators at that time had already decided that the Philippines should be US bases-free, and nuclear weapons-free in effect.”
Coseteng expressed fears that US military presence would expose the Philippine to attacks by “the many enemies of the US throughout the world.”
“They (US enemies) need not bomb New York , or San Francisco or Washington. They just have to bomb Pampanga and they would feel avenged,” she said. Coseteng cited agreements between China and the US, including one which, she noted, barred the US military presence in areas covered by territorial disputes between China and Southest Asian countries.
“If there is violation (by the US) of this agreement by setting up shop in the Philippines, then we are going to be party to the violation,” she noted. Coseteng also expressed doubt over the seriousness of the US to come to the defense of the Philippines in case of war with China. “The bonds and legal tender of the US are in China, and if China asks the US to pay debts, the US will go bankrupt,” she said.
“We should not even be afraid of the bankruptcy in the US because that would mean firms there would hire Filipinos with lower pay so they can go on with their businesses.
Accounting, inventory and other such aspects of business are no longer being done in the US but in other countries,” noted Coseteng, who now runs the Diliman Educational Corporation, which operates the Diliman Preparatory School and the Diliman Computer Technology Institute.
Coseteng also warned that liberalizing US military presence in the country would again lead to the resurgence of prostitution, illegal drugs, and Amerasian children. “When I came here (in Angeles) as a student, what we found were prostitution, drugs, and neglected Amerasian children.
We had to set night centers for the kids, so that their mothers could work at night because they had to earn for their kids,” she recalled. Coseteng said she felt vindicated by those who, during the era of the US bases at Clark and Subic, had warned of economic dislocation should the US bases go.
“Even KFC would not locate here then because military bases are magnets to attacks. Now that the US base here is gone, we have malls and all kinds of businesses flourishing in Angeles,” she noted, her interview with Punto done inside the SM City Clark where she guested in an educational event.
Earlier, Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office Sec. Ricky Carandang said on a state-run radio station said that discussions on increased rotational presence of US forces have been on-going for over a year now.
He said an agreement on it might be signed when Obama visits Manila on Oct. 11-12. US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was quoted to have said that the US government wanted the Philippines to allow a rotating US troop force to return to the country to build up the US presence in Southeast Asia and to step up training opportunities to the Philippine military.
