NO RESTRICTIONS have been imposed as yet on the movement of US military personnel here for the Balikatan war games embodied in the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA).
That, despite the killing of two American soldiers, along with a Filipino Marine, in Tuesday’s road explosion in Sulu blamed on the Abu Sayyaf.
No restriction absolutely, at least from my vantage point at the Go Nuts Do Nuts store in SM City Clark seeing all those clean-cut GI Joes, many with ladies more undressed than dressed – usually in abbreviated mini-skirts or cut-offs that reach up to there, paired with mid-riff blouses that reach down there – in tow.
Yeah, maybe, the only danger to American soldiers here is exhaustion from sexual overdrive. Especially with the celebrated Nicole rape case unceremoniously dumped to oblivion.
This – GIs-never-in-peril-in-Angeles – though has not always been the case.
There were American soldiers that got killed in the city. Here’s a dispatch I sent to the People’ Tonight and Associated Press many years back:
NPA sparrows kill 3 GIs, trader
ANGELES CITY (October 28, 1987) – Three American servicemen and one Filipino businessman of American descent were gunned down yesterday in simultaneous attacks by partisans of the New People’s Army (NPA) near Clark Air Base here and in nearby Dau in Mabalacat town.
The 13th US Air Force Command identified the fatalities as Staff Sergeant Randy Davis, Master Sergeant Henry Mangente and Airman First Class Stephen Faust.
The Filipino businessman was identified by Angeles Metropolitan District Command chief Lt. Col. Amado T. Espino as Joseph Porter, a furniture manufacturer-exporter.
Police reports disclosed that Faust was on his way to Clark when he was waylaid at around 7:30 in the morning just outside the gate of Carmenville Subdivision in Barangay Cutcut here.
Porter was following Faust’s car when shot. He could have been mistaken for an American, police said.
Mangente was ambushed near the Villa Modesto hotel at Hensonville Subdivision, Barangay Malabanias, at around 7:30 in the morning also, witnesses told police.
Davis had just crossed MacArthur Highway after an early breakfast at McDonald’s restaurant in Dau when he was shot dead.
Each of the fatalities bore a single shot in the head from .45 pistols, the signature kill of an NPA sparrow…
Within a week after the killings, the 13th Air Force Command declared Angeles City and its environs “off-limits” to all American military and civilian personnel and their dependents.
All Americans living in off-base housing facilities were moved to the then new housing units inside Clark, their movement restricted to the base.
For over a month, the off-limits order stayed. And the economy of Angeles City took a nosedive.
Media contacts in the NPA later admitted that the American killings were a “strategic mistake.” By killing the GIs, the partisans practically killed their goose that laid the golden eggs. With business down in the city, the revolutionary taxes went down along with it. It did not pay to kill GI Joe, so a number of local mediamen then proclaimed.
Myriad speculations have risen out of the recent death of American soldiers, mostly revolving around the VFA, its total abrogation, not the least of them. There are even fears raised of the US getting directly involved in the pocket war in Mindanao, the spectre of Vietnam and the realities of Iraq and Afghanistan making their presence there.
Whatever, may our leaders be guided by the national interest. And nothing else.
That, despite the killing of two American soldiers, along with a Filipino Marine, in Tuesday’s road explosion in Sulu blamed on the Abu Sayyaf.
No restriction absolutely, at least from my vantage point at the Go Nuts Do Nuts store in SM City Clark seeing all those clean-cut GI Joes, many with ladies more undressed than dressed – usually in abbreviated mini-skirts or cut-offs that reach up to there, paired with mid-riff blouses that reach down there – in tow.
Yeah, maybe, the only danger to American soldiers here is exhaustion from sexual overdrive. Especially with the celebrated Nicole rape case unceremoniously dumped to oblivion.
This – GIs-never-in-peril-in-Angeles – though has not always been the case.
There were American soldiers that got killed in the city. Here’s a dispatch I sent to the People’ Tonight and Associated Press many years back:
NPA sparrows kill 3 GIs, trader
ANGELES CITY (October 28, 1987) – Three American servicemen and one Filipino businessman of American descent were gunned down yesterday in simultaneous attacks by partisans of the New People’s Army (NPA) near Clark Air Base here and in nearby Dau in Mabalacat town.
The 13th US Air Force Command identified the fatalities as Staff Sergeant Randy Davis, Master Sergeant Henry Mangente and Airman First Class Stephen Faust.
The Filipino businessman was identified by Angeles Metropolitan District Command chief Lt. Col. Amado T. Espino as Joseph Porter, a furniture manufacturer-exporter.
Police reports disclosed that Faust was on his way to Clark when he was waylaid at around 7:30 in the morning just outside the gate of Carmenville Subdivision in Barangay Cutcut here.
Porter was following Faust’s car when shot. He could have been mistaken for an American, police said.
Mangente was ambushed near the Villa Modesto hotel at Hensonville Subdivision, Barangay Malabanias, at around 7:30 in the morning also, witnesses told police.
Davis had just crossed MacArthur Highway after an early breakfast at McDonald’s restaurant in Dau when he was shot dead.
Each of the fatalities bore a single shot in the head from .45 pistols, the signature kill of an NPA sparrow…
Within a week after the killings, the 13th Air Force Command declared Angeles City and its environs “off-limits” to all American military and civilian personnel and their dependents.
All Americans living in off-base housing facilities were moved to the then new housing units inside Clark, their movement restricted to the base.
For over a month, the off-limits order stayed. And the economy of Angeles City took a nosedive.
Media contacts in the NPA later admitted that the American killings were a “strategic mistake.” By killing the GIs, the partisans practically killed their goose that laid the golden eggs. With business down in the city, the revolutionary taxes went down along with it. It did not pay to kill GI Joe, so a number of local mediamen then proclaimed.
Myriad speculations have risen out of the recent death of American soldiers, mostly revolving around the VFA, its total abrogation, not the least of them. There are even fears raised of the US getting directly involved in the pocket war in Mindanao, the spectre of Vietnam and the realities of Iraq and Afghanistan making their presence there.
Whatever, may our leaders be guided by the national interest. And nothing else.
