CLARK FREEPORT – A farmer-leader protesting the holding of joint Balikatan military exercises here said yesterday that the US military has built a modern communications facility at a venue for the exercises in Crow Valley at O’Donnel, Capas, Tarlac.
Joseph Canlas, chairman of the Alyansang Magbubukid sa Gitnang Luson (AMGL), said in a statement that the US military “from Combat Logistics Battalion 3 recently constructed Camp Palacio in Crow Valley, equipped with fiber optics technology for communication.”
Asked about this, Philippine Air Force spokesperson Lt. Col. Miguel Ocol said, “I have no information on that.”
Canlas also claimed that the US Navy has maintained a “communications station” in Barangay San Miguel in San Antonio, Zambales where previous Balikatan exercises on sea-to-land assaults had also been held.
He accused the American military of virtually putting up bases in some parts of Central Luzon which, he noted, “is a clear violation of our national sovereignty and Constitution as US military bases were supposed to have been kicked out with finality in 1991,” he said.
The Crow Valley range where Canlas said a new US communications facility has been built, covers 17,814 hectares used extensively by the US 13th Air Force, particularly for so-called Cope Thunder war exercises participated in by various countries.
The area used to feature an airfield, sophisticated electronic warfare installations and even a Russian surface-to-air missile installations. These were buried by lahar flows following the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991.
Aeta tribal folk had claimed the Crow Valley as part of their ancestral land, but this was rejected during the term of Pres. Ramos. When the area is not used for Balikatan exercises, the tribal folk farm it.
Canlas said that scores of Aetas and other farmers are again to be dislocated by the Balikatan war exercises as they had been in the past.
“Do the American and Philippine government expect the farmers cultivating the areas to simply stop attending to their crops and livelihood and tolerate hunger, destruction of crops and loss of income? “ asked Canlas.
