ANGELES CITY– A retired US army colonel who recently finished a study on Amerasians in this city said he expected the growing controversy on the Spratlys Islands to prompt the Philippine government to be “more open” to US military presence in the country.
The Spartlys dispute, together with the usual joint military exercises with the US military under the Balikatan and Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) particularly in places with “long standing” Muslim insurgency, will further boost “de facto form of permanency” of the US military in the Philippines, said Dr. Pete Kutschera who retired from the US army in 2009 as a colonel assigned to the New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs.
In an email interview with Punto, Dr. Kutschera noted “growing numbers of US air force, army, naval and marine troops being deployed into Luzon annually under the Balikatan exercise model.”
“The numbers escalating under the current VFA agreement, and certainly since the base closure in 1991-92, and with the latest confrontational talk over the South China Sea vs. the West Philippine Sea, you may see your new administration in Manila more apt to be receptive to more U.S. troop deployment in the Philippines,” Dr. Kutschera said.
Dr. Kutschera was here recently to present his study for the New York-based National Amerasian Research Institute (NARI) on the situation of Amerasians in this city which hosted the US Clark air force base up to 1991. He left last week for New York.
The study showed that of an estimated 6,000 Amerasians here, 62.5 percent “scored severe levels of core level symptomatology (depression, anxiety or stress) suggesting psychopathology or mental disorder in significant numbers.”
In replay to emailed queries, Dr. Kutschera said: “I believe that the basis is currently there, in Luzon and possibily Mindanao, for the creation of a new generation of Filipino Amerasians because of the continued and at times increasing numbers of US troops that are being deployed to the Philippines either for ‘training exercises’ or the Global War on Terrorism’ – although the GWOT isn’t called the GWOT now by the new Department of Defense under the Obama-Biden administration.”
“So theoretically and as a matter of practicality you have the basis for semi-permanent involvement of US troops in the Philippines and my study shows that historically policies of permanency resulted in the haphazard or unwanted birth of bi-racial, multi-national Amerasian babies,” he said.
Dr. Kutschara, however, complimented the US Defense Department for strengthening the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) which “bars US troops from consorting with sex industry workers and indigeneous residing women in the course of their military duties.”
“But the big question is whether the US command under these changes is able to enforce and control troop involvement in free culture areas such as the Philippines,” he said.
Dr. Kutschera said that his research has shown that US troops,”from time to time and apparently without the knowledge or in defiance of their commanders, consort with Filipina women sex workers in Okinawa in Japan and South Korea where they are permanently stationed.”
“This is not to mention US federal government contract workers who do not come under the UCMJ but are apparently regulated by the US State Department in some areas,” he added.
Dr. Kutschera said the “number of Filipina women and single moms returning home after impregnated by US troops and contractor workers is increasing, as their pregnancy bars them from their work.”
“This is what I also term part iof the ‘new face’ of Filipino Amerasia in the future,” he said.
Expressing his views as a former officer of the US military, Dr. Kutschera urged that any review VFA agreement “must include acknowledgement and positive action on the part of the US government and the DOD for its handling of the Amerasian question in the past.”
“A liberalization of immigration policies for Amerasians, job training or opportunities under US AID aid and revitalization of the 1987 Amerasian Homecoming Act to expressly permit Amerasians to immigrate from the Philippines and become Us citizens could be part of the mix,” he said.
Dr. Kutschera stressed that “it is not too late for the US to make good on its blemished record when it comes to their handling of the Amerasian question.”
“Many Vietnamese Amerasians did not enter the US until they were well into adolescense and early adulthood in the late 1980s and early 1990s – the same age as many of the Amerasian babies and toddlers left in Luzon in 1991-92 when the bases left,” he noted.
Dr. Kutschera said he felt “ashamed” with the lack of response from the US government to the problems confronting thousands of Amerasians all over the Philippines.
“I find the US government’s response to date as pitiful and unjust. And, frankly, I think if the American people knew about it they’d be equally ashamed,” Dr. Kutschera also said.
