US denies eyeing Cagayan base

MANILA, Philippines - The US government is not considering a Philippine Navy base in Cagayan as a site for deploying its military forces, the embassy in Manila said yesterday.

US embassy press attaché Kurt Hoyer corrected a report in The STAR last week which said his government may station forces at the Camilo Osias Naval Base in Barangay San Vicente on the northern tip of Cagayan as part of a planned increased rotational presence of American troops in the Philippines.

The increased presence will be in line with the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) that the two governments signed in April.

Local officials in Cagayan said a team of US servicemen accompanied by staff from the US embassy posed as tourists as they inspected the base recently.

“That is not true,” Hoyer said. “It had nothing to do with EDCA or anything like that.”

Hoyer said an officer from the embassy’s political section met with local government and law enforcement officials in Cagayan as well as officers of the Philippine Navy and Coast Guard as part of efforts to touch base with people around their host country.

“All embassies do that,” Hoyer told The STAR, adding that similar visits are done in other parts of the country by US embassy personnel.

The two governments are still discussing sites that may be developed to provide access to US troops that will be deployed to the Philippines as part of America’s pivot or rebalancing to Asia.

Subic Bay, western Palawan and Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija are reportedly being considered for this.

EDCA is still being fine-tuned. The two sides say it is a mere enhancement of the Mutual Defense Treaty and therefore needs no ratification by the legislatures of the two countries.