US troops, Charter change–who cares?

With the Balikatan barely halfway through its six-month duration, President Arroyo already is contemplating on extending it. Leaders of Basilan wish so, she said in her weekly radio show Monday. Opposers of the RP-US joint military exercise felt it an affront on their protest against foreign troop presence. They had brought in Asian jurists to look into supposed violations of human rights in war games aimed at freeing two American hostages from Muslim extremists. Quite expectedly, the guests "confirmed" the violations and said Basileños want the troops out. But Mrs. Arroyo noted that the province folk want US soldiers to stay until they at least finish building the roads and water systems they started.

Medium-term economic projects aren’t the only reason for the warm welcome of US troops in Basilan and nearby Zamboanga City. There’s the immediate jobs and businesses the war games have spawned. For meals alone, the US Armed Forces has a budget of $16 (P832) per day per soldier. Multiply that by 550 US troops in the area – not counting another hundred stationed in Cebu – and the volume reaches half-a-million pesos a day. Sellers of bottled water never had it so good, as with dealers of cellphone cards to Americans who place overseas calls five times a day. Everyone from the laundrywoman to the lumberman is making a killing from servicing and supplying the US forces. They wish it would last beyond the six-month stint of US officers who are training their Filipino counterparts in the use of modern military gadgets and weapons. A governor in Central Mindanao is so tantalized by the economic prospects that he’s lobbying for similar war games in his region where the bigger, better-armed Moro Islamic Liberation Front operates.

In Central Luzon, too, once the bastion of communist and anti-US insurgents, residents are meeting with open arms a larger contingent of US troops but who will stay for a shorter two to six weeks. Nightclubs, diners and bars are sprucing up for the expected business miniboom.

Militants in the streets and nationalists in Congress are dismayed with what they’re seeing. For them, the Balikatan exercises violate the Constitution, which bans foreign military presence. The Supreme Court has affirmed the Visiting Forces Agreement which makes the war games possible, but they complain nonetheless that the VFA prohibits holding these in combat zones. That is, areas where Filipino troops engage Islamic terrorists or Mindanao separatists or communist rebels in battle. Yet a nationwide poll in November had 84 percent of respondents favoring US presence in Western Mindanao, where the AFP has been hunting down the Abu Sayyaf for years – in vain. Anti-Balikatan demonstrations have been held mostly in Metro Manila. But another survey late in March showed 70 percent of dwellers in the big city favoring the Basilan war games.

Is the Constitution of no concern to Filipinos when livelihood and criminality are at stake? Perhaps. Many a hungry folk has called it a mere piece of paper that can’t be eaten. The Constitution makes it the duty of the State to provide welfare – land for the landless, homes for the homeless. Yet it also guarantees the property rights of the superrich who have accumulated haciendas and corporate assets that they’ll never get to spend within their lifetimes. As for the pro-Balikatan survey ratings, respondents showed worry about both US military dominance and ineffective Filipino maneuvers. But they agreed that the war games could finally end years of Abu Sayyaf terrorism in Basilan, Sulu and Zamboanga.

Recent days have seen a sudden rush among congressmen to amend the Constitution. They say the 15-year-old code needs review and revision to suit the changing times. Yet the public is showing no interest. Many view it as another game of politicians to change the form of government and thereby prolong their tenures. Indeed, no adherent of constitutional amendments has spelled out how the exercise could lead to more jobs and new homes or to peace and order that people pine for. All they’ve said is they’ll transform Congress into a constituent assembly that’ll take on the reviewing and revising – another way of accumulating more power.

Anti-Balikatan militants and Charter-change politicians both claim to advocate the people’s best interests. The former are doing it by opposing US military presence in whatever form, even if only for joint exercises or training of Filipino troops or construction of roads and water systems. The latter are pushing for constitutional amendments supposedly to politically empower the people. Both sides are not getting the support they aspire for from the people. Perhaps it’s time for them to reassess what majority of Filipinos feel and desire. They don’t need surveys to tell them so: Filipinos want a simple life, food on the table and peace in their neighborhood.

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Again, a reminder to e-mailers to not send me attachments. I only lose them whenever I try to open them. I get what they call the ID Ten T error. Figure out what that means about computer illiterates like me.

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