US group looks into EDCA sites, US-Phl drill grounds

From mid-May to the first week of June, an international delegation from the United States came to the Philippines to undertake what was billed as a “Bayan and Pinas Peace Mission.” Its main objective was to conduct fact-finding tours across EDCA sites (US military “facilities” inside Philippine bases) and areas where joint US-Philippine military exercises have been held.

The delegation included members of Filipino community groups, human rights organizations and labor unions; plus US war veterans, journalists, women’s rights activists, students and filmmakers “from across the United States.”

However, the five fact-finding teams actually spent only four days in the areas respectively assigned to them: in Cagayan Valley, Ilocos Norte and La Union and Central Luzon (from May 18 to 21) and in Soccsksargen (South Cotabato, Cotabato City, Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani and General Santos) and Marawi (from May 23 to 26).

The teams were supposed to do “on-the-ground examinations” on EDCA sites and interview residents in surrounding communities “directly affected by the facilities and US militarism.”

Though their reports were rather short in breadth and depth, the “EDCA tourists” were enthusiastic observers and eager to find out more, from looking at the military facilities (from the outside) and interviewing local residents. Of course, time and security constraints limited what they heard and saw.

For instance, a briefer on their findings shared during a press conference on June 11 stated: “In Cagayan Valley, local community members are being reached out by the [US] military to store items in buildings outside of the EDCA sites, a violation of the military agreement. Community members are not being communicated regarding the storage purpose, and they suspect that weapons are being stored rather than purported humanitarian aid.”

In Cagayan, the group’s “narrative report” states that “last month, US military met with a priest to ask him if he could suggest any storage barn to them to store humanitarian aid for calamities like floods. But what heshowed them, they didn’t like. They were choosy and wanted smaller barns… We suspect that they are trying to investigate new places to store weapons, which would violate EDCA as it is outside of an EDCA site, but this is only speculation.”

He is the parish priest of Lal-lo, Cagayan, whose airport is one of the four additional EDCA sites that Marcos Jr. offered to the US in April. Recently, Marcos Jr. cited the importance of Lal-lo airport in the defense of northern Luzon against “external threat.” The Cagayan peace mission report said he “went out of his way to help us gain entry to the Lal-lo EDCA site.”

A local fisherman was paid $400 by the Americans for using his wooden boat as landing device in their parachuting exercises. The group indicated that this was a form of “military exploitation of communities and their resources.”

In contrast, during this year’s Balikatan exercises in Ilocos Norte, “communities were denied access to their sources of livelihood… and were given insufficient aid. Some communities were not informed beforehand about the planned exercises. Community members testified that they were traumatized by explosions that shook their homes.”

There were two EDCA sites, it was noted, located next to the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA). “The partnership between the military presence and economic exploitation is so strong that we noted how the Lal-lo Airport EDCA site includes designated parking for CEZA.”

Similarly, local communities were not informed about the US-Philippine military exercises, before or after they happened. In Sta. Ana, Cagayan, low-flying US helicopters have passed over Palaui Island twice since November 2023, it was recalled, and sent the indigenous communities there in panic, “fearing war was impending and worrying about the fate of their children.”

In militarized areas, the mission teams were told, there has been rampant red-tagging of advocates and communities, especially those who speak out on the need to improve and defend their livelihood.

The plight of Marawi City, largely ignored even within the rest of the country, was an eye-opener.

“Seven years after the Armed Forces of the Philippines levelled the entire city of Marawi and completely depopulated what was once a hub of economic and social life, the majority of displaced families have not seen a single peso returned to them,” noted the mission team.

Maranaw communities affected by the siege live in deteriorating camps, where basic utilities like electricity, water and waste systems are broken or non-existent. Many live in poverty due to lack of job opportunities. Several years after the siege, many evacuees have not received proper compensation or any opportunity and prospect to return to their land. Many in the camps are faced with eviction within the next year with no government plan for relocation and aid.

It was pointed out by a member of the peace mission, a Palestinian-American student and community organizer named Fouad, that “the US government and its backers globally played a major role in shaping, arming and executing the massacre of the city. US troops were stationed covertly in Marawi during the siege, specifically in Kapai and Madalum, in addition to their work behind the scenes, and US and Israeli missiles, drones, military weapons were used by the AFP during the siege.”

 Since then, it was claimed that “the Philippine government allowed US military presence to proliferate in pursuit of foreign profits, which is why they’ve funded luxury parks on depopulated Marawi land rather than funding the livelihood and return of the displaced Maranao people.”

There was a report from community leaders that a military base is being built using EDCA funds, in the same precise location as the March 2017 siege of Marawi. It is also being bruited about that a special economic zone was being considered to be put up in the site.

But, as usual, there are rumors, there are speculations, bombs are dropped and explode and the affected communities are kept in the dark.