MANILA: Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s decision to allow the deployment of American troops in the restive south has created a political firestorm, one that her government can ill afford just a year into her presidency.
It is now one of Arroyo’s biggest political headaches, raising a ruckus from the left and politicians as well as a resignation threat from her own vice president and foreign secretary, even as her government is still struggling to prove itself.
Later this month, about 600 US troops will go to the southern island of Basilan in Mindanao island and join 1,200 Filipino soldiers in their mission to quell the extremist group Abu Sayyaf. Part of US troops are already in the country.
The Abu Sayyaf, estimated to have less than 1,000 members, has been linked by the United States to the Al Qaeda terrorist network of Osama bin Laden.
US defence officials have called the deployment to the Philippines the largest deployment of US military officials and personnel outside Afghanistan, and considers it part of the United States’ “war against terror” after the Sept 11 attacks in New York and Washington. “It is not a modest number,” US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has been quoted as saying.
But while Manila says the American troops will train Filipinos in putting the Abu Sayyaf under control, critics ranging from politicians to constitutional experts say the presence of US soldiers in this way is a violation of national sovereignty and is an ominous sign of foreign intervention. Arroyo is holding a series of crisis meetings on the matter this week.
Jovito Salonga, who was Senate president when the chamber ended a military bases agreement with the United States in 1991, decries the exercises as “a violation of the Constitution that bans foreign troops and foreign facilities in the Philippines”.
To people like him, the sight of US soldiers on Philippine soil in relation to a local conflict brings back memories of the inordinately big US role in political affairs in the past, stemming from its country’s colonisation at the turn of the 20th century and the presence of the military bases. In the thirties, US forces took part in the government’s campaign against communist guerrillas.
But presidential spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao cites a nationwide poll conducted by the private pollster Social Weather Stations that showed an 81 per cent acceptance of having US troops help in the fight against the Abu Sayyaf. “I just want the Abu Sayyaf obliterated,” says Joy Chu, a businesswoman and mother of two in Manila. “Too much damage has been done to all of us.” She was referring to the problems that the Abu Sayyaf has brought, especially through its spate of bold and high-profile kidnappings in the last few years.
About 5,000 Philippine troops have been deployed in Basilan for months, but they have been unsuccessful. This is why Filipino officials say US help would be a big boost to the campaign against the Abu Sayyaf, who still hold some hostages, including two American missionaries. US troops would bring in sophisticated weapons for modern surveillance, night observation devices, target acquisitions and sniper rifles.
Defence Secretary Angelo Reyes says US soldiers would not engage in active combat, but would be involved only in support and maintenance operations. However, he said they would join Philippine frontline troops to evaluate their performance. They will be allowed to carry weapons for self-protection and to engage Abu Sayyaf rebels but only in self-defence.
“The apparent public acceptance (of the deployment of US troops) seems to feed upon prevalent anti-Moro (Filipino Muslim) sentiments and a general exasperation with Philippine military efforts in Mindanao,” explains sociologist and political analyst Randolf David.
But David stresses, “This is a local war, and the Abu Sayyaf are local bandits. That Americans and other foreigners have been among their victims does not make them global terrorists. This is an internal problem that is being given an international dimension. Why?”
Arroyo has also had to allay fears after a statement made by US Senator Sam Brownback that “the Philippines is going to be the next Afghanistan”. She said, “We are not the next Afghanistan. We have been battling the terrorists even before.” —Dawn/InterPress Service.