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An official of the Catholic church and several lawmakers yesterday cautioned the government against making hasty decisions regarding allowing temporary basing rights to foreign troops, particularly from the US and Japan. |
Bishop emeritus Deogracias Iniguez, Public Affairs committee chairman of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), said the church will definitely contest the plan to grant foreign forces access to Philippine bases if they perceived that the country is slowly being “colonised.”
“The church will enter the frame if it involves moral issues such as foreign colonialism, imperialism. If that happens, we will certainly talk because that is a moral violation of us being a sovereign nation,” Iniguez said.
“We must make sure that this will not result to us being held by the neck,” he added.
The prelate appealed to the government to thoroughly study the agreement before making any decision.
“We have to study this very well if it will be beneficial to our country or not,” Iniguez said.
Defence Secretary Voltaire Gazmin earlier said the country is studying giving the US and Japan access to Philippine bases through an official agreement.
President Benigno Aquino backed the proposal but assured that the settlement would be temporary and necessary to familiarise foreign troops with the Philippine terrain. Some senators said the matter should be studied first.
Sen Jose Victor “JV” Ejercito Estrada said that while he sees no problem with the plan, there is a need to clearly define the limits of the access.
“We also need the commitment of these countries. We have to make sure that they would help us on our external conflicts,” Ejercito Estrada noted. He said the Philippines already saw the extent of the commitment of the US government to the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) at the height of the territorial dispute between the Philippines and China over Panatag (Scarborough) shoal last year.