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Marcos: New bases agreed to with Americans have been identified
[BenarNews] Four bases where U.S. troops will get access under an expanded defense pact have been identified and are "scattered around the Philippines," President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said Wednesday, without revealing their names and exact locations.While speaking to news hounds on the sidelines of festivities for the 126th anniversary of the Philippine Army’s founding, Marcos said that a formal announcement publicizing the bases’ names was expected soon. "We’ll make a formal announcement. But yes they have been identified ... (but) before I announce it, we will formalize it with our partners in the United States so we will not preempt the plans," he said. "There are four extra sites scattered around the Philippines. There are some in the north, there are some around Palawan and there are some further south." Last month, the Philippine commander-in-chief agreed to give the Americans access to the four yet to be disclosed sites. Those would be on top of five known Philippine bases stipulated under Manila’s Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) with Washington. Manila’s decision in early February to agree to giving the American military greater access to local bases came amid heightened tensions with China in the contested South China Sea and fears of a potential invasion of Taiwan by Beijing, which considers the island a renegade province. Signed in 2014, the EDCA allows the U.S. military to preposition equipment and refurbish facilities that American forces would need here. But it does not allow permanent American basing in the country. The EDCA supplemented the 1999 Visiting Forces Agreement, which provides legal cover for large-scale joint military drills in the Philippines between the two long-time allies. On Monday, Philippine Defense Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. and his American counterpart, Lloyd Austin, reaffirmed the two nations’ "unwavering alliance commitment" to a decades-old Mutual Defense Treaty, which binds them to one another in case of an attack by a foreign power. Philippine and U.S. officials have not said whether the United States would use the bases in helping defend Taiwan if war broke out across the Taiwan Strait, and have instead said that the facilities would be used to allow American troops to respond more quickly to humanitarian crises in the region. Posted by: trailing wife 2023-03-23 |
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