People hold placards during a protest rally against the U.S.-Philippines Balikatan joint military exercises in front of the gate of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) headquarters in Quezon City, the Philippines, April 11, 2023. More than 17,000 Philippine and U.S. troops on Tuesday kicked off the most extensive joint military activities in decades in the Philippines amid criticisms that it escalates tension in the region rather than peace and stability.(Photo: Xinhua)

 
April 2023 is proving to be the start of the most unnerving discord in the current Philippine national discourse, when the government of President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos, Jr. announced the additional four US military bases within supposedly Philippine military bases, three of which are located just across island of Taiwan and one facing the South China Sea area. 

A raging national debate has followed creating divisions even within the Marcos family with the negative views of Senator Imee Marcos questioning the locations of the new base facilities so close to Taiwan and lately, asking why the Philippines rely on "foreigners" to defend itself. 

Former President Rodrigo R. Duterte has been forthright in his opposition to the expansion and addition of US military bases in the Philippines, but Philippine mainstream media has been suppressing news of opposition to the bases. On April 2, 2023 one columnist in a national broadsheet had to break the news under the headline, "Snubbed by media, Duterte warns of EDCA bases," while recently Duterte conveyed his view to a visiting International Department CPC Central Committee delegation:

"We will insist that China be left alone to solve their problems," Duterte said in his virtual message, adding that he values good relations and goodwill with the Chinese people. One can sense Duterte's frustration in protesting the US interference with Chinese affairs through the four additional US' bases in the Philippines while conveying his deep concern for the region.

President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. has allowed his subalterns to explain the unexplainable contradictions of his policy of appeasing oppressive US demands for militarization of the Philippines while claiming the bases are for "disaster relief" preparedness while paving runways for warplanes and military exercises bring in HIMARS test missiles.

Upon Chinese Ambassador Huang Xilian firmly advising the Philippine government to consider the safety of 150,000 overseas Filipinos workers in Taiwan should US aggression around Taiwan ever materializes. Ambassador Huang's comments caused quite a stir in Philippines media which sought to distort and misrepresent them as hostile when it was actually very sound advice.

The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) issued an urgent invitation to Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Qin Gang for an "exchange of views on the outcomes of the Philippines-China Foreign Ministry Consultations and Bilateral Consultations Mechanism on the South China Sea." Minister Qin Gang, despite having his agenda full consolidating relations of Central Asian states and supporting President Xi's peace initiative in the Middle East, and the rest of the globe, took the time to visit Manila and calm the waters.

The official readout from the DFA about the Qin-Manalo meeting reported additional communications channels and mechanisms, and to "elevate our bilateral relations to even greater heights," but nothing was announced about the presence of the additional US military bases which Filipinos of higher awareness are concerned about. The Qin-Manalo meeting ended without an answer to the nagging question in everybody's mind - the perilous presence of these pernicious alien bases.

Opposition to the US EDCA bases, especially the three additional bases that are positioned like arrowheads at Taiwan, is far wider than Philippine mainstream media, tightly controlled by the Philippine business class tied to US financial interests, are letting on. An anti-EDCA caravan will be launched on the second week of May to travel 474.3 km from Manila through several provinces and cities, and stage protest rallies, and then Cagayan Province to rally and listen to anti-EDCA Governor Manuel Mamba.

A group of prominent national leaders including former Senator Francisco Tatad, former Philippine diplomat Ado Paglinawan, nationalist lawyer Neri Javier Colmenares and several other legal luminaries are combining efforts to question again the EDCA agreement which was never ratified for the Philippine senate nor by a national referendum as required by the 1987 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines.  

The latest in the sordid EDCA bases story is this headline "AFP eyes more EDCA sites for '360 degree protection' of PH" which to some Filipinos feels like a second direct colonization of the Philippines. This now justifies the call already heard from some Filipinos of "The Second Filipino-American War" and complete the Unfinished revolution from 1899 when fighting broke out between American forces and Filipino nationalists led by Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo. Some voices are already being heard within the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

The author is founder of a Manila-based think tank Philippine BRICS Strategic Studies. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn