Looking back

Cheers to InterAksyon.com for reminding its readers of the historic rejection of the U.S. bases in the country 20 years ago by the Senate.

TV5’s website launched its microsite on the subject last Sept. 16, in commemoration of the 20^th year since the U.S. military left its bases in the country.

Veteran writer Joel Paredes reviewed the signing of the RP-U.S. Military Bases Agreement immediately after the country’s liberation from the Japanese in World War II until the Philippine Senate rejected the extension of the treaty in 1991. Through his interviews, Paredes provided the larger context behind the issue.

“Our foreign policy was conducted from the very beginning, and is being pursued, on the erroneous assumption of an identity of American and Filipino interest, or more correctly, of the desirability, and even the necessity, of subordinating our interests to those of America,” Paredes quoted nationalist lawmaker Wigberto Tañada as saying.

Paredes added that the country’s skewed policy in favor of its former colonizer continued beyond July 4, 1946, when the Philippines resumed its independence after the American and Japanese occupation “with the condition—embodied in the Bell Trade Act—that it must accord the American entrepreneurs ‘parity’ rights to land ownership, resources exploitation, and other business activities.” A year later, the military bases agreement between the two countries was enacted, granting the United States the right to maintain the bases for 99 years and formalizing the involvement of the U.S. military in the development of the Philippine military.

Aside from Tañada, Paredes also interviewed leading experts and scholars Renato Constantino Jr., Constantino’s son and social activist RC Constantino, and Filomeno Sta. Ana.

Paredes also discussed in part the RP-U.S. Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) and initial moves by legislators to annul it. (“Unfinished business”)

In an essay, political scholar Roland Simbulan wrote how Subic and Subic Bay, where the U.S. military bases were then located, have benefited since the Senate rejected the military bases agreement in 1991. (“Life after the bases: worth the sacrifice”)

Simbulan, a professor in development studies and public management at the University of the Philippines, was the senior political consultant of Sen. Wigberto Tañada during the said Senate decision on the bases treaty in 1991.

InterAksyon.com also reported the plight of the Amerasian children left by American servicemen after the military bases treaty ended. “Aside from being abandoned by their parents, Amerasians in the Philippines are not fully recognized by the U.S. government,” it reported. (“Amerasians: The unwanted angels of Angeles City”)