Both sides worked overtime to present Obama with a concrete foreign policy achievement, after a Japan visit marked by a failure to hammer out a new trade deal with that country.
The pact is the latest step in a so-called Asian pivot of US forces as concerns mount over China’s actions in the disputed South China Sea.
Finalized after eight rounds of talks that began in August 2013, the new accord grants US troops access to designated Philippine military facilities, the right to construct facilities, and pre-position equipment, aircraft and vessels.
But the pact rules out permanent basing, the sources said. The Philippine Constitution bans foreign military bases in the country unless covered by a treaty.
The signing of the accord, called Enhanced Defense Cooperation (EDCA), will take place a few hours before Obama’s arrival in Manila, said the sources, who declined to be identified as they are not officially designated to speak to the media.
With an initial term of 10 years, EDCA will be signed as an executive agreement, meaning it will not require congressional ratification because it is not a treaty, sources explained.
There is no definite number on the visiting troops, sources noted, saying their presence will depend on the scale and frequency of activities approved by the two governments.
Any such presence, they said, will be guided by the Constitution.
Citing a portion of the accord’s preamble, sources said Manila and Washington have declared an “understanding for the US not to establish a permanent military presence or base in the territory in the Philippines.”
The agreement also states that Philippine consent is mandatory in all US activities and that it has “full control” over all the facilities that will be used.
Both sides agreed to the “sharing and joint use” of these facilities, but once constructed by the US military, the Philippines “assumes ownership of buildings and infrastructures.”
Other salient provisions of the EDCA according to sources are the prohibition of entry to the Philippines of nuclear weapons and protection of the environment, human health, and safety.
EDCA, officials said, is also intended to enhance humanitarian assistance and disaster response as demonstrated by the rapid US deployment of aid, aircraft and vessels in the aftermath of super typhoon Yolanda in November of last year.
Manila has turned to its long-standing ally, the US, in an ongoing effort to modernize its ill-equipped military and strengthen its capability to defend its territory in the South China Sea, which is claimed nearly in its entirety by China.
Parts of the resource-rich waters that fall within the Philippines’ internationally-mandated exclusive economic zone has been renamed West Philippine Sea by the Philippine government.
After years of pre-occupation in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US announced an Asian “pivot” in 2012 and identified the Philippines as a key pillar in its shift to the region where a rising China is asserting long-standing territorial claims.
China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan are locked in decades-long territorial rifts due to overlapping claims in the South China Sea, a major international trade route where huge oil and gas deposits have been discovered. Analysts fear the maritime row could be a flashpoint for military confrontations.
The government of President Aquino III vowed to resolve territorial disputes with China through diplomacy, but at the same time has undertaken a program to modernize the Philippine military—one of Asia’s weakest—for the country to have a “minimum credible defense posture.”
Beijing insist on its “indisputable” and “historical” claim of most of the South China Sea—an assertion rejected by its Asian neighbors.
The US said it does not take sides in the disputes but has declared that it is in its national interest to ensure freedom of navigation and aviation and the peaceful settlement of disputes.
For decades, the US maintained large military bases in Clark, Pampanga and Subic Bay in Olongapo, Zambales until Philippine lawmakers voted to close these down in 1991.
Eight years after leaving their bases, American forces returned to the country under the Visiting Forces Agreement, which was ratified by the Senate in 1999 to govern the temporary stay of US forces for joint training exercises with the Philippine military. —HS/KG, GMA News
