US TROOPS OUT!

“…Visiting Forces Agreement has taken away the victories of decade’s worth of Filipino struggle against United States intervention…,” claimed the secretary general of the League of Filipino Students, Terry Ridon, in a protest rally made in front of the US Embassy, Manila, last September 11, 2009 against the RP-US Visiting Forces Agreement as part of the LFS commemoration of their 32nd founding anniversary.

Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) is an agreement between a country and a foreign nation having military forces visiting in that country. US military has the largest foreign accounts of the said agreement. Typically, a VFA is mainly concerned with legal issues associated with military individuals and property. It includes issues like entry and exit into the country, tax liabilities, postal services, or employment terms for host-country nationals, but the most contentious are civil and criminal jurisdiction over the visiting forces.

In the country, the RP-US Visiting Forces Agreement became a major political issue. Last September 11, 2009, in front of the US Embassy in Manila, League of Filipino Students (LFS) lead the protest rally against VFA as part of the commemoration of the group’s 32nd founding anniversary. Terry Ridon, secretary general of LFS, felt that the victory of the Filipinos has been taken away because of the continued implementation of the agreement.

The militant youth group believed that the deployment of US military advisors and 660 armed troops in the country brought no good but harm, mainly because it promotes war rather than peace. The group is also convinced that the US government is using the September 11 bombing incident as an excuse to wage a war that strengthens its power and control of resources not only in the Philippines, but throughout the world. It opportunistically expands its “war on terrorism” in the country with the deployment of US troops in Mindanao region.

Majority of the Filipino people go up against the said deployment of US military personnel. Many dreaded that the conflict between the American troops and Philippine insurgents will lead to the deployment of more US troop in the region.