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By Ana Marie Pamintuan 
The Philippine Star 

US troops returned to the Philippines way back in 2002, upon our government’s invitation.

Now, with the Chinese unwilling to exercise restraint in showing off their newfound and ever-growing military might, and pushing around the weakest kid on the block, President Aquino says it’s in our national interest to provide greater military access to the only power that can stand up to China.

The Americans have their own national interest in mind in their ongoing pivot to Asia. They have emphasized that they are not taking sides in territorial disputes. But they have expressed support for the mode of settlement chosen by the Philippines, which China opposes – through international arbitration by a third party, based on international rules.

P-Noy will have to sell to the people the idea of enlightened national self-interest in his plan to provide basing access to US troops. This shouldn’t be too hard, considering that the average Pinoy has a lot of goodwill toward America.

But it will help to win over some of the skeptics. A clarification of certain gray areas in the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), such as reciprocity and jurisdiction over erring troops, can be a good start.

It will also help if the troops of other countries are allowed the same access, just to prove that any revived naval base in Subic Bay will truly be under the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) rather than the US Pacific Command (Pacom).

When the Arroyo administration invited US troops back to the Philippines, there was a lot of global sympathy if not goodwill toward Uncle Sam in the wake of 9/11. Filipinos were also sick of the Abu Sayyaf kidnapping spree that government forces were unable (or seemed unwilling) to stop.

So GI Joe returned in 2002, turning Mindanao into another front in George W’s Operation Enduring Freedom. The Americans initially stayed at Edwin Andrews Air Base in Zamboanga City before moving to a modular encampment fashioned mostly out of retrofitted shipping containers at Camp Navarro in the outskirts of the city.

There the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines (JSOTF-P) remains, composed mostly of Army Special Operations forces, Navy SEALs and Air Force special operators. Its main mission is to provide non-combat assistance to the AFP in counterterrorism in Mindanao. There are from 500 to 600 personnel in JSOTF-P, down a few hundred from the initial deployment.

Remarkably, there was hardly a peep at the time against the return of US forces, even from politicians who supported the shutdown of the bases. Apart from the Abu Sayyaf atrocities and post-9/11 sympathy for Americans, then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo at the time was still popular – always useful in pushing controversial policies in this country.

President Aquino may want to bear these factors in mind as he takes defense cooperation between the Philippines and the United States to a new level.

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It took a decade for GI Joe to return after US bases here were shut down under the watch of the first President Aquino. Corazon Aquino marched in the rain to the Senate to plead for an extension of the bases lease, and was politely rebuffed. She then pleaded with the miffed Americans to leave their floating dry dock in Subic Bay when the naval base was shut down, and was again rebuffed.

In Washington, the Philippine desk at the US State Department was downsized, in personnel and actual office size. During that 10-year hiatus in their Philippine military deployment, US officials whom I met in my visits to Washington told me that Manila had vanished from their radar screen.

While some Pinoys missed the lifetime or indefinite US visas, many shrugged off the acrimonious parting with an ally. Subic moved to rise from the bases ashes, with its hosting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in 1996 meant to showcase its success.

But the AFP, which was as hard-hit as Olongapo City by the departure of Uncle Sam, largely suffered benign neglect. About a year after the shutdown of the bases, the Chinese began setting up huts on Mischief or Panganiban Reef in the Spratlys. And the AFP could not stop them.

Today, a multi-story concrete garrison sits on Panganiban Reef, and the Chinese have become more aggressive in claiming nearly the entire South China Sea and the waters it shares with Japan and South Korea.

But the Japanese and Koreans have their own military capability to repel intruders, without relying on the American security umbrella. We don’t. We didn’t even make a real effort to develop credible defense capability.

Now, under Cory Aquino’s only son, the nation looks headed toward the closest thing to the revival of US bases in the Philippines.

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In the Asia-Pacific, the US is a treaty ally of Australia, Japan, South Korea, Thailand and our country. US troops enjoy access to certain facilities in Thailand and Singapore, and maintain bases in Japan and Korea.

All these countries, however, have built up their own armed forces, with some of them developing their own military hardware.

In case of external attack, Japan and Korea will turn to Uncle Sam for help only if nuclear weapons are involved. The presence of US troops in the two countries has drawn complaints from their citizens, mostly over GIs behaving badly and national sovereignty being compromised – issues familiar to Pinoys.

But being under the American security umbrella also helped Japan and South Korea channel resources and nuclear knowhow to peaceful civilian uses in fields such as power generation, medicine and agriculture.

Among US allies, there are always occasions when Washington is accused of being overbearing, of not living up to the avuncular image that it presents to the world.

The grumblings are heard even among US allies in NATO. But having prosperous economies and strong self-defense capability, NATO states have the confidence to believe in maintaining alliances based on shared values and objectives, despite occasional irritants.

This idea can be a hard sell in a developing country with a weak military for which a defense alliance is equated with dependence and compromised sovereignty.

We must have the national confidence to forge a mature alliance with world powers, based on common values and goals. We just need to work out the best deal possible, keeping in mind that each country acts based on its own interest.

http://www.philstar.com/opinion/2013/07/03/960990/access