Int’l mission confirms disruption of residents’ lives due to US–PH military exercises

Those whose livelihood were affected received meager aid or none at all.

MANILA – Loss of livelihood, living in fear and displacement.

These are among the effects on residents as their communities are being used for military exercises by the US military forces and the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

In a press conference on Dec. 3, American visitors who came to study the impact of US militarism in the Philippines shared what they gathered in their two-week Peace Mission tour in the Philippines last November. 

“This peace mission confirmed that nothing good comes to us from our willingness to turn our territories into military bases and allow various countries, especially the US, to conduct military exercises here,” said Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) secretary general Mong Palatino.

At least 35 delegates from across the US representing Bayan-USA and International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines traveled to the Philippines as part of a peace mission which aims to understand the impacts of US militarism. The delegates visited communities in Cagayan Valley, Ilocos, Central Luzon, Mindanao, and Cebu and observed sites that were used for the military exercise and other important military facilities. 

Palatino said that the Peace Mission will release a full report on their visit to the Philippines.  

No aid

This year when military exercises were conducted, progressive groups raised issues of no-sail policy in areas where these exercises happened. In the Peace Mission, this was affirmed by the people that they talked to on the ground. 

In Aparri, Cagayan Valley fisherfolks and farmers were directly impacted by increased militarization in areas near and in between different Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) sites, said Tennessee Murray of the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) chapter in the US. 

Murray was among those who visited communities in Cagayan Valley. She said that one of the major issues with Balikatan is the no-sail order. “People are not allowed to go out in their boats during the exercises. This means that people can’t fish, and they depend on that for their livelihood. April is when this happened, and that was peak fishing season.”

She said, “We did talk to one guy who said he was able to go out, but only between 2:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m., and that was not enough time to catch enough fish. For some of the people we talked to, it was three days of no-sail order, but for others it was a week or two. Some people told us a month.” 

Murray said that rice farmers were unable to dry their palay on the roads, preventing them from having viable crops to sell. “There was live firing of missiles into the water, near Aparri. They get buoy targets that were weighed down with concrete blocks. Those concrete blocks are still there in the water, and they’re still restoring the fishing nets. One guy told us a fishing net cost him P5,000 ($85) for a plate, and he doesn’t have it, so he’ll have to get a loan and hope he can pay it back the next season.”

Those whose livelihood were affected received meager aid or none at all. In Ilocos Norte, Murray said that fisherfolks affected by the no sail zone talked to some soldiers. While they were told that the soldiers will bring it up to their supervisor, they still did not receive any aid. “Not one peso,” she said. 

“We did talk to one guy who said he got P500 ($8) (of aid), that was for a week of not being able to move his animals out to graze,” Murray said. 

“In general, people just didn’t get any kind of compensation for their lack of livelihood. And fishers and farmer folks we found would tell us over and over, if something goes wrong, they have to take out a loan in order to survive and hope we can pay it back,” she added. 

Meanwhile in Cebu, Roy Kim, also part of the Peace Mission, said that people who were devastated by massive flooding caused by the recent typhoons also did not get any aid. “I spoke to a family to hear about how the government hadn’t even set foot in their community or even given a crumb of aid as we stood chatting on the flatbed surface that was once their entire home. I spoke to a mother that broke down in tears whose floor had been completely caved in after the typhoon flooded their home. This had never happened before the destruction of the mangroves, a natural flood barrier, until the establishment of the shady flood control projects. And even though their house was unlivable, they didn’t qualify for aid because the government classified it as only partially destroyed.”

Kim said that despite the proximity of the EDCA site at the Mactan-Benito Ebuen Air Base and US’s pledge to help in case of a natural disaster, “there was not a whisper of American relief of any kind across the border.” 

“The US is investing a million US dollars in typhoon aid relief, but where is this money going? We were shocked to learn how the corrupt government sidetracked some people’s money from so many different projects. So we must demand to know where this US investment is going. Furthermore about the US military facilities, where will the bombs land in case of war?” Kim said. 

Guillermo Santos, also a part of the mission criticized the US assistance to the Philippines worth $500 million to modernize the armed forces and not spending it on education and disaster. “When we told community members in Aurora this figure, they were shocked, which speaks to the lack of transparency with the US and Philippine governments in reporting to the Filipino people how much they’re allocating government money,” Santos said. 

Meanwhile, Santos questioned the involvement of Cerberus in a proposed US military hub in Subic Bay. “Cerberus, a private equity firm based in New York City, leases land [in Subic] for the proposed US military shipbuilding hub. However, in the US, he said, Cerberus is being sued for fraud.”

“Their founder, Steven Feinberg, is now the US Deputy Defense Secretary. How can we trust these shady dealers and corrupt politicians to do business in the Philippines in the middle of a nationwide corruption scandal?” Santos said. “Who are they contracting to? Who are they paying for their private security?”

The Private Equity Stakeholder Project alleged that Cerberus was accused of defrauding the US government. A report also by The Guardian also alleged Cerberus of corrupt practices. 

No notice

People approached by the Peace Mission said that most of them only learned of the exercises at least three days prior. 

“But most of the poor people that we talked to said they had no notice whatsoever, and suddenly they were besieged with a large volume and noise of helicopters, tanks, missile launchers, on the ground robot weapons, and fighter jets, and they stayed for two weeks,” Murray said. 

Some of the residents also said that they thought a war had started and that they started to make preparations to evacuate from their community. 

“One family we talked to literally found the exercises happening in their backyard. First they woke up in the night and they heard noises and they went out and found six or seven soldiers sleeping in the yard. They thought, oh, these are just tourists. But over the course of a few days, more and more equipment and soldiers started arriving  and the exercises began. No one asked permission to use their land and no one gave them any warning,” Murray said. 

She added that children were also not allowed to play outside during the exercises. Younger children were crying for two weeks while the exercise was ongoing. 

After the exercise, the residents found about three kilos of spent bullets. “it was buried under debris that had been left by the military. They thought it was a live fire and they were very scared,” she said. 

“People were essentially trapped in their homes during this time. One couple we talked to relies on their natural surroundings as a comfort room. And because of the exercises, they were forced to defecate in plastic bags for the two weeks,” she added. 

No enemies

The delegates believed that the US is putting the Philippines in the middle of the conflict. They said that this is also the sentiment of the people on the ground.

“They said that without the US and without China, the Philippines would be better off and able to handle the situation without any interference,” Guillermo said. “We know that war is business and the US is the biggest investor.”

Palatino said that in the next few weeks, the government will table the 2026 national budget. He called on the public to oppose the government’s funding of EDCA and military facilities in the country. “Those counterpart funding of the Philippines to host Balikatan should not be utilized,” he said, adding that this is only used for corruption and only affects people’s lives as well as their livelihood.  

The Balikatan exercises is an annual joint military drill between the AFP and the US Armed Forces. This year, progressive groups condemned the deployed weapons such as Nmesis, Typhon and Marine Air Defense to be used in military exercises which led to the disruption of people’s daily lives in areas where the exercises were held. (DAA)

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