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All this shows the reversal of the post-Cold War trend in all aspects. A recent STRATFOR Report, prepared by former CIA and State Department analysts, talks about U.S. plans to re-establish "forward bases" in the Philippines as part of an American strategy against international terrorism. As earlier pointed out, the United States has, in fact, under the Bush administration, already reversed the post-Cold War trend of reducing or closing down of overseas U.S. military bases and facilities.

Even Before Sept. 11, the Rand Corp. in an important policy strategy study titled, "The United States and Asia - Toward a New US Strategy and Force Structure" (May 2001), strongly pushed for the restoration of U.S. forces in the Philippines through "future USAF Expeditionary Deployments." Note the term "deployments" used. This study was prepared by a team headed by Zalmay Khalilzad, who was later appointed senior member of the U.S. National Security Council (NSC) and is now Bush's chief adviser on Afghanistan.

The state of Philippine-US security relations

Since the 1900s, the Philippines was a colony of the United States. When the first U.S. Visiting Forces trampled on Philippine soil in 1899, they undermined the freedom and sovereignty of our newly born Republic, waged a war of conquest and colonized the country so as to gain a market and military stronghold in Asia. The bloody U.S. conquest led to the death of more than 600,000 Filipinos, mostly civilians, or one-sixth of our population then. Historians have called that era of the Philippine-American War as "America's First Vietnam in Asia."

For its Asian colony, the United States not only created the Philippine Constabulary to assist in its pacification campaign against Filipino freedom fighters, but also established vast military bases all over the islands as staging areas for military operations for domestic and international missions. Both external defense and internal suppression of dissidents and Filipino "insurgents" were handled by the U.S. armed forces until 1946 when internal defense was turned over to the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Post-independence security agreements like the 1947 Military Bases Agreement which was terminated in 1991, the Military Assistance Agreement of 1947 (later amended as the Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement of 1953) and the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty allowed the United States to control the external defenses of the country while leaving to the Philippine Army and Philippine Constabulary the job of suppressing Filipino revolutionaries.

The above treaties never gave the AFP the chance to take care and handle or build up its external defense capability as the United States made sure that it would be totally dependent on Washington. The more than 40 years of U.S. military supremacy over the AFP through the above treaties from 1947 to the present have prevented the AFP from establishing its own self-reliant defense system. If the past is our teacher, our more than 40 years of closest "special relations" with the United States has only made the Philippine armed forces the weakest in South East Asia. It has already been proven by past treaties with the United States that it is more interested in doing business at the expense of the Philippines rather than aiding the AFP in its bid to modernize. If the United States was sincere in aiding in the modernization of the AFP, it should not have prevented the air force or Philippine Navy from acquiring modern crafts and equipment.

Money could not have been the reason for these major services vital to external defense not to develop; the United States could have easily provided modern military equipment through loan with easy terms of payment. This would have provided the AFP with the capability to enable it to be external security-oriented and truly modernized. Philippine Air Force and Philippine Navy vessels and equipment , according to an AFP logistics expert that I interviewed have an average age of 44 years!

Militarization of Philippine-U.S. relations

The Visiting Forces Agreement of 1991 restored U.S. troop activities in the Philippines after the rejection of the bases treaty in 1991. Various small and large-scale military exercises have since then been undertaken to justify the restoration of U.S. military presence in the Philippines. These exercises are the following:

Carat - a specific amphibious exercise between the US Pacific Fleet and the Philippine Navy involving use of frigates, landing ships, helicopters and P-3C Orion aircraft. Training includes lectures, demonstrations and shipboard tours during port training and highlighted by amphibious exercises between the two navies.

Masurvex -this deals with RP-US maritime patrol, surface detection, tracking, reporting and training. It involves the use of maritime surveillance aircraft and P-3C Orion from the US Navy. Activities for this exercise may include day/night surveillance, search and rescue exercise, anti-smuggling operations and maintenance lectures.

Palah - this exercise is conducted between U.S. Navy Seals teams and the Philippine Navy Special Warfare Group (SWAG) teams to improve individual and team skills as well as enhance "inter-operability" on a vast range of naval special warfare and skills common to maritime special operations forces of both countries.

Teak Piston - an airforce-to-airforce exercise which covers instructions on aircraft maintenance on areas such as corrosion control, airframe/sheet metal repair and aerospace ground equipment repair, sea search and rescue, special tactics training, air crew training and on jet engine instrument test equipment procedures.

Balance Piston - an infantry exercise dealing with special operations.

Handa Series - a Philippine-US bilateral table war game conceived to enhance higher level command and staff interaction between the AFP and the US Armed Forces to strengthen military-to-military cooperation and enhance links between the game and future exercises.

Flash Piston - this is a navy-to-navy exercise similar to the Palah exercise using a 16-man US Navy Seal team and a Philippine Navy SWAG team. Exercise includes training in the areas of underwater demolition, weapons familiarization, sniper training, direct actions and a field training exercise (FTX) to cap the training.

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