DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/16  September) --  Eighteen years after the Philippine Senate
rejected the RP-US Military Bases treaty that would have allowed the continued stay of US military bases and their personnel in the country, American troops are back in the country, this time no longer just in Luzon's Clark or Subic but in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

Jubilation greeted Salonga’s announcement that “the treaty is defeated.”

The senators who rejected the treaty that would have extended the stay of the US military bases in the country, came to be known as the “Magnificent 12.”

They are Salonga, Agapito “Butz” Aquino, Juan Ponce Enrile, Joseph Estrada, Teofisto Guingona, Jr., Sotero Laurel, Ernesto Maceda, Orlando Mercado, Aquilino Pimentel, Jr., Rene Saguisag, Victor Ziga and Wigberto Tanada.

Eighteen years later, however, American troops are in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, their exact number unknown, having been stationed in the Philippines since January 2002 on a “semi-continuous” basis, as former US Ambassador Francis Ricciardone told MindaNews in a February 2005 interview.

Ricciardone admitted that since January 2002, there had always been a batch of American soldiers in Mindanao.

The first time American troops returned to the country after 1991 was in January 2002 for the Balikatan 02-1 that was supposed to have ended in July that same year but some troops were left behind purportedly to do civil works, to finish construction and do some humanitarian programs.

Balikatan 02-was covered by a Terms of Reference because protesters demanded a TOR. The subsequent joint military exercises had no TORs.

In explaining the American troops’ “semi-continuous” presence since January 2002, Ricciardone then said that they have “…. something like 17 or 24 different trainings, exercises throughout an annual cycle.”

“We established a semi-continuous, not permanent, but semi-continuous (military presence), that is to say, some number of our personnel, rotate, at the pleasure of the command, your command…It’s a high-priced consultancy, only we’re doing it for free. And the second your command says it’s not useful, we leave,” Ricciardone said.

Senator Rodolfo Biazon, chair of the Senate Defense  Committee and co-chair of the Legislative Oversight on the Visiting Forces Agreement (LOVFA), acknowledged on August 28 in Zamboanga that there is "a lot of non-transparency" on the US military's presence in Mindanao. (Carolyn O. Arguillas/MindaNews)

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