PRESS RELEASE
Duterte Tells U.S. To Stop Building Arms Depot Bases
Jan. 30, 2017 (EIRNS)—Just days after the Pentagon announced that it would begin building military facilities in the Philippines, including warehouses for arms stocks, at the five locations approved under the last administration’s Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) deal with the United States, President Duterte today told them to stop immediately or he would scrap the various military agreements with America.
"They’re unloading arms in the Philippines now... I’m serving notice to the armed forces of the United States. Do not do it; I will not allow it,"
Duterte told a televised news conference on Sunday.
"Provisions of the Visiting Forces (Agreement—VFA): there shall be no permanent facilities. A depot is by any other name a depot. It’s a permanent structure to house arms."
The EDCA signed by the Obama and Aquino administrations in 2014 included a scam against the VFA, agreed to in 1999, by claiming that the U.S. military bases would be "rotating," rather than "permanent." Duterte has called them out on that scam.
He added: "I do not even know if there is a nuclear tip now, that they are unloading, because we don’t allow that," according to the Inquirer. Philippines LaRouche Society leader Butch Valdes has called on Duterte to demand the right to examine all U.S. facilities to determine whether they contain nuclear weapons.
Duterte said that the U.S. military was unloading arms in its temporary facilities in Palawan, Cagayan de Oro City, and Pampanga.
"It’s not allowed by the treaty. You do that and I will consider a review and maybe ultimately, abrogation, since it is an executive order—abrogate the treaty altogether,"
he warned.
He said Washington was putting regional stability at risk, and its actions could put the Philippines in "extreme danger" because of the posturing between the United States and China.
"The missiles of China are pointed at the American expeditions," he said, referring to its naval patrols. "A depot would serve as a supply line."
