CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY- Representatives from the Presidential Commission on Visiting Forces (PCVF) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) recently joined a Town Hall Forum on the Philippines-United States Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) and Facilitated Activities, to discuss the VFA, Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs), and the activities these agreements facilitate at the grassroots level, providing an opportunity for an academic exchange of views on SOFAS.
“It’s important to have forums like this,” noted Lance Jestin Calub, Development Management Officer IV, Presidential Commission on Visiting Forces (PCVF) . “It’s important to have dialogues like this because ultimately, the policies with respect to the VFA should be informed by voices that are not typically heard. And that’s what the PCVF actually does. We go around the country and talk to people, talk to communities about the VFA, and we let that information feed to the policy process.”
Among the issues raised during the discussion concerned the operational status of Lumbia Air Base in Barangay Lumbia, one of the original five EDCA sites.
EDCA sites are more formally referred to as “Agreed Locations”. The term “Agreed Locations” is defined under Article II, Paragraph 4 and elaborated under Article III of the EDCA, Calub noted.
Lumbia Air Base, formerly known as Lumbia Airport and Cagayan de Oro Airport, serves as a minor air base of the Philippine Air Force (PAF), is now the home base of the Philippine Air Force 15th Strike Wing, the primary attack unit of the PAF. It operates different aircraft such as the OV-10 attack planes, SF-260 ground attack aircraft, MG-520 “Defender” attack helicopters, and the newly acquired Augusta Westland 109 attack helicopters. (MaxDefense Philippines, 2017)
Another PAF unit, the 10th Tactical Operations Group, also operates at Lumbia. The airport has been selected by the US military for building their facilities under the EDCA.
Under the EDCA, US forces are allowed to set up storage facilities and station forward personnel to maintain them, and must also be accessible for use by the AFP. The US military calls these facilities pre-positioning areas wherein supplies, equipment, ordnance and vehicles can be pre-positioned in storage in preparation for disaster preparedness and possible conflicts.
“An EDCA site is not a base. When we talk about EDCA sites, we cannot refer to them as a VFA base. It may just be a building, a warehouse, an airstrip, there are just small sites within a base. They are there to support US forces activities in cooperation with the AFP, mainly in relation to Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response (HADR),” Dennis M. Lalata, PCVF Consultant, clarified.
In reply to a query from the audience on the status of Lumbia Air Base, Calub stressed that even if it is an EDCA site, the AFP through the PAF, retains operational control of the air base.
Beyond operational control, EDCA Agreed Locations are AFP-owned, AFP-controlled installations. In accordance with Article V, Paragraph 1 of the EDCA, ownership and control over Lumbia AB is retained by the AFP. Operational control is a separate term that is identified in the EDCA (see Article III, Paragraph 4; Article VI, Paragraph 3) and also enunciated in Saguisag v. Ochoa, G.R. no. 212426, 12 January 2016, Calub elaborated further.
HADR have become an important aspect of the EDCA. For instance, the US Marines were among the first responders after Typhoon Yolanda (International name Haiyan ) hit the Philippines on November 8, 2013. Upon the urgent request of the Philippine government, American and international relief agencies arrived three days after the storm passed to provide aid and assistance to the thousands of injured and homeless. The US alone provided over $37 million in aid.
Most recently, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on October 23rd ordered EDCA sites to make full use of EDCA facilities for the AFP airlifts in humanitarian assistance for victims of Severe Tropical Storm Kristine (international name: Trami). The President said the government would activate EDCA sites to transport relief goods, equipment, and personnel for relief and rescue efforts to affected areas.
US forces within EDCA sites are not allowed to join AFP soldiers in military actions within the country. But they do share intelligence and information with the AFP, and vice versa. But there are limitations, and only for specific operations. Furthermore, there are restrictions on access to our military camps by foreign military personnel, Calub added.
Lalata, a PCVF consultant since 2014 who has been directly involved in research, strategic planning, national security and development advocacies for some 37 years, explained that EDCA is a 2014 arrangement by which the US can rotate forces and access agreed-upon Philippine military bases with the right to build storage facilities and to preposition equipment, but does not permit permanent basing.
The US initially allocated $82 million for infrastructure at five existing EDCA sites, with a future expansion to $100 million to encompass the new sites. The five original sites are Basa Air Base in Pampanga; Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija; Antonio Bautista Air Base in Palawan; Benito Ebuen Air Base in Cebu; and Lumbia Air Base in Cagayan de Oro.
On April 3, 4 new bases were identified as EDCA sites in Luzon: Naval Base Camilo Osias in Santa Ana, Cagayan; Lal-lo Airport in Lal-lo, Cagayan; Camp Melchor Dela Cruz in Gamu, Isabela; and, Balabac Island in Palawan (Cabrisante, 2023)
“In addition to the five existing sites, these new locations will strengthen the interoperability of the US and Philippine armed forces and allow us to respond more seamlessly together to address a range of shared challenges in the Indo-Pacific region, including natural and humanitarian disasters,” the US Department of Defense (DoD) declared.” The DoD will work in lockstep with the Philippine Department of National Defense and Armed Forces to rapidly pursue modernization projects at these locations.”
The five EDCA sites incorporate 15 infrastructure projects, but just five have been completed to date. They include a HADR warehouse, fuel tank and Command & Control (C2) fusion center in Palawan.
The U.S. Embassy in Manila previously disclosed that $11.4 million has been allocated for EDCA works at Fort Magsaysay, $1.8 million for Antonio Bautista; $2.7 million for the Benito Ebuen, and $3.7 million for the Lumbia Air Base for humanitiarian assistance and disaster response warehouses and runway lighting improvments.
Comparative aerial images of Lumbia Air Base showing improvements facilitated by EDCA. As new hangars are built; various residential subdivisions are also sprouting in the vicinity of the air base. (Satellite imagery from Satellites.pro and Google Earth courtesy of CDODev.com)
The US$28-million rehabilitation of Basa Air Base’s 1.7 mile (2.8km) runway was completed on November 2023. Construction has also begun on a 1.8 mile (3km) runway on Balabac, which will also receive an HADR warehouse, barracks and other military facilities.
-30-
