Manila: Officials on Wednesday confirmed plans to allow the US Army to put up a facility inside the Lumbia Airport in Cagayan de Oro City.
Defence Secretary Voltaire Gazmin, in a speech he gave in Camp Evangelista in Cagayan de Oro on Wednesday, said structures would be put up inside the old Lumbia Airport in Northern Mindanao to support plans by the US Army to establish a resupply and warehouse facility for its forces in the Philippines.
Details on the size of the military installation is still vague at the moment but Gazmin said the purpose of the structure is to provide a forward facility where forces can be resupplied quickly during humanitarian and disaster response scenarios.
“The US will have a facility to house their equipment so that whenever the need arises for quick turnaround of humanitarian and disaster response, there will be structures in place,” reports coming from Cagayan de Oro City quoted Gazmin as saying.
Earlier, there have been adverse reactions from residents in Cagayan de Oro on what was then still a plan by the US to establish a facility in the Northern Mindanao city.
Critics, which include Cagayan de Oro Councilor Teodulfo Lao, were apprehensive that the plan could result in more problems for residents. He warned about the negative effects of having an American installation in the city as he pointed to the possibility in the rise of prostitution and its attendant evils.
But Gazmin said the government would take steps to prevent such occurrences while pointing out that the number of Americans who will stay in the facility would be limited.
Besides, Gazmin said, the goodwill that would result in allowing American forces the use of Philippine facilities will do well in improving the security for the country, especially amid the threat from China over the issue on the West Philippines Sea.
For his part, Cagayan de Oro Mayor Oscar Moreno was quoted by the daily ‘Sunstar’ as saying that the presence of American forces in Northern Mindanao would also have a positive effect by improving the local economy.
It can be recalled that on January 12, 2016, the Supreme Court upheld the legality of a the Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), a military agreement between the Philippines and the United States.
In pushing for the EDCA, US had said that it is not basing forces in the Philippines, but merely providing “rotational presence” of troops.
A former colony of the United States, the Philippines rejected permanent American military presence in 1991 when it terminated a basing agreement.
However in 1998, both countries signed the Visiting Forces Agreement that allowed US soldiers to conduct joint force readiness drills with Filipino troops inside the Philippines.
Aside from the Lumbia Airport, reports said the US is constructing a naval base in Oyster Bay in Palawan which is closer to the South China Sea.
