Manila: President Benigno Aquino’s “subservience” to the dictates of the US is putting the country at risk, an inter-faith group said.

The Ecumenical Bishops’ Forum, a group of Catholic, Protestants and Evangelical bishops, said the increasing presence of the US military in the country is putting pressure on the country’s independence — which Filipinos fought for and paid with their own lives generations ago.

“The return of US troops to Philippines soil undermines our peoples’ sovereignty,” the religious leaders said as the country marks its 114th year of Independence on Tuesday.

The Philippines had fought for independence for more than 300 years from Spanish domination. During the early 1900s the US took over the country from Spain in a brutal conflict for subjugation.

More than a century after Independence from Spain, the Philippines is yet to be free from the dictates of US. “The continued subservience of our political leaders to the US and its international instrumentalities betrays our freedom and sovereignty,” they said.

The EBF issued the statement after the US Senate issued a resolution calling for an increased defence and security cooperation with the Philippines under the Mutual Defence Treaty (MDT).

The MDT, which was signed in 1951, calls the US and the Philippines to come to the aid of one another if an armed attack is carried out in the territory of the other.

During Aquino’s visit to the US, he held a meeting with US President Barack Obama in Washington, wherein the latter reiterated his government’s support for the Philippines to establish a “minimum defence system.”

According tot he EBF, it it is unacceptable that Aquino is leading the continued subservience by the country to the US.

“Where the right to independence of peoples and nations are tarnished by the domination of foreign powers, their freedom and sovereignty is a sham. This holds true as far as our nation is concerned,” it said.

According to EBF, the US is using the spectre of conflict with China over the Scarborough Shoal as an excuse for the continued dependence by the Philippines for military assistance.

The Scarborough Shoal is a rocky outcrop in the middle of the South China Sea located some 120 nautical miles off the Western coast of the Philippines near Zambales province.

Both the Philippines and China are contesting ownership of the islands as part of their territory

“The Scarborough conflict is only being made an excuse in order for the US to deploy their forces in the Asia-Pacific to protect its economic interest in the region and to counteract its economic rival China’s expansionism,” EBF said.

This year, as the Philippine-China row over the Scarborough Shoal heats up, US soldiers were allowed by Aquino to re-occupy their former military bases in Subic, Zambales and Clark, Pampanga to defend the Philippine territory from China.