MANILA, Philippines- Humiling si US President Joe Biden ng karagdagang $128 million para sa infrastructure projects para sa taong 2025, kabilang na rito ang ilalaan para sa Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) sites.
Ang augmentation o karagdagan ay kasama sa Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2025 ng US President sa Kongreso.
Ayon sa fact sheet na ipinalabas ng White House, maglulunsad ang US Agency for International Development (USAID) ng bagong inisyatiba sa susunod na taon.
“Prepositioning of commodities, combined with strengthened Philippines’ humanitarian assistance and disaster response capacity, including for EDCA-hosting communities, will contribute to greater crisis resilience and more effective crisis response,” saad sa fact sheet.
Ipinaalam naman ni US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III kay Pangulong Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ang mga kaganapan sa naging pagbisita sa Pentagon, araw ng Biyernes.
“President Biden’s new pleasant request seeks $128 million to execute 36 projects and enhance defense cooperation agreement size and that would more than double the amount we’ve invested in EDCA infrastructure,” ayon kay Austin.
“All these underscore the strength of our alliances further, and so I look forward to hearing your views on how we can keep working together more closely than ever, including through cooperation with like-minded partners,” patuloy niya.
Nilagdaan noong 2014, “the EDCA provides for US and Philippine militaries to train together with sites increased to nine in 2023 from five previously, a move that has riled China.”
Sa kabilang dako, naglaan naman ang US Department of Defense (DoD) ng $109 million para sa infrastructure projects sa EDCA sites simula pa noong 2014, kabilang na ang $59 million para sa airfield improvement sa Basa Air Base sa Floridablanca, Pampanga.
Sinabi naman ng White House na ang USAID, sa pakikipagtulungan sa DoD, ay palalakasin din ang civilian-military disaster response training para mapahusay ang kasanayan sa ‘response systems’ sa pagitan ng Pilipinas at US civilian at military agencies at international humanitarian organizations.
“This visit here to the Pentagon reaffirms once again the strength of the relationship between the United States and the Philippines in the face of all the threats and challenges that we have had to face together,” ayon kay Pangulong Marcos.
“The Philippines is always able to look to the United States for support and we hope that this trilateral agreement, which we formalized yesterday will be a formalization of an added multilateral support and structure that will make the safety, the peace and the stability of the South China a reality and continued to be a reality,” dagdag na wika nito.
Lumutang ang bagay na ito sa rurok ng Trilateral Leaders Summit sa pagitan nina Pangulong Marcos, US President Joe Biden, at Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
“I view the new agreements and the new partnerships, and alliances that we have forged including the trilateral agreement, not as a response to any particular challenge or threat but merely a continuing development and evolution of the relationship that we have been fostering over a hundred years,” ang litaniya ni Pangulong Marcos.
Samantala, kasunod ng summit, nagpalabas naman ang lider ng tatlong bansa ng Joint Vision Statement na nagpapahiwatig ng posibilidad ng mas maraming pinagsamang naval training at exercises, nakatakda namang tumanggap ang Maynila ng suporta para sa defense modernization priorities nito. Kris Jose
