JUBAN, Sorsogon, April 2 (PNA) – Local officials here on Thursday spread the red carpet for the formal opening of the Balikatan exercises in Sorsogon province under the RP-US Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA).
Opening ceremonies were held in Barangay Guruyan, an interior village of this fifth class municipality highly infested by 40-year old communist insurgency that seeks to topple the government and establish a Marxist-Leninist state.
From Mindanao, a war-torn region of southern Philippines, the joint RP-US military exercises moved to the Bikol Peninsula this year.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) said "Bikol is an ideal site for the activities because of its strategic location in terms of land, sea and air exercises."
That made the Bikol provinces of Albay, Sorsogon and Masbate focal points of the 16th Balikatan exercises that the AFP said would deal mainly on humanitarian activities like medical missions and infrastructure development.
Col. Ariel Bernardo, commanding officer of the 901st Infantry Brigade of the Philippine Army based in Barangay Villahermosa, Daraga, Albay, said Thursday the US military contingent was bringing along some 400 Navy engineers and doctors, dentists, medical staff and medicines as well as engineering equipment.
The AFP, on the other hand, would deploy its engineering and scout ranger battalions to undertake the humanitarian activities and provide security for the Balikatan participants, respectively, Bernardo said.
In the opening ceremonies, thousands of barangay residents from here and the neighboring town of Irosin attended the affair.
Juban town Mayor Teresita Fragata welcomed the participants to the Balikatan exercises saying her municipality was lucky to be chosen as site of the joint RP-US humanitarian activities given the benefits that could be derived from it.
PA spokesman for Bikol Maj. Christopher Morales said the RP-US Balikatan teams would construct a three-kilometer concrete road and a two-classroom high school building in Barangay Guruyan during the one-month stay in the village.
Town Mayor Lilia Gonzales of Irosin, another Sorsogon municipality that would benefit from the Balikatan, said she was elated by the presence of the US Navy doctors, dentists and medical staff that would conduct a month-long medical-dental mission in Barangay Patag for the thousands of her poor constituents.
Morales said the Balikatan medical-dental mission would entertain patients coming from all over Sorsogon province.
On threats by the New People’s Army (NPA) that opposed the conduct of the Balikatan exercises in the area, Maj. Morales said: “We hope these insurgents do not initiate offensive actions against the participants, because these military personnel are not combatants but doctors and engineers.”
The Celso Minguez Command, the NPA local unit operating in the province, last week in a press statement, strongly opposed the Balikatan exercises.
The NPA unit said "it is a counter-insurgency action hatched by the Philippine government and the US military."
Samuel Guerrero, spokesman of the rebel unit, said in the statement, that the NPA would not hesitate to engage the Balikatan participants in the battle ground if they would enter the guerrilla zone.
Greg Bañares, the regional spokesman of the National Democratic Front (NDF), the political arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) had earlier said in a press statement that the central committee of the NPA has ordered its operating units across the region to launch all-out offensives against the Balikatan exercises.
On the NPA threats, Col. Bernardo countered that the Army troops were on heightened alert for any NPA activity in Bikol, the Balikatan exercise area. (PNA)