SANTA ANA, Philippines (AP) — The remote coastal town of Santa Ana, on the northeastern tip of the Philippine mainland, has long been known to tourists for its beaches, waterfalls, fireflies and a few casinos.
But that’s changing since this laid-back town of about 35,000, which still doesn’t have a traffic light, became strategically important to America.
The United States and the Philippines, longtime treaty allies, have identified Santa Ana, in northern Cagayan province, as one of nine mostly rural areas where rotating groups of U.S. forces could camp indefinitely and store their weapons and equipment on local military bases under the enhanced agreement. Defense cooperation agreement.
Thousands of U.S. forces withdrew from two massive naval and air bases in the Philippines in the early 1990s at the end of the Cold War, ending nearly a century of U.S. military presence in the country. In recent years, Washington has strengthened an arc of military alliances in Asia to counter an increasingly assertive China, which it now sees as its greatest security challenge.
This is consistent with the Philippines’ efforts to strengthen its external defenses after an alarming wave of territorial hostilities with Beijing in the South China Sea that began last year. The clashes on the high seas injured several members of the Philippine navy, damaged their boats and strained diplomatic relations.
The isolated city of Santa Ana is caught in the geopolitical rivalry between Washington and Beijing due to its strategic location. It lies across a maritime border with Taiwan, the self-governing island that China considers a renegade province that must be reconquered by force if necessary. The United States is committed to defending the territory.
Some Santa Ana villagers expressed apprehension about living near U.S. forces. Their governor, Manuel Mamba, vehemently opposed the impending US military presence, saying it would make Cagayan a military target of China.
Other villagers say the Philippines needs the Americans as a crucial counterweight to China, which they say is using its military might to threaten Manila’s territorial interests in the South China Sea.
“There is no choice. If you compare the number of our forces to China, they have a lot more,” Romeo Asuncion, Santa Ana’s planning and economic development official, told the Associated Press. “If the Americans were here, they would protect us no matter what. »
There is also the prospect of economic benefits and aid from the US military presence.
“If they donate a school, that will be good,” Asuncion said.
Rowena Castillo, a consultant to the city’s mayor, expressed hope that more attention to Santa Ana would boost tourism. She recently handed out brochures promoting the city’s resorts, waterfalls, a historic lighthouse, a crocodile-shaped island and an area teeming with fireflies.
Some villagers acknowledged that even without U.S. forces, the town would likely be hit by any major-power military confrontation because of Santa Ana’s relative proximity to Taiwan.
Authorities and village chiefs met recently at the initiative of the local army to discuss contingency plans, including the possibility of setting up emergency shelters for refugees, in case tensions between China and Taiwan would escalate into armed conflict, said Marion Miranda, Santa Ana disaster mitigation manager. officer, told the AP.
“One of the issues is where we could bring potential refugees and what the budget is for that,” Miranda said.
In another rural Cagayan town southwest of Santa Ana called Lal-lo, part of the airport has been designated as a possible encampment site for U.S. forces.
Unlike the two massive military bases that U.S. forces once occupied, including a naval base at Subic Bay that was roughly the size of Singapore and had a bustling red light district, the U.S. military is building a new presence in a much smaller area within Philippine Camps.
During large-scale combat exercises called Balikatan – Tagalog for “shoulder to shoulder” – that ended Friday, Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters carrying allied forces, their weapons and other supplies landed and took off from the Lal-lo airport and the Santa Ana naval camp. Some journalists, notably from The AP, were invited to witness the combat maneuvers.
“It’s an important location. It’s critical because it’s an EDCA site, so it’s a very big problem for the United States and for the Philippines,” said Lt. Col. of the U.S. Navy Matthew Schultz to reporters at Lal-lo Airport.
“One of the challenges we currently face at this airfield is that there is not a lot of parking space, taxiways or additional space on the apron to facilitate the passage of a lot of planes,” Schultz said.
The EDCA agreement, signed in 2014, had an initial duration of 10 years and was automatically extended with the agreement of both parties, Ambassador to the United States José Manuel Romualdez said by telephone from Washington.
The agreement allows rotating groups of U.S. forces to stay at military sites for free and store their defense equipment – with the exception of nuclear weapons.
The United States has allocated more than $82 million to build ammunition and fuel storage facilities, an urban combat training center, aircraft parking lots, runway repairs and warehouses for items humanitarian response in the first five EDCA sites.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. agreed last year to add four more EDCA sites where U.S. forces could stay, including the Philippine Navy Camp in Santa Ana and the Lal-lo Airport.
Marcos and other Philippine officials say the renewed U.S. military presence would strengthen the Philippines’ external defense and help Filipinos respond more quickly to natural disasters and is not directed against any country.
China, however, has expressed concern over the increased deployment of U.S. troops to the Philippines and elsewhere in Asia and said EDCA sites in the northern Philippines could serve as surveillance outposts and staging grounds for U.S. forces to contain Beijing.
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Associated Press reporter Joeal Calupitan in Manila contributed to this report.
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