Mutual Logistics Support Agreement:
New name for an old agreement

Basahin ang artikulong ito sa Pilipino

THE MUTUAL LOGISTICS SUPPORT Agreement (MLSA) is the latest name for the Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreement (ACSA), an accord that the US has been pushing since 1992 but has not been signed due to fierce opposition from the people and even from a number of reactionary politicians.

Armed intervention by US Imperialism in the Philippines: A Reprise

When Macapagal-Arroyo visited the US in November, she and George W. Bush hurriedly cooked up the MLSA. At first, it was kept from the public, with Malaca�ang persistently denying the existence of such an agreement.

With the cat out of the bag, Macapagal-Arroyo has been underhandedly presenting it as a simple "arrangement" between the defense departments of the US and the Philippines. They refuse to call it an "agreement" to a void going through the complex process of having treaties with other countries ratified by the Senate. The MLSA was signed by AFP chief Gen. Diomedio Villanueva and US Pacific Command chief Adm. Dennis Blair. Villanueva, though, has said that what they signed was a mere "draft".

Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo�s treacherous approval of the MLSA has brazenly negated the victory attained after decades of struggle by the Filipino people to oust the US military bases. Through the MLSA, the Macapagal-Arroyo regime has secretly restored to the US the right to keep bases and station troops in the country, in exchange for a small amount of aid and some outmoded military equipment from the US.

Under the MLSA, the US will be accorded "base support" and its soldiers allowed to use Clark, Subic and any other part of the Philippines for its military objectives.

Worse, it grants US imperialism the license to further trample on Philippine sovereignty and intervene in the country�s internal affairs by deploying military troops that would pursue forces that it considers threats to the US� interests and security.

January 2002
English Edition

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