Gov't urged to drop defense pact with US

A Philippine columnist on Saturday called on the incoming Philippine government to drop a defense pact between the Philippines and the United States, arguing it was reducing the country into one big US military base.

"For as long as we have foreign military bases on our soil, the country can never formulate its own independent foreign policy," Rod Kapunan wrote in an article published on Saturday, calling the foreign policy of outgoing Benigno Aquino's government "a carbon copy of the US policy for the Asia-Pacific region."

Manila and Washington signed the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement in 2014, which allows US troops to build facilities to store equipment in the Philippines, in addition to giving broad access to Philippine military bases.