MANILA – Some 3,000 United States Marines are currently in the Philippines for joint training exercises with their Filipino counterparts amid mounting opposition calls to scrap a controversial bilateral military pact.

Held in key parts of Luzon, the country’s largest island, the two-week maneuvers are meant to enhance the “inter-operability” between the armed forces of the allies as part of a Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA).

The training sorties, code-named Carat and Phiblex, also seek to bolster the Philippines’ territorial defenses, including its claims to part of the Spratly Islands, now the focus of an intensifying row between Washington and Beijing, the latter insisting on its

historic rights over the potentially oil and mineral-rich islands.

Despite the VFA’s strategic importance in the wake of conflicting territorial claims over the strategic islands, Manila’s opposition groups still want the decade-old deal scrapped for legal and nationalistic reasons.

Opposition lawmakers in both houses of the Philippine congress have filed a joint resolution calling for the immediate abrogation of the VFA. The call is in sharp contrast to newly elected President Benigno Aquino’s position, which favors only a review or fine-tuning of the agreement.

Aquino was supposed to take up the VFA when he met US President Barack Obama last month in New York, but failed due to lack of time. Aquino, however, will press for a review when he meets Obama again in Washington for an official visit before the year ends.

Aquino has already informed US ambassador to the Philippines, Harry Thomas Jr of a plan to “refine” the forces agreement in preparation for his second visit to the US. “I think it’s inarguable that there are benefits of the VFA, but perhaps a refinement is necessary. It can be made better,” he told reporters.

Aquino has advocated a renegotiation of the VFA since he was a senator. Prior to last year’s presidential elections, he signed a senate resolution calling for a review, citing Washington’s shortcomings to help modernize the Philippine military. ..more here