US lifts curbs on military aid to PH

Foreign Affairs secretary Alberto del Rosario. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—The United States has lifted its restrictions on providing military assistance to the Philippines, which had been in place for five years, after it noted the improving human rights situation in the country.

Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario on Thursday said, the US government lifted the restrictions “sometime last year.”

Del Rosario confirmed that the restrictions had been lifted after visiting US Defense Undersecretary David Shear said in Manila yesterday that Washington will provide $40 million in military assistance to the Philippines in 2015.

Elena Maningat, director of the US desk at the Department of Foreign Affairs, said the US military aid that was withheld amounted to $3 million every year for five years.

In 2009, Washington had announced that it was withholding military aid to the Philippines due to the continued human rights abuses in the country and the failure of the government of then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to implement the recommendations of UN special rapporteur Philip Alston. Alston went to the country in 2007 to investigate alleged politically motivated killings of leftist activists and issued a report in 2008.

Maningat said Washington informed Manila last year that it was lifting its ban on providing military assistance.

She said the lifting of the restrictions on US military aid also came after the arrest of Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan in August last year.

Palparan was arrested after hiding for two years following an order for his arrest issued by a Bulacan court for the alleged 2006 abduction of two University of the Philippines students who remain missing to this day.