The recent declassification of Pentagon documents on the history of nuclear arms deployment in several countries including the Philippines merely confirms what we have already known all along and have already proven with solid, documented evidence. This is precisely why in l987, the Filipino people voted to put a nuclear-weapons free provision in the constitution which declares that, "The Philippines, consistent with the national interest, adopts and pursues a policy of freedom from nuclear weapons in its territory."(Sec. 8,Art.II Declaration of Principles and State Policies) And, on the basis of this consitutional prohibition the Philippine Senate in l991 voted to terminate US military bases and troops from Philippine territory. During those times, we already had documented proof of nuclear arms deployments in the Philippines. Thanks to patriotic Filipino base workers and employees, we had photos and documents attesting to presence of tactical nuclear weapons. In Clark and Subic, we had in our possession, a nuclear weapons contingency plan designed for these two major bases. We had photos of nuclear weapons storage areas . What more proof did we need then? The Pentagon documents states that, for the Philippines, there were deployments till 1977 which was two years after the Vietnam War. But this document did not state that these weapons were reintroduced because of the Mideast Crisis against Iran in the 80s. And the struggle is not yet over today.

       With the signing this year of the US-RP Visiting Forces Agreement, we can expect that nuclear weapons will again be transited thru the new agreement. The port-visits, particularly of US naval vessels on military contingency missions endanger Philippine national security and are a wanton violation of the Philippines' nuclear-free constitution. For that ban includes our territotial waters or everything that constitutes "Philippine territory".

Wed, 27 Oct 1999

Storage warning on board aircraft carrier Independence on port visit to Subic(1991). Independence is now docked in Japan.

Nuclear weapons safety flash-a-gram of the U.S. 13th Air Force at Clark Air Base (Photo taken by Filipino base workers, 1987)

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