The US role in the Philippines (catch all)

[Quiet Pro]

Dayuhan-

I'll agree... I shouldn't have used "permanent." I know how sensitive people can be about that word. But, I don't think I was wrong. I haven't taken the time to research this, but from 2002 until 2009 I believe that there has always been a US personnel in the RP that I can think of.

RPGs. I can't confirm or deny this. I saw it mentioned in a couple of news articles... and I cannot find them now. I guess I should have done more research on this before I began to let my fingers hit the keyboard. Lesson learned on this also. Although, if the RP was seeing an increase of weapons from external sources it would create another big problem. Not to mention what inferences you could gather from that.

[Dayuhan]

I usually say the US presence has been continuous from 2002-present... whether or not it becomes permanent is something the Filipinos need to decide. I'm personally not convinced that an indefinite presence in the southern Philippines is in the US interest, and I suspect that we may have achieved as much as we're likely to achieve there. The conflict can be (and has been) supressed to a certain extent, but it cannot be resolved without major reforms on the part of the Philippine government, which I don't expect to be forthcoming. I'm not sure we want to stick around indefinitely.

On RPGs, local news is notoriously unreliable on these details. I'd think it unlikely, though not impossible, that they are being widely used. There is some foreign support for the ASG, MILF, and MNLF, though far less than is often claimed. It normally comes as money, though: moving money is a lot easier than moving shipments of weapons, and there's plenty of hardware available here to anyone with the means to pay.