Press Release
July 30, 2007

CUT IN US MILITARY AID MEANT TO PRESSURE
GMA GOVT TO STOP POLITICAL KILLINGS -- PIMENTEL

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino "Nene" Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today said there is a good reason to believe that the Arroyo government's failure to arrest the wave of extra-judicial killings of leftist activists was the principal reason behind the reported decision or plan of the United States government to cut military aid to the Philippines by a substantial amount.

Pimentel also traced the unfortunate aid reduction to the fraud-ridden May 14 elections, the unabated graft and corruption and perceived instability of the Arroyo government.

He said that while Malacañang has denied a looming slash in the US military aid, the media reports that the US State Department has recommended a two-thirds cut in military assistance, from $30 million to $11 million, cannot just be dismissed as without factual basis.

"Whatever the US government does, that is their sovereign decision. But what is important is for us to know the reasons. What are they trying to do? I can only suggest that probably they have seen that the extra-judicial killings are still being perpetrated. And they are displeased about it," the minority leader said.

Pimentel pointed out that both the US Senate and House of Representatives have conducted investigation on the summary killings of activists in the Philippines upon the initiative of American congressmen with large Filipino-American constituencies in their districts.

Human rights and cause-oriented groups in the Philippines have also been lobbying with the US to reduce or withdraw military aid to the Armed Forces of the Philippines to pressure the Arroyo government to act decisively in resolving the killings, punishing the perpetrators and preventing the repetition of such heinous crime.

Pimentel also noted that since the Democrats are now the majority in both the US Senate and House of Representatives, the issue of respect for human rights is inexplicably tied up with grant of aid to countries that are allied with the US.

He warned President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo against any attempt to downplay or ignore the concerns about the extra-judicial killings as a motive behind moves in Washington to cut down military aid to the Philippines.

"Instead, the President should face the problem head-on by going hammer and thongs after elements in the military that are suspected of carrying out the political killings," the senator from Mindanao said.

"We are not even saying that the killings were perpetrated by the military. I don't even care who are doing it. The thing is these killings should be resolved. In that respect, the President is really falling short of her responsibility. If she cannot solve and stop the killings, that will only bolster the impression that she is beholden to the military."

On Washington's concerns over the conduct of the May elections, Pimentel said US Congressmen Donald Payne (Democrats, New Jersey) and Robert Wexler (Democrats, Florida) wrote President Arroyo last July 13 expressing their disappointment over the widespread cheating that tainted the last elections particularly the senatorial contest in Maguindanao.

Pimentel also noted that the US was disturbed over the government's handling of the national broadband contract which was awarded to China's ZTE Corp. without public bidding. In the process, the US telecommunications firm, Arescom, was eased out of the project.

"Maybe the Americans are thinking one-kilometer ahead of us. For instance in the broadband deal, they were angered because they felt a US company was unfairly treated," Pimentel said.

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