![\"\"](\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/2\/2d\/USS_Nimitz_%28CVN-68%29.jpg\")
Top diplomats and defence officials of the United States and the Philippines met\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 last month to discuss arrangements for expanded US military presence in eight facilities\u00a0 in the Philippines in a bid to strengthen maritime cooperation amid tensions with China in the disputed South China Sea.<\/p>\n
Speaking to reporters after the talks, Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said he discussed with US officials locations where the Philippines could provide access to US forces for \u201cmutual benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The high-level meeting was held at the Department of State hours after the Philippine Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (Edca) signed by the two countries in 2014. The pact will allow American forces, warships and planes to access to local military camps.<\/p>\n
In Manila, Col. Restituto Padilla, spokesperson for the Armed Forces of the Philippines, told reporters that Manila had offered Washington eight bases where it may build facilities to store equipment and supplies under the Edca.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe list [was] prepared many months ago when we had earlier discussions,\u201d Padilla said, adding that five military airfields, two naval bases and a jungle training camp were offered to the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are still subject to approval and we\u2019re going to hold final discussions about these areas,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s official Xinhua news agency, in an English-language commentary, said the Edca would only escalate tensions and \u201ccould push the situation to the brink of war.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe deal is groundless because China, which sticks to a defensive defense policy, has never coerced any country on the South China Sea issue,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
The Philippines has accused China of using flashing lights and flares to challenge Philippine military flights over the contested Spratly Islands and said it wanted to see more US operations to uphold freedom of navigation and overflight in the region.<\/p>\n
In addition to a turf war with the Philippines over Scarborough Shoal and the Second Thomas Shoal, China has long-standing turmoil with Taiwan and has recently clashed with Vietnamese ships and had close calls with Japanese aircraft over the Senkaku Islands.<\/p>\n
The EDCA would allow US troops to build facilities, store gear, and conduct joint training exercises with the Philippine military. Critics in the Philippines say such a move would diminish the country\u2019s sovereignty, and have voiced concern about everything from pollution to prostitution. (Manila Mail) <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Top diplomats and defence officials of the United States and the Philippines met\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 last month to discuss arrangements for expanded US military presence in eight facilities\u00a0 in the Philippines in a bid to strengthen maritime cooperation amid tensions with China in the disputed South China Sea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,70],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4186"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}