A YouTube video uploaded to Facebook (FB) falsely claimed that the United States (U.S.) military is reviving its former naval base at Subic Bay in Zambales.
“China Panic! : US Military Rebuilds its Former Naval Base in Philippines to Defend China Invasion,” the title of a May 16 video by YouTube channel US DEFENSE LINE claimed.
Not true. It’s the Philippine Navy that has a naval operating base at Subic Bay, which was inaugurated on June 24, 2022.
The U.S. used to operate a naval base in Subic Bay, from 1947 to 1992. It was shut down due to the Philippine Senate’s rejection of a lease extension.
Subic is not among the nine sites under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) designed to bolster Philippine-US alliance. It was not chosen as an EDCA site due to political sensitivities,” former Department of National Defense officer-in-charge Carlito Galvez Jr. said on April 4.
The video’s erroneous content twisted a 2013 Reuters article about the Philippine military’s former plan to build new air and naval bases in Subic Bay, which did not push through.
According to the Reuters article, senior military officials hoped that the then-president Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III would approve a US$230 million plan to build military bases in Subic.
Article XVIII, Section 25, of the Philippine Constitution bans foreign military bases, troops, or facilities in the Philippines except under a treaty duly concurred in by the Senate. In 1999, the Senate ratified the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) that provides the legal basis and status protections for U.S. forces in the Philippines.
Meanwhile the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), signed on April 14, 2014, authorizes U.S. forces access to agreed locations in the Philippines on a rotational basis. Locations approved as EDCA sites are controlled by the Philippine government, Article V, Sec. 1 of the EDCA agreement states.
US DEFENSE LINE’s video got 97,663 interactions, while the version uploaded by FB page President Elly Velez Lao Pamatong garnered over 68,573 interactions.
The video first appeared four days after Cerberus Capital Management, a New York-based private equity firm pledged to commit investments and local employment in the Philippines. The company acquired a shipyard at Subic Bay where the U.S. operated a naval base for more than 40 years.
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