MANILA (Mindanao Examiner / Apr. 27, 2014) – A day before US President Barack Obama arrives in Manila for a two-day state visit, youth groups led by Kabataan party list and the League of Filipino Students held a “solidarity pet walk” to oppose the planned increased rotational presence of US troops in the country.
Pet owners paraded their dogs and puppies in Quezon City Memorial Circle early Sunday in a symbolic action that aimed to emphasize how President Benigno Aquino is acting as a “US lapdog,” particularly in the way his administration is fast-tracking the inking of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, which seeks to allow greater rotational presence of the US military in the Philippines and the US military’s use of existing Philippine military bases.
“We are holding this symbolic protest to show that unlike our very own pets, President Aquino is behaving like a mad lapdog ready to obey his US master’s every order,” LFS spokesperson Charlotte Velasco told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
During the event, pet owners posed for photos with their dogs while holding bone-shaped placards with the calls “US troops out now,” “Junk VFA,” “Stop EDCA,” and “Obama, you are not welcome.”
“In this protest activity, we want to show that we love and trust loyal pets who definitely have a concept of ‘territory’ and how it should be defended from ‘foreign intervention’ – but we despise a president who is willing to sacrifice our sovereignty just to please his foreign masters,” said Kabataan party list Rep. Terry Ridon.
“In Obama’s upcoming visit, we vividly see how the Aquino administration is falling for an old trick. For what we know, the new US-PH pact could be tantamount to legalized invasion. The government is worrying about Chinese encroachment of Philippine territory, yet it allows another foreign country – the US – to deploy more troops in more areas in the country, a situation equivalent to de facto invasion,” Ridon said.
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