Town claims losses from Balikatan

A US ARMY Chinook helicopter transports a 155-mm howitzer during Balikatan live fire exercises at Crow Valley in Capas, Tarlac province. WILLIE LOMIBAO/INQUIRER NORTHERN LUZON

CAPAS, Tarlac—The mayor of this town is asking Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago to help the local government collect compensation from the US government for economic losses each day American and Filipinos trained for live firing in Crow Valley here, the route to world-famous Mt. Pinatubo crater lake.

Tour guides, drivers and operators of off-road vehicles, and auxiliary workers, most of them Aeta, have lost P900,000 daily since April 20 when the Balikatan war games began in Barangay Sta. Juliana, the village closest to the volcano, according to Mayor Antonio Rodriguez. April and May are the peak of hiking events to Mt. Pinatubo.

“During this period, all the usual social and economic activities in the area are brought to a standstill because of the prohibition on the entry of civilians,” Rodriguez said in a letter to Santiago, chair of the Legislative Oversight Committee on the Visiting Forces Agreement.

But Vice Admiral Alexander Lopez, Balikatan exercise director, said what Rodriguez had raised was an “old issue.”

“I don’t have an answer right now about the supposed [P900,000 daily losses] or the need to make any compensation. But Crow Valley, even in the past, is a traditional military reservation. It’s really a traditional target area,” he said.

Lopez said tourists are not allowed to go to the Mt. Pinatubo crater lake during live fire exercises at Crow Valley. “But this is being done through proper coordination with the local government concerned,” he added.

Crow Valley used to be a gunnery range of the 13th US Air Force until 1991 when the Senate voted to close down US bases. The 18,000-hectare Crow Valley is under the jurisdiction of the Philippine Air Force.

Rodriguez said 53 percent (19,972 ha) of the land area of Capas remained part of former military reservation areas attached to the Clark Freeport and Clark Special Economic Zone. Jun Malig and Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon