MANILA, Philippines -- A fact-finding team of senators and congressmen will be going to Mindanao to look into the alleged participation of American soldiers in combat operations in Mindanao.

The team, created by the legislative oversight committee on the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), will be headed jointly by Senator Rodolfo Biazon and Cebu Representative Antonio Cuenco with three members from each chamber.

Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, co-chair of the committee, said the team, created after the hearing on the alleged participation of US troops in actual combat, has tentatively agreed to go to Zamboanga City Wednesday next week ?to check the facts on the ground.?

Both the Constitution and the VFA prohibit foreign troops from involvement in combat operations and establishing permanent bases in the country.

During the hearing, the head of the presidential commission on VFA, Edilberto Adan, insisted that US forces have not participated in any military operation in the country.

Adan said the commission had even sent a team to Mindanao to look into the allegations and had proved these false.

?The alleged incidents were actually administrative and logistics movements [that were] necessary and incidental,? he told the committee. ?Some of these were evacuations meant to save the lives of the wounded, upon request of the AFP [Armed Forces of the Philippines] commander. These were conducted away from the combat zone.?

Executive Eduardo Ermita requested an executive session with the committee after resource persons protesting the American presence in Mindanao and government officials had given their respective views.

Ermita made no official statement during the public hearing.

At a press briefing after the closed-door session, Santago said the oversight committee had decided to create a sub-committee to ?investigate the mere fact of whether American troops are actively engaged in combat, not in humanitarian, not in medical, or any other civic action, but in actual combat with the combatants in armed conflict situation.?

However, she said none of the resources persons presented evidence of American participation in military operations. ?If that?s true that they [US troops] are fighting the war in Mindanao, where is the hard evidence acceptable in the rules of court?? she asked.

?Where, for example, is the first hand testimony of a person who actually used his sense to discern the American participation? That?s a rule of court. [ A person], who has actually seen, heard or actually taken the video or the still photo of the Americans using guns and other firearms in a combat situation,? she said .

But Santiago also asked the government why the Mindanao problem persists despite the nine-year-old VFA, which provides joint US-Philippine military training.

?Why is the Mindanao problem still ongoing? That ?s to say their training must be inadequate and maybe we should reexamine the type and nature of the activities that they have been conducting,? Santiago said.

At the hearing, Adan also explained that the presence in the country at any one time of between 400 to 600 American troops and support personnel is consistent with approved activities and exercises under the defense agreement.

Most of these activities, he said, are humanitarian and aimed at improving the quality of people?s lives in poverty-stricken areas and far-flung islands.

In 2007 alone, Adan said the US Congress approved a total of $16 million in military assistance that boosted the surveillance, communications and interdiction capability of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

For this year, the US Congress has also allocated $3.675 million for the Philippines to enhance its capacity to participate in peacekeeping operations worldwide.

?By analogy, the visiting forces that come here to assist and train Filipino soldiers, airmen and sailors are like guests who lend assistance to repair a house and were invited by the host-owner to stay and live with them for the duration, very much in the traditional spirit of ?Bayanihan [Philippine tradition of communal assistance],?? Adan said.

?Necessarily, the owners have to offer them space to sleep and eat. In the process, they will leave marks on the floor, cause the rearrangement of furniture, and leave conspicuous footprints. The footprints of these visitors are big because they have big planes and ships,? he said.

Adan said the host?s children may complain about these discomforts but these ?are very minor and tolerable when compared to the overall interest of the host-owner.?