AFP probes ‘ugly American’ incident
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 22:59:00 01/26/2008
Filed Under: Accidents (general), Transport accident, Road Accidents
ZAMBOANGA CITY -- AUTHORITIES ARE TRYING to prevent critics of US military presence in Mindanao from stoking anti-American sentiments following a car accident involving a US soldier who left a calling card before he abandoned his victim.
Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, Armed Forces of the Philippines chief of staff, ordered an investigation of reports that the US soldier fled the site of the accident, one of the gates of the Edwin Andrews Airbase, after the vehicle he was riding in slammed into a passing motorcycle and injured the man riding it, Dante Clemente, a resident of Sta. Maria village.
The accident took place Wednesday.
SPO1 Rudy de Leña, police investigator, said Clemente was passing by the gates of the air base when the vehicle carrying the still unidentified US soldier came out and slammed into Clemente’s motorcycle.
The US-rented vehicle bore license plate XRU 931.
Police quoted Clemente as saying that instead of helping him, the US soldier simply left a card bearing the letters JSOTFP, acronym for Joint Special Operations Task Force Philippines, the group formed to oversee antiterror exercises between Philippine and US military forces.
The American, police said, left the accident site as if nothing happened after leaving the card.
De Leña said the US soldier did not pay for Clemente’s medical expenses.
“Accidents can happen to anybody and I know they are law abiding citizens,” Esperon said on Friday.
But Lt. Gen. Nelson Allaga, Western Mindanao Command chief, said the American soldier had already met Clemente on Friday.
Allaga refused to say what took place in the meeting, but said the case was a simple police matter.
Police here have been trying to trace the identity of the US soldier.
US soldiers have been stationed in the city since the first Balikatan a few years ago. They maintain a camp inside the air base.
The deployment was being opposed by militant groups, which cited abuses allegedly committed by US forces in recent years.
The latest accusation was made by Silak Lakkian, chief of the Panamao District Hospital in Sulu.
Lakkian complained that US soldiers, led by a MSgt. Ron Berg, ordered the closure of the hospital at night.
Lakkian said the order was first issued on Nov. 30.
She said Berg warned that anybody who would defy the order will be shot.
Julie Alipala with a report from Ed General, Inquirer Mindanao
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