Sunday, August 5, 2012

5 AUGUST

President Manuel Roxas, who campaigned for Parity Rights,
 w/ American Clark Air Base Officials

1946 - The Congress of the Philippines ratifies the Treaty of General Relations entered into by and between the Republic of the Philippines and its former colonizer, the United States, on July 4, 1946; the Treaty with the Bald Eagle nation is crafted in such a way that it makes room for arrangements that allow continued imperialist American military, political and economic hold on the Southeast Asian archipelago, as  to be expressed in the 1947 Parity Amendment in the 1935 Constitution giving US citizens equal rights with the Filipinos in the exploitation of Philippine natural resources, and the 1947 Military Bases and Military Assistance pacts allowing U.S. access to 22 military, naval, and air bases in the Philippines (which were to be superseded by the Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement and the Mutual Defense Treaty)  the General Relations treaty will become a subject of continued controversy and criticism, dubbed as a neocolonial arrangement by Filipino nationalists, including foremost nationalist of the period Claro M. Recto: the US will initially arrogate to itself the title over the base lands but following criticism by Recto who will state that American right over the base territories is only "just utendi" and that the subsequent Bases Agreement  only a 'lease,' the US will later formally deliver the base lands' muniments of title to the Philippines through then US Vice-President Richard Nixon.

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