“Give us more bribes. Or payoffs — we’ll take those, too.” [BenarNews] A Philippine governor whose province is believed to be among four new locations chosen to host U.S. troops at military bases did not hold back in stating his opposition to the reported decision, during testimony before the Senate on Wednesday. Filipino defense and security officials also testified at the hearing but they all refused to reveal the names of the locations of the bases when grilled with questions about them.
During his testimony Gov. Manuel Mamba of Cagayan, a province at the northern tip of Luzon island that directly faces Taiwan, said he believed his jurisdiction had been selected under a newly expanded bilateral military deal with the United States but that he had not been notified.
"Please do not ram into our throats what is not acceptable to us," Mamba told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing chaired by Sen. Imee Marcos, the sister of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. |