17 March 2007
LEGAZPI CITY—The United States-Philippines military ties will remain strong despite the US Senate’s critical look at the country’s unsolved killings and its hunch that the US military aid to the government might have been used against leftist groups, US Ambassador Kristie Kenney said in her visit to Albay yesterday.
Kenney, along with Sen. Richard Gordon, head of the Philippine National Red Cross and representatives from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), visited this city to look into the week-long humanitarian programs being conducted by the US Marines and sailors with the Armed Forces of the Philippines for the benefit of storm survivors here.
The Bush administration on Wednesday chastened President Macapagal-Arroyo’s administration for not taking “sufficient action to address unsolved killings and bring those responsible to justice.”
Kenney said the US Senate is just exploring and probing with concern the issue on the country’s heaping cases of extrajudicial killings and it will not affect the military partnership between the US and the Philippines. “This is just an information session, which has great interest. And frankly, the United States people and the US Congress, like the Philippine Congress, care about human rights. They care about the Philippines.” Ephraim Aguilar, Inquirer Southern Luzon
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