STAYING in some hotels around the country for my speaking engagements, I have been noticing a steady increase in the number of visiting United States servicemen. Of course, there have always been Balikatan exercises with the US since the time of President Joseph Estrada, but more so now, with the implementation of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) that allows the Americans to make use of some of our bases.

This reminded me of the time some decades ago, when there were actually US bases here, which were little US 'territories' in our islands. You see, my father worked as a driver of one of these American personnel. Established during the onset of the American occupation here in the 1900s, the US bases (Clark, Subic and others) remained even after the US returned our independence because of the Cold War, a battle for a bigger global influence between the superpowers the United States and their allies and the Soviet Union and their satellites (the supposedly nonaligned, mostly developing countries, were called the Third World).