Philippine women group slams new Philippines, Japan defense pact

MANILA, July 9 (Xinhua) — An organization fighting for justice for Philippine wartime sexual slavery victims of the Japanese troops during World War II slammed the Reciprocal Access Agreement that the Philippines and Japan signed on Monday.

Lila Pilipina, led by its executive director Sharon Cabusao-Silva, described the new pact as “a complete travesty of the ‘comfort women’ campaign for justice.”

The Philippines and Japan signed a defense agreement that allows their troops to participate in joint military exercises in each other’s territories.

“Japan has now gone from denialism of its wartime atrocities to a complete mockery of the victims’ calls for justice,” said Cabusao-Silva, adding that Japan “has embarked once more on the path of war by aligning itself with U.S. warmongering in the Asia-Pacific region.”

She said that Japan is now “pouring billions of its national budget into developing destructive war material” which indicates that “it has no intention of atoning for its wartime crimes.”

Lila Pilipina also raised the alarm over Japan’s increasing military assistance to the Philippines through the “security assistance framework.”

With this framework, we fear that the Philippines will eventually be a huge storage house for Japanese war armaments, Cabusao-Silva warned.■