by People's Tonight
THE decision of Japan’s Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama to freeze a 1996 agreement with the U.S. to replace Futenma Marine Corps Air Station to another part of Okinawa will certainly scuttle plans of recruitment agencies to deploy Filipino construction workers to Guam.
Japan’s prime minister says moving all of a key U.S. Marine base out of Okinawa is “impossible,” breaking with past promises to move the base outside the southern island.
It was the first time since Yukio Hatoyama became prime minister in September that he officially acknowledged that at least part of Futenma Marine air field would remain in Okinawa, which hosts more than half the 47,000 American troops based in Japan.
Hatoyama had frozen a 2006 agreement with Washington on moving Futenma to a less crowded part of the island, straining ties with the U.S.
The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration has been meeting with‘Guam legislators and businessmen for the past three years with the eventual deployment of 20,000 Filipino construction workers to Guam. This amid with the implementation of a 2006 treaty moving the Marine Base right smack in Futenma to safer place.
OFWs are raring to work in Guam may have to wait till next year as this yawning rift between Tokyo and Washington is patched up soon.
