About a year ago, the Philippine Daily Inquirer ran a series of stories about the continuing presence of American soldiers in some parts of Mindanao. Had these ?visiting forces? become permanent guests?

One of the stories discussed the possibility that the US military was helping track down a renegade Moro Islamic Liberation Front commander. ?The presence of the US soldiers in the [64th Infantry Battalion camp in Datu Saudi Ampatuan in Maguindanao] has drawn speculation from human rights groups and organizations sympathetic to the [MILF] that the Americans are involved in Philippine military operations against recalcitrant MILF commanders.?

The US Embassy?s press attaché, Rebecca Thompson, immediately dispatched an elaborate non-denial denial. ?When requested by the AFP, US military provided aerial surveillance assistance to support AFP operations such as determining conditions of roads, terrain association, and general visibility of an area, such as for future civil-military projects.?

Fast forward to last week, when the New York Times ran a story about US Defense Secretary Robert Gates? decision to keep ?an elite 600-soldier counterinsurgency operation deployed in the Philippines.? That story quoted ?senior officials? as saying that ?the [elite] US force and [its] partners in the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) were instrumental in successes by the Filipino armed forces in killing and capturing leaders of the Abu Sayyaf group and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.?

Assuming that the American troops are not engaged in actual combat, since they are legally prohibited from doing so, the disclosure by senior US officials raises the essential question: How did American soldiers and CIA agents become ?instrumental? in the ?successes? of the AFP?

The question gains sharper relief when placed against the following analysis offered in the New York Times story: ?The high-level attention given to the future of the US force, known as the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines, illustrates the Pentagon?s difficulty in finding enough of these highly trained units for assignments to two wars. . .?

Given this reading, are we to believe any claim, whether forwarded by Malacañang or by the US Embassy, that the continuing deployment of a highly trained unit in Mindanao is purely for training purposes? We do not doubt that training is in fact going on, and that our own soldiers are benefiting from the special courses. But training alone?

This makes Thompson?s statement harder to credit: Again, we do not doubt that US ?aerial surveillance? has been used in ?determining conditions of roads? and ?terrain association? and the like. But that it has never been used to track down Abu Sayyaf or MILF targets? Tell that to the Marines.

Or to the Times, which also reported that: ?In the seven years that the Philippines-based US force has been operating, its members have trained local security units and provided logistical and intelligence support to Filipino forces fighting insurgents.?

Logistical support: Doesn?t this mean ferrying Filipino troops to strike zones on American military helicopters? Intelligence: Doesn?t this mean providing Filipino forces with information the AFP does not have or is not in a position to source?

In another of the stories we ran last year, a political science professor at the Western Mindanao State University identified military facilities which he said the United States had established in Zamboanga. ?Among them, he said, were the headquarters of the Joint Special Operations Task Force Philippines ... inside Camp Don Basilio Navarro, an air asset facility inside the Zamboanga City International Airport, a docking area at the Majini Pier inside the Naval Forces Western Mindanao Command, and a training facility inside Camp Arturo Enrile in Malagutay village.?

The official Malacañang explanation, offered by Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita when the stories came out last year, is that the US troops are deployed on a rotation basis. ?They are replaced every now and then. They leave, contrary to the critics? impression that they have not left,? Ermita said.

If that is so, how can an elite force remain elite if its members stay only for six months or so?

Perhaps it is time for someone who takes our sovereignty seriously?say, Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago?to ask the authorities to name the US soldiers who have served in the task force. Call it the guest list.