Manila – The Philippines and the United States on Thursday began two weeks of joint military exercises involving at least 6,000 US troops, who were reminded to behave amid continuing controversy over an American Marine convicted of rape in 2006.

The American soldiers are to join about 2,000 Filipino troops in humanitarian missions, field training on counterterrorism and exercises on disaster response and rehabilitation during the exercises, called Balikatan, which means shoulder-to-shoulder.

Lieutenant Colonel Edgard Arevalo, a Philippine Marine spokesman, said the annual Balikatan war games would benefit both Filipino and American soldiers.

“The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) will learn from updated technical expertise and training while our US counterparts will learn from the AFP’s actual experience and applications,” he said.

US Brigadier General Ronald Bailey, deputy commander of the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force, reminded US soldiers participating in the exercises to be at their best behaviour even during breaks in the training.

Bailey said he told his men “to honour the culture of this country” and to maintain “order and discipline … all the time.”

The Balikatan was being held amid an unresolved controversy over whether US Marine Lance Corporal Daniel Smith, 23, convicted of rape in December 2006, should be imprisoned in a facility controlled by Philippine authorities.

Smith has been in the custody of the US embassy in Manila since his conviction in the rape of a Filipino woman in Olongapo City, 90 kilometres north of Manila, where he participated in the Balikatan in 2005. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Smith has appealed his conviction, and the US embassy insisted that a visiting forces agreement between the Philippines and the United States allows for Smith to remain in US custody until the conviction becomes final.

That agreement details the rules on the treatment of US forces visiting the Philippines for training and joint military exercises with Filipino troops.

But the Philippine Supreme Court ruled in February that a diplomatic agreement to detain Smith at the US embassy was not in line with the pact and ordered authorities to negotiate a new arrangement for Smith’s incarceration.

Smith was one of thousands of US soldiers who participated in joint military exercises in the Philippines in 2005. His co-accused – Lance Corporals Keith Silkwood and Dominic Duplantis and Staff Sergeant Chad Carpentier – were acquitted for lack of evidence. (dpa)