Showdown Looms
Credit to Author: Bernadette Tamayo| Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2020 16:17:25 +0000
Senators to question VFA termination before high court
SENATE President Vicente Sotto 3rd and Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon are set to file a petition this week before the Supreme Court questioning the termination of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) between the Philippines and the United States.
Drilon bared that he and Sotto would join other senators in filing a petition that will question the decision of President Rodrigo Duterte to terminate the VFA without the concurrence of the Senate.
“This will be a bipartisan move to assert the Senate’s role in foreign policy. While the President is the chief architect of our foreign policy, the Constitution is clear that such a very critical role is shared with Congress, particularly the Senate,” he said on Sunday.
Sotto on February 13 said the petition would be filed this week.
“Malamang by next week ay mag-file kami ng petition doon sa Supreme Court mismo (Probably by next week we will file a petition before the Supreme Court),” he said in a chance interview.
Asked whether he would support the filing of the petition, Sen. Panfilo Lacson, chairman of the Senate Committee on National Security and Defense, answered in the affirmative.
“Oo (Yes). For clarification,” he said.
“Mainam ma-clarify ‘yan para alam na namin ang way forward ‘pag may tratado na, ira-ratify namin. More or less mafo-foresee namin ang aming role ‘pag ito unilaterally in-abrogate ng ating bansa sa pamamagitan ng executive branch, sa pamamagitan ng Pangulo (It is best that this is clarified so that we will know our way forward if there is a treaty that we will ratify. More or less we will foresee our role if this will be abrogated unilaterally by our country through executive branch, [or] through our President),” Lacson bared in a radio interview.
On Saturday, Drilon said Sotto informed him that he had prepared the petition and asked him to be a co-author.
Malacañang on Tuesday, February 12, said the Philippines had officially informed the US that the country was terminating the agreement between the two countries.
Drilon said since the Constitution was silent on the termination of treaties and international agreement, it is only the Supreme Court that can rule with finality on the issue.
“The Supreme Court should rule on this issue once and for all. We cannot continue putting the fate of critical treaties such as the VFA, which termination has far-reaching consequences, in the hands of one man,” he added.
“It is our firm belief that if treaties and international agreements the President entered into cannot be valid without the approval of the Senate, the termination of, or withdrawal from, the same should only be effective with the concurrence of the Senate,” Drilon said.
Once ratified and concurred in by the Senate, a treaty or an international agreement becomes part of the law of the land. “Hence, a treaty may not be undone without that shared power that put it into effect,” he added.
Drilon reiterated his call for Sen. Aquilino Pimentel 3rd, chairman of the panel on Foreign Relations, to report out Senate Resolution 305, a measure that seeks to assert the role of the Senate in the termination or withdrawal of a treaty.
In 2018, Drilon and other senators filed a petition urging the Supreme Court to declare the Philippines’ withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC) “invalid or ineffective.”
Drilon said once the high court ruled in favor of the ICC petition, the termination would be deemed invalid and the membership of the Philippines in the ICC would be restored.