MANILA – Opposition senator Franklin Drilon has urged his colleagues to assert the role of the Senate in President Rodrigo Duterte’s order to terminate the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) between the Philippines and the United States.
Any treaty and international agreement by the Philippines with other countries should only be valid and effective upon concurrence of the Senate, the Ilonggo lawmaker stressed.
“The power to bind the Philippines by a treaty and international agreement is vested jointly by the Constitution in the President and the Senate,” Drilon’s Senate Resolution 305 states.
Article VII, Section 21 of the Constitution provides that “no treaty of international agreement shall be valid and effective unless concurred in by at least two-thirds of all the members of the Senate.”
“A treaty or international agreement ratified by the President and concurred in by the Senate becomes part of the law of the land and may not be undone without the shared power that put it into effect,” the Ilonggo senator said.
Drilon first filed the resolution in 2017 during the 17th Congress emphasizing that the Senate should have a say when a treaty or international agreements concurred in by the Senate is terminated or abrogated.
“The principle of checks and balances, historical precedent and practice accepted as law in most jurisdictions, and the Constitution’s dictate for a shared treaty-making power require that a termination, withdrawal, abrogation or renunciation of a treaty or international agreement can only be done with the same authority that gave it effect – executive ratification with Senate concurrence,” Drilon emphasized in the resolution.
President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered the termination of VFA due to demand to the release of opposition senator Leila De Lima; US Senate resolution condemning drug war; amendment to US budget barring entry of Philippine officials linked to De Lima’s arrest; and cancellation of senator Ronald Dela Rosa’s US visa./PN
