Senators to question VFA termination before SC

MANILA – Senate minority leader Franklin Drilon said senators are pushing with their bipartisan plan to file a petition before the Supreme Court challenging President Rodrigo Duterte’s move in terminating the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) between the Philippines and United States.

Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III and other senators, according to Drilon, will be crossing party lines to question the VFA’s termination without the Senate’s nod before the Supreme Court.

Drilon said that the argument the senators are eyeing to raise before the high court is similar to the one made by opposition senators before the SC in questioning the Duterte administration’s withdrawal from the Rome Statute, which created the International Criminal Court (ICC).

“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,” the Ilonggo lawmaker said in a statement.

He added that Sotto is already preparing a petition and has asked him to co-author it. The minority leader said he accepted the Senate President’s invitation.

Based on the 1987 Constitution, the Senate is required concur in treaties for these to be ratified but it does not say if the Senate’s nod is also needed when the administration decides to exit from a treaty.

“If the Supreme Court sides with their (Rome Statute) argument that the Senate’s concurrence is also required when the administration decides to leave a treaty, then the Duterte administration’s termination of the VFA would also be considered invalid,” Drilon said.

President Rodrigo Duterte ordered Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro “Teddyboy” Locsin Jr. in early February to send notice to the US that it wants to end the VFA, despite his Cabinet members advising against it.

The US has received the Philippines’ notice and US President Donald Trump has shrugged off the country’s termination of the pact, which defense experts have warned will be detrimental to the Philippines./PN

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