Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. on Tuesday said the Philippines has the right to expect some “lethal parity” measure in its mutual defense agreement with the United States.
Locsin said when the Philippines entered into the Mutual Defense Treaty with the US in 1951, it was expected that Manila “could hold up its end of the bargain of mutual defense.”
However, Locsin noted that the US came out of World War II it was the best armed country in the world, while the Philippines was left in ruins worse than Warsaw in Poland.
“So we had and have a right to expect some measure of lethal parity in the mutual defense treaty,” the country’s top diplomat said, in a Twitter post.
Locsin made the statement after President Duterte asked America to pay the Philippines if it wants to continue the implementation of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA).
Malacañang earlier said the Philippines should get about $16 billion, similar to what Pakistan had received in counterterrorism assistance from the US from 2001 to 2017, if it wants to push through with the VFA.
Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque noted that Manila had so far received only $3.9 billion from Washington over the same period of time.
In February last year, President Duterte ordered the abrogation of the VFA in an apparent response to the cancellation of the US visa of his staunch ally, former PNP chief turned Senator Ronald Dela Rosa over his role in the bloody war on drugs.
In November 2020, however, Duterte suspended the abrogation and put the VFA under a six-month renewable status, until such time an agreement on certain features of the pact are settled between the two countries.
The VFA is a supplemental agreement intended to implement the Mutual Defense Treaty that sets down terms on how to treat American military personnel stationed in the Philippines temporarily; and provides lenient visa and passport procedures when they enter the Philippines. It also grants authority to the US government to retain jurisdiction over their military personnel if they commit crimes within the Philippines.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said the US has not reacted to the President’s call for Washington to pay.
In his public address Monday night in Davao, Duterte said the Philippines needed arms in case a war breaks out in the South China Sea and he warned that China might attack the Philippines over its apparent alliance with the United States.
“I am not asking for money from them,” Duterte said about his demand to the United State, saying the Americans have not provided weapons to the Philippines.
“American troops usually bring home the weapons after every joint military exercise with Filipino soldiers. “We should be provided with the arms and armaments that’s capable of at least — that would place us on equal footing with the other countries at war with us because China will really hit us,” he added.
Duterte, smarting from criticism from Vice President Leni Robredo and Senator Panfilo Lacon over his attitude toward the United States, said only the President has the sole power to set the country’s foreign relations strategy and urged them both to “read the Constitution.”
Duterte said the vice president should know the provisions of the Constitution on the President’s functions before making any statements.
The President said that seeking payments from the Americans is justified since hosting US forces and armaments in the country exposes it to attacks from their adversaries.
“The meltdown will start in Palawan. It’s the province that’s facing the Spratlys and everything there,” he said. “That you do not know. And the Philippines invariably would be drawn into the vortex of a conflict that is called war,” Duterte said.
Lacson, an administration ally, shot back, saying the Constitution gives senators a say in the country’s international agreements such as the VFA, especially if they affect the country’s long-term national interest and security.
He asserted again that a diplomatic and civil approach is more effective in upholding the national interest in the long run.
"I may not be a lawyer like the President. But last time I read the Constitution, a senator has something to do with international agreements,” Lacson said.
He stressed the President should refresh his memory by reading Article VII, Sec. 21 of the 1987 Constitution, which provides that “No treaty or international agreement shall be valid and effective unless concurred in by at least two-thirds of all the Members of the Senate.”
Senate President Ralph Recto agreed that there’s a better diplomatic way of renegotiating terms of the VFA.
Lacson also pointed out the Senate filed in March 2020 a petition for declaratory relief and mandamus before the Supreme Court, seeking a ruling on the need for Senate concurrence in ending treaties such as the VFA.
He added 14 senators had filed a Senate resolution maintaining that the same two-thirds vote of the senators is needed to terminate an international agreement.
"There is a pending petition in the Supreme Court in this regard and the issue has not been settled. All the more that as a senator, I have something to do with the President’s threat to terminate the VFA if
the US doesn’t pay up," he also said.
Lacson said the VFA has a long-term effect on the Philippines' national interest and national security. "We are not being pro-US or anti-China. But our Constitution mandates that we must uphold the national interest," he said.
A political analyst, University of the Philippines professor Clarita Carlos said the President should go after the Mutual Defense Treaty if he wants the United States to keep its end of the agreement.
Carlos, a senior consultant of the Presidential Commission on Visiting Forces Agreement, told ABS-CBN Teleradyo that the military cooperation has yielded benefits, though these have not been publicized.
"People who are shooting off their mouths and do not know the situation on the ground, please shut up already because it's different from what's happening on the ground and what the data show," she said.
The joint training of the two nations' militaries has also shifted to humanitarian assistance and disaster resilience under the VFA, Carlos said.
“Before, we trained to fight together. Now the enemy is not any one country, The enemy is climate change,” she said in Filipino.