Angara urges review of VFA’s ‘parent treaty’ 11/27/2010

Angara urges review of VFA’s ‘parent treaty’

11/27/2010
As both the Executive and the Senate are conducting separate reviews of the country’s Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with the United States, Sen. Edgardo Angara said that it is high time for the government to also reappraise the underlying treaty to the agreement.

The assumptions on which the Philippines and the US forged the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) in 1951 may no longer be valid and relevant, stressed Angara during the hearing of the Legislative Oversight Committee (LOC) on the VFA last Tuesday.

“The whole security architecture of the world is changing rapidly. Unless we review the underlying military defense agreement between the US and the Philippines, we may find out too late that we are still bogged down as the least trained, least prepared and poorest equipped military in the region. I think that has been our lack in this mutual agreement deal,” Angara explained.

The treaty, which even preceded the Cold War, obligates the two countries to show mutual support should external threats occur. The VFA, the support deal ratified in 1999, has come under fire over the controversial issue of jurisdiction of US military personnel accused of committing crimes in the Philippines.

The VFA also enables the Philippines to obtain U.S. military assistance worth about $100 million yearly in the form of military equipment, goods and monetary component..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20101127nat8.html