When the Supreme Court voted to affirm the constitutionality of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, the justices decided the case from a political rather from a legal perspective. That means the Supreme Court can never be pressured or persuaded how it intends to interpret a provision in the Constitution that has been reworded many times just to circumvent or get away with what it clearly prohibits.The justices should not decide a constitutional issue on the basis of political sentiments or ideological inclination, but should stick to their duty of giving the people the right interpretation of what they ratified in their charter.
What aggravates the situation is that the Supreme Court is the one spearheading in misleading the people about the treaty which the other party spat by their arrogance in refusing to have it ratified in respect to this country when our Senate ratified it as mandated by our Constitution. Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno and her ilk in the Supreme Court consistently deceived our people by citing Section 25, Article XVIII of the Constitution when she should have cited Section 4 of the same article because even if we take it that the issue is no longer about the constitutionality of the presence of US military bases here, nonetheless the learned chief justice should have examined whether the process in ratifying that treaty or international agreement was observed, as required.
To make ourselves clear, Section 4, Article XVIII refers to the process of how an ordinary treaty or international agreement becomes binding, while Section 25 has reference to a special kind of treaty or international agreement which is prohibited or not allowed by the Constitution even if ratified by the Senate or by the mischievous expedience of judicial legislation by declaring it constitutional. That is why Section 25 provides that “(military bases) shall not be allowed in the Philippines except under a treaty duly concurred in by the Senate and, when Congress so requires, ratified by the majority of the votes cast by the people in a national referendum held for that purpose, and recognized as a treaty by the contracting States.”
Section 25, Article XVIII is stricter although it provides a leeway. Yet, even that leeway was completely ignored by the other party, and making a fool of us by claiming that their presence here is pursuant to our defense and security interests. Section 25 tells us how to lift the prohibition, while Section 4 is the process which regular or ordinary treaty or international agreements or not otherwise prohibited can be made binding. Had that process been observed, there would have been no debate, except that there is still a need to have it ratified by the Senate like any of the ordinary treaties and international agreements we entered into.
It is likewise noteworthy to point out that Section 4 does not mention or insist that the other contracting party recognize it as a treaty as required in Section 25, but merely requires that all existing treaties or international agreements which have not been ratified can be renewed or extended only if it has the concurrence of at least two-thirds of all the Members of the Senate.”
The Supreme Court under the leadership of Chief Justice Sereno should have been courageous enough to tell the administration that if it wants to allow the return of the US military bases, it should first amend the Constitution, for no matter how one would want to interpret the provision, it clearly prohibits the presence or establishment of any military bases in the country. The Court cannot otherwise interpret the provision without impairing its image as an accomplice to the commission of constitutional vandalism.
There is nothing wrong if the court suggests rather than decide a case everybody knows would constitute an intentional misinterpretation of the constitution just to appease a foreign power. It could have avoided being heckled as spineless and downright silly. It is different from one where no actual case brought before it for decision.
The trouble with this wayward government is it wants the US to regain their military bases here, but would not want us to amend the Constitution because PNoy considers it a “legacy” her mother bequeathed to the Filipino people. But PNoy cannot have both. Either he amends the Constitution to allow the US to have their military bases here or stick to what it provides. To insist in having both is to forcibly drag the Supreme Court as an accomplice which is exactly what it did that even with a simple mind could well understand that foreign military bases are not allowed here under the 1987 Constitution.
The decision added that that Edca is “not the instrument that allows US troops or facilities to enter as the Visiting Forces Agreement already has done that,” citing the court’s earlier ruling upholding the validity of the VFA. “Edca merely provides for arrangements to implement existing treaties following entry of foreign military troops or facilities under the VFA and the MDT, and thus may be in the form of an execute agreement solely within the powers of the President and not requiring Senate concurrence under Article XVIII, Section 25 of the Constitution.”
That portion of the decision is pure nonsense. First the Court should not cite the VFA as has already been upheld as constitutional, ergo the Edca merely supplements the VFA. Second, the Mutual Defense Treaty has automatically been modified by the ratification of the 1987 Constitution which prohibits the establishment of foreign military bases in the country. If the MDT contains provisions allowing the US to have military bases here, that cannot stand over and above our Constitution. Third, the court is under obligation to review all executive agreements. It cannot compartmentalize each and every agreement to say Edca is merely an implementation of the VFA and the MDT.
The decision says the US cannot build permanent structures, for to do so could transform them to military bases, or as Sereno would put it “go beyond the parameters, limitations and standards set by the law and/or treaty that the former purports to implement and must not unduly expand the international obligation expressly mentioned or necessarily implied in the law or treaty.” But did it come into the mind of the honorable justice that to evade that limitation, the US would merely eject our soldiers from their barracks to probably bivouac in the open field to accommodate their new overlords who insist they are merely here for a visit?
More than that, the US is tentatively eyeing the military facilities in Nueva Ecija (probably Fort Magsaysay), Clark in Pampanga, in Antonio Bautista in Palawan, Benito Ebuen in Cebu and Lumbia airfield in Cagayan de Oro and unnamed naval bases in Cebu and Palawan. In fact, the US has already made Subic the regular port of call for their warships even before it declared Edca as constitutional. Thus, from the two bases we ordered closed in 1991, we allowed the return of eight and that is something Jovito Salonga would never be able to figure out.
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