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| Southeast Asia | ||
| Philippine court urged to block US defence pact | ||
| 2014-05-27 | ||
The Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement signed hours before a visit last month by President Barack Obama will allow thousands of US troops to be temporarily based in Philippines for the first time in more than 20 years.
Former Senators Rene Saguisag and Wigberto Tanada — two of 12 senators who voted to kick the US military bases out of the Philippines in 1991 — and 10 taxpayers filed the petition, suing five officials including President Benigno Aquino III's defense, foreign affairs, budget and executive secretaries and the armed forces chief of staff for abuse of discretion. The petition says the 10-year agreement violates the constitutional ban against the presence of foreign military bases or troops in the country except under a treaty approved by two-thirds of all Senate members. The constitution also says if Congress requires, the agreement should be ratified by majority of Filipinos in a referendum, and recognized as a treaty by the other contracting state. "Not only is the EDCA a violation of the Philippine Constitution, it also does not provide any substantial, long-term real benefit, much less distinct advantage or improvement in our position vis-à-vis the United States," the petition said. It said the agreement was wrongly framed as a furtherance of the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty and the 1998 Visiting Forces Agreement and so evading the constitutional requirement for concurrence of the Senate. But the petition said the 1951 treaty was superseded by the 1987 Constitution and "its express renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy." And the presence of US troops under the new agreement goes beyond "visiting," ruling out the 1998 agreement as an anchor, the petition said. | ||
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #1 See also RELATED TOPIX > [Honolulu Advertiser] PHILIPPINES INSISTS US MILITARY ACCORD IS LEGAL. Something has to give, as China is NOT going to give up its territorial claims, its domination or control of the SCS, + its "post-US" Manifest Destiny. China covertly may had already won given whom is in the US White House, i.e. POTUS-OBAMA-THE-LOUSY/POOR-PRO-US-NATIONALIST BUT ONE-HELLUVA-OUTSTANDING-ANTI-US-GLOBALIST. Speaking of the Bammer + OWG Globalism ... * TOPIX > [SCMP] CHINESE BEHAVIOUR IN ASIAN SEAS DRIVES FOR "MONROE DOCTRINE" OF ITS OWN. Ditto Rising Iran + Putinist Russia in the Crimea. * WORLD NEWS > [Pravda] RUSSIA WILL NOT GIVE CRIMEA BACK TO UKRAINE EVER. Clearly this Pravda Artic means E-V-A-R! To once again paraph THE SEARCHERS' WARD BOND = D *** NG IT, NOT, NOT, SPELLED N-O-T-T-E - NOT! So as per GLOBALISM, why should CHINA??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2014-05-27 21:35 |