SC dissenters say Edca a derogation of PH sovereignty

A DEROGATION of the country’s sovereignty and a violation of the Constitution was how three Supreme Court justices described the controversial Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (Edca) whose constitutionality was affirmed in a 10-4 vote in the high tribunal last week.

Justices Arturo Brion, Teresita Leonardo-De Castro and Marvic Leonen regarded Edca as a treaty needing ratification by the Senate contrary to the position of the majority of the magistrates.

Leonen, in his 58-page dissenting opinion, even quoted from last year’s popular movie “Heneral Luna.”

In the movie, the revolutionary general, disenchanted the United States had not kept its promise to grant the Philippines independence, rebukes pro-American officials by saying, “Para kayong mga birhen na naniniwala sa pag-ibig ng isang puta! (You’re like virgins who believe in the love of a prostitute).”

“The majority succeeds in emasculating our Constitution. Effectively, this court erases the blood, sweat, and tears shed by our martyrs. I register more than my disagreement. I mourn that his court has allowed this government to acquiesce into collective subservience to the Executive power contrary to the spirit our basic law,” Leonen said.

De Castro, in her 28-page concurring and dissenting opinion, also said, “While it is true that the Philippines cannot stand alone and will need friends within and beyond this region of the world, still we cannot offense our Constitution and bargain away our sovereignty.”

According to Brion, the debate on whether Edca is a mere executive agreement or a treaty was entered by the President with the Americans, from whom the Philippines traces the roots of its Constitution.

“The Americans are a people who place the highest value in their respect for their Constitution. This should be no less than the spirit that should move us in adhering to our own Constitution. To accord a lesser respect for our own Constitution is to invite America’s disrespect for the Philippines as a coequal sovereign and independent nation,” he said in his 65-page dissenting opinion.

Leonen, Brion and De Castro said the “agreed locations” in the Philippines over which Edca would give the United States “unimpeded access” and “operational control” were in fact foreign military bases forbidden by the Constitution.

“[T]he Edca reintroduces a modernized version of the fixed military bases concept contemplated and operationalized under the 1974 Military Bases Agreement,” Brion said.

The three justices also said the Edca did not enforce the 1998 Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), which only provides for temporary stationing of US troops in the country for noncombat purposes. The scope of Edca, they said, were broader than the VFA and the 1957 Mutual Defense Treaty.

According to De Castro, Section 25, Article XVII of the Constitution bans foreign military bases, troops, or facilities in Philippine territory, unless their presence is allowed by a treaty duly concurred in by the Philippines Senate and, when Congress so requires, approved in a referendum. The treaty also must be recognized as a treaty by the other contracting party.

Leonen added the Constitution “does not sanction the surreptitious executive approval of the entry of US military bases or any of its euphemisms through strained and acrobatic implication from an ambiguous and completely different treaty provision.”