(Eagle News) — Senator Panfilo Lacson believes President Rodrigo Duterte can scrap the Visiting Forces Agreement without the Senate’s approval or consent.
In a statement, Lacson said this was “in the absence of a Supreme Court ruling on the President’s power to unilaterally break a treaty/bilateral agreement like the VFA without the consent of 2/3 supermajority vote of the Senate.”
“Having said that, the SC should act on the pending petition filed by a number of senators in this regard,” Lacson said.
He was referring to the petition asking the SC to declare the country’s withdrawal from the International Criminal Court, which had attempted to try President Rodrigo Duterte over the drug war, as “invalid or ineffective” without the concurrence of at least 2/3 of the Senate.
It was the Senate that ratified the Rome Statute, which establishes the ICC, in 2011.
Duterte, who declared the withdrawal “effective immediately” in March 2018, however, argued the Rome Statute was “not effective nor enforceable in the Philippines” since the New Civil Code postulates that “a law shall become effective only upon its publication in the Official Gazette or in a newspaper of general circulation.”
“An international law cannot supplant, prevail or diminish a domestic law,” Duterte had said.
According to Duterte, “even assuming” that the ICC can acquire jurisdiction over his person, “the acts complained of purportedly committed by me do not fall under the enumerated grounds by which the ICC can assume jurisdiction.”
He said the acts he is accused of committing do not constitute war crimes, crimes of aggression nor crimes against humanity.
The deaths occurring in the process of a legitimate police operation, after all, he said, “lack the intent to kill.”
“The self-defense employed by the police officers when their lives became endangered by the violent resistance of the suspects is a justifying circumstance under our criminal law hence they do not incur criminal liability,” he had said.
The Department of Justice on Friday, Jan. 24, said it had been asked to study the procedure of scrapping the VFA, which allows US bases in the country.
The DOJ’s revelation came after President Duterte threatened to scrap the agreement, following the US’ cancellation of Senator Ronald Dela Rosa’s US visa.
Dela Rosa has said he believes the visa was cancelled because of his role in the drug war, which the US has repeatedly said was marred with extrajudicial killings.
The senator said Duterte issued the threat, angered by one-sided foreign relations.
