INTRODUCTION

On February 11, the administration of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte gave official notice to
the US Embassy in Manila of its intention to terminate the country’s two-decade-old Visiting
Forces Agreement (VFA) with Washington. The move is the most serious rupture in relations
between Manila and its former colonial master since the granting of formal independence on July
4, 1946. If not retracted, the termination will go into effect 180 days after the official notice.
The VFA was concluded as an executive agreement between the two countries in 1999 to allow
the rotational presence of US military forces in the Philippines. It was seen as a means of
reversing the impact of the 1991 decision of the Philippine Senate, by a one-vote majority, to
refuse to extend Washington’s lease on its military bases in the country.
Under the terms of the VFA, the US military has staged thousands of joint war games in the
Philippines, including the annual Balikatan, or ‘shoulder-to-shoulder,’ exercises. Each year
Washington has deployed increasing numbers of troops and military equipment to these
exercises, which have shifted in focus from counter-terrorism activities to so-called maritime
security, an expression of the Pentagon’s open warmongering against China in the South China
Sea. At present about 300 such exercises are conducted every year.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/02/24/phil-f24.html

MANILA – The Philippines on Tuesday notified the United States of its intent to terminate a major
security pact allowing American forces to train in the country in the most serious threat to the
countries’ treaty alliance under President Rodrigo Duterte.
Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said in a tweet Manila’s notice of termination of the Visiting
Forces Agreement was received by the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Manila.
He refused to provide other details on the drastic step “as a diplomatic courtesy.”
Locsin signed the notice on orders of Duterte, who has often criticized U.S. security policies while
praising those of China and Russia despite the Philippine military’s close historic ties with its
American counterpart.
“Trump, and the others, are trying to save the Visiting Forces Agreement. I said, I don’t want it,”
Duterte said according to the official transcript of a speech in Manila on Monday night.
The Philippines’ leader has previously questioned whether the U.S. would defend the Philippines
if China seizes disputed shoals and reefs in the South China Sea — skepticism that has persisted
in the Southeast Asian nation for decades. Beijing has built several artificial structure in the Spratly
Islands where Manila also has claims. Philippine fishermen and vessels resupplying Philippine-
occupied features in the waters have also been harassed by Chinese ships.
Defense ties between the Philippines and former colonial ruler the United States go back to the
early 1950s and are governed by a Mutual Defence Treaty, which remains intact, along with an
Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement made under the Obama administration.
Duterte made the decision after the top commander of his war on drugs, former police chief
Ronald dela Rosa, said his U.S. visa had been rescinded over an issue related to the detention
of a senator and top critic of Duterte.
The VFA, signed in 1998, accords legal status to thousands of U.S. troops rotated in the country
for humanitarian assistance and military exercises, dozens of which take place annually.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/02/11/asia-pacific/philippines-terminate-visiting-forces-
agreement-us/#.XlZB_hJR2Uk

ARGUMENT
Duterte is a right-wing populist whose fascistic ‘war on drugs’ has led to the extrajudicial killing of
tens of thousands of poor Filipinos over the past three years. He represents the interests of layers
of Filipino capitalists engaged in real estate development and those based in regions of the
country at some remove from Manila. These layers are seeking a vast infrastructural investment
to enhance their business positions and Duterte articulates these concerns in his signature ‘Build,
Build, Build’ program, which proposes to invest billions in roads, bridges, dams, and new airports.
The money for this, Duterte claims, will come above all from investment from China.
Washington has sought to shore up its economic decline by thwarting the rise of China, by all
means including military. By asserting its ‘national interest’ in the South China Sea, the United
States has brought tensions throughout the Asia Pacific region to the brink of war. Courting
Beijing’s investment, Duterte has sought to distance Manila from this war drive, ignoring the ruling
against China secured by the Aquino administration from the International Tribunal on the Law of
the Sea.
Washington will happily fund and prop up tyrants and thugs around the globe until they cross US
imperialist interests. As Duterte moved increasingly toward Beijing, Washington began to
denounce him for human rights violations in his war on drugs despite the fact that the Obama
administration initially provided millions of dollars in funding to Duterte’s murderous crusade
before his geopolitical realignment became sharply defined.
Part of the human rights pressure on the Duterte administration was a bill that passed the US
Senate in January, which imposed economic sanctions under the Magnitsky Act on Philippine
political figures tied to the extrajudicial killings under Duterte and denied them admission to the
United States. When Philippine Senator Ronald ‘Bato’ dela Rosa, a key Duterte ally and former
head of police, who has been closely tied to extrajudicial murders for decades, was denied
admission to the United States, Duterte responded by announcing that he was tearing up the
VFA.
US Defense Secretary Mark Esper clearly articulated the perspective of US imperialism on this
matter: the VFA was a critical aspect of Washington’s great power conflict with China. He told the
press, “As we try and bolster our presence and compete with [China] in this era of great power
competition, I think it’s a move in the wrong direction for the longstanding relationship we’ve had
with the Philippines for their strategic location, the ties between our peoples, our countries.”
Beijing responded on February 17 when Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang told a
press briefing that the Philippines has the “right to uphold an independent foreign policy.” He
continued, “It is also China’s belief that exchange and cooperation between countries should not
only benefit those involved, but also advance regional and global peace and stability.” The military
ties between Washington and Manila, Beijing argued, were not advancing global peace.
US President Donald Trump seemed to approach the matter as a business negotiation,
responding in a press conference, “If they would like to do that, that's fine. We’ll save a lot of
money.… My relationship, as you know, is a very good one with their leader [Duterte]. And we’ll
see what happens.”
Duterte’s decision has sent shockwaves through the Philippine ruling elite, the older, more
established layers that are intimately tied to Washington. They express their interests through the
Makati Business Club (MBC), which stated that the military alliance with the United States was
“critical” to “reserving peace and rule of law in the region.”
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is heavily dependent on money from Washington.
Between 2016 and 2019, the US supplied the Philippine military with $US550 million. The primary
function of the AFP is as a domestic police force: dealing with insurgencies, suppressing dissent
among the working class and peasant population, and arresting political activists. When Trump
speaks of saving money it raises the specter of cuts to military aid, and Filipino capitalists see the
menacing threat of social unrest. This is the perspective of the Makati Business Club when it
speaks of “preserving peace” and “rule of law.”
In the days immediately following Duterte’s announcement, both Philippine Secretary of Foreign
Affairs Teodoro Locsin and Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, spoke in favor of retaining the
Visiting Forces Agreement. The opposition, organized in the Liberal Party, expressed the need
for Senatorial review of Duterte’s decision to end the VFA. Their protest is hobbled, however, by
the fact that in the main these are the same political figures who argued in the late 1990s that the
VFA was an agreement, not a treaty, and as such did not require senatorial approval to be
enacted.
The Liberal Party opposition remains a minority in the legislature and many of its leaders have
sought to destabilize the Duterte administration by channeling social unrest behind anti-Chinese
chauvinism as a means of targeting the president and his ties with Beijing. The opposition has
capitalized on fears of the spread of the novel coronavirus to cultivate an ugly racism in the press
and social media. “No Chinese Allowed” signs are cropping up on businesses and demands for
the deportation of Chinese workers are being openly expressed by mayors.
The majority of Filipino politicians have, for the time being, allied themselves with Duterte.
Philippine history demonstrates just how quickly such loyalties can be abandoned, particularly in
the face of a possible military coup. The top brass of the AFP were trained in the United States,
many are graduates of West Point and Annapolis, and their loyalty has always been more with
Washington than with the occupant of the presidential palace of Malacañang.
With the termination of the VFA pending in the next six months, there will be high-level discussions
between Washington and Manila and between the Pentagon and the AFP. US Assistant Secretary
of State for Political-Military Affairs R. Clarke Cooper told the press that there would be “ongoing
talks” about the VFA leading up to a US-Philippines Strategic Dialogue in March to discuss the
issue.
The scrapping of the VFA threatens to end the immensely lucrative war games and possibly cut
US funding, which represents a significant chunk of the AFP budget. There are without doubt
“ongoing talks” of another sort being conducted in backrooms to plot extraconstitutional means of
resolving the termination of the VFA.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/02/24/phil-f24.html

Admiral Wylie would be skeptical of the U.S. military’s capacity to seal the first island chain or
help defend offshore Philippine waters without access to Philippine soil. And he would be right to
voice doubts.
Now, it’s important to note that the VFA remains in force for the time being. The agreement’s
terms stipulate that either party can withdraw after giving 180 days’ notice. That leaves Manila
and Washington an interlude to sort out their differences. In fact, it’s possible to interpret this
week’s events as part of a dealmaking process between two dealmakers-in-chief: Rodrigo Duterte
and Donald Trump. In the mid-1980s a pair of negotiations scholars, William Ury and Richard
Smoke, postulated that perception is king in times of crisis. The “anatomy of a crisis,” maintained
Ury and Smoke, engages and amplifies perceptions that the stakes are high, options are
narrowing, time is short, and uncertainty predominates. Crisis intensifies the pressure to concede.
To get his way against another veteran dealmaker, President Duterte may be trying to generate
an artificial atmosphere of crisis. The stakes, he believes, are high for the United States; options
are few for the Pentagon; time is short now that he has put the two governments on a 180-day
deadline to resolve their quarrel; and the Philippine chief executive is a master of uncertainty. He
goes out of his way to be unpredictable. For his part, President Trump, no stranger to being
unpredictable, has indicated that he feels little pressure to strike a bargain favorable to Duterte.
In the Oval Office, asked about the Philippines’ withdrawal from the VFA, Trump replied: “That’s
fine—we’ll save a lot of money . . . . I really don’t mind if they would like to do that.” He has
credibility, having questioned the value of alliances from NATO to South Korea.
These maneuvers will be instantly familiar to negotiations specialists. Savvy negotiators know
that cultivating an attractive alternative to a negotiated settlement is the way to amass bargaining
clout. Not caring is a powerful thing. If you convince your interlocutor you’re content to walk away
from the table without a deal, you wield serious leverage. Better still if you persuade your
interlocutor you prefer to walk away. If effect you’ve signaled, in Ury and Smoke’s parlance, that
the stakes don’t matter, your options are many and beguiling, and deadlines and uncertainty are
of little consequence. You feel little sense of crisis, in other words, and thus see little need to yield
to the other party’s demands.
You can good deal provided your interlocutor wants one.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/us-philippines-alliance-dying-123841

It is the first time Duterte has scrapped an agreement with the United States, having throughout
his more than three years in office denounced Washington for hypocrisy and for treating the
Philippines “like a dog on a leash.”
Despite reassurances from his generals, Duterte has long accused U.S. forces of conducting
clandestine activities. In his speech on Monday, he said U.S. nuclear weapons were being stored
in his country.
He has argued that the presence of U.S. forces makes the Philippines a potential target for
aggression.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/02/11/asia-pacific/philippines-terminate-visiting-forces-
agreement-us/#.XlZB_hJR2Uk

CONCLUSION
Does the VFA, as a treaty, require Senate concurrence at both ends – upon entry and at its
termination?
This is the lingering internal issue that continues to haunt the VFA after President Duterte
terminated it through a notice of termination formally served on the US.
In my view, this internal legal issue has become moot after the US, through President Trump,
acknowledged and accepted that the VFA is now terminated. With this intervening development,
any claim of invalidity on our part would place our country in an embarrassingly absurd situation.
The live question for us now should be: can American troops or facilities continue to stay pursuant
to (a) the Mutual Defense Treaty of 1951 (MDT) that is still in place and that defines the alliance
between the US and our country, and (b) the EDCA that no less than our Supreme Court declared
valid?
The VFA’s termination allows a 180-day winding down period; to this extent American troops and
facilities can unquestionably stay under VFA terms. Thereafter, the answer depends on whether
the MDT and the EDCA continue to support American military presence in our country.
As I discussed in Part I, the MDT is simply an overarching treaty defining the defense alliance
between the US and the Philippines. It answers the question: when will one country come to the
aid of the other?
The MDT significantly stopped short of expressly providing for American military presence in our
country. When it was concluded in 1951, American military presence was covered by the Military
Bases Agreement of 1947 (MBA) and the two treaties existed in tandem, each one supporting the
other.
The MBA expired in 1991 and was not renewed or replaced, thus leaving a big gap in the defense
alliance arrangements. Until the need arises for the US to actually come to our aid pursuant to
the MDT, I believe that this treaty cannot serve as basis for continued American military presence
in our country.
In fact, the VFA was concluded in 1998 to fill in the defense alliance gap. After the VFA’s
termination and until a new treaty is concluded, no treaty would be in place to support continuing
American military presence in our country.
Arguably, the EDCA (which came in 2014) still stands with its own provisions for continuing
American military presence. The legal significance of EDCA can be found in the “agreed locations”
it allows and specifically defines.
These locations are the portions of Philippine territory where the US is granted the right
to: preposition and store defense materials and equipment; secure unimpeded access in
prepositioning and storing these materials and equipment; exercise operational control or
defense of the storage areas; allow the unimpeded entry and access of US contractors in
prepositioning and storing materials and equipment; transit, support, and conduct training of
troops and related activities; and refuel aircraft, bunker vessels, and temporarily maintain
vehicles, vessels, and aircraft.
These locations cannot but signify the continuing presence – although without a fixed and
permanent base – of American military troops, equipment, and facilities in our country. The
shifting character of this presence, however, does not exempt the arrangements from the
constitutional requirement for a covering treaty. The determining point is not the existence of a
fixed and permanent base, but the presence of troops, equipment, and facilities, on a continuing
basis.
As our Supreme Court found in Saguisag v. Executive Secretary in 2016, the EDCA, an executive
agreement, merely relies on the MDT and the VFA for its constitutional validity. As a mere
executive agreement, it cannot – on its own – support continued American military presence.
How our leadership will now proceed in light of the legal implications of the VFA’s termination is
a policy question that lies outside the scope of this column. I can only offer my own non-legal
personal perspectives.
https://news.mb.com.ph/2020/02/26/visiting-forces-agreement-shall-we-remain-acolytes/

RECOMMENDATION
“National interest” has always been the dominating standard in any country’s foreign relations.
This standard presumably motivated both the Philippines and the US when they entered the MBA,
the MDT, the VFA, and EDCA.
If we have not been happy with these agreements and with our relationship with the US in general,
we cannot blame them for our unhappiness; it entered these agreements and it conducts its affairs
to serve its own interests, not ours.
Our past experience should teach us that we should always look out for our own interests as
others will always be on the look-out for theirs. We have to assume that others will only help us if
doing so will also serve their interests.
Thus, the question to ask ourselves on the issue of continuing American military presence in the
country is – will it serve our national interest if we allow their continued military presence in our
country?
President Duterte, our commander-in-chief, and the chief architect of our foreign policy, has
unequivocally spoken by cutting off the first immediately available American tie – the VFA.
The President’s move directly implements the independent foreign policy that the Constitution
directs. We, the people, cannot and should not disregard this clear constitutional command. Thus,
unless proven otherwise by time and events, we should support our President’s implementation
of this constitutional command; we cannot be divided, nor can we vacillate.
However, we should not hesitate to relay to the President our sentiments on how he should
proceed after his first step.
First, we must actively encourage him not to deviate from his chosen policy. Unless clearly to our
interests, we must avoid future military entanglements with other world powers engaged in their
own quests for dominance. We have shaken off our acolyte garments and should not now replace
these with similar garments from others.
Our independent stance, of course, should not prevent us from opening or strengthening ties with
countries whose interests, needs, goals, aspirations, and circumstances intersect or are
congruent with ours, where these relationships could be mutually beneficial.
We should, for example, enhance our relationships with Israel, Vietnam, Japan, Singapore,
Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada, to immediately name some of our satisfying
linkages. We should ensure that these ties shall continue to be mutually rewarding.
Second, and lest we forget, an independent foreign policy goes beyond the mere assertion of
independence. It entails obligations to be meaningful; we must support it with a reasonable level
of self-reliance and reliability.
In blunter terms, we must reasonably be self-sufficient in handling our internal security and
external defense. Our past efforts in these regards, for one reason or another, leave much to be
desired. We now have to plan and to act fast as we cannot recover from our deficiencies overnight.
We must convey to the President the urgent need for remedial measures to address and
overcome our deficiencies. Our advantage in this regard is our strategic location: everybody
benefits and should be willing to help if we are stable, self-reliant, and independent – islands of
calm in this potentially turbulent part of the world.
More than the possible support from friendly countries, we need to exert internal efforts to achieve
the attributes that self-reliance and self-sufficiency require.
We should strive for a robust economy and exert efforts to develop, as a people, the fierce self-
reliant attitude that has allowed small countries like Vietnam, Israel, Singapore, and Japan, to
overcome seemingly insurmountable odds in defending or promoting their interests. We should
study and adopt these traits for ourselves to earn respect for our independent foreign policy.
Unless we achieve all these, we shall remain a dependent acolyte country.
https://news.mb.com.ph/2020/02/26/visiting-forces-agreement-shall-we-remain-acolytes/