Anti-EDCA petitioners file MR with SC

MANILA — Petitioners filed a motion for reconsideration yesterday before the Supreme Court seeking the reversal of the decision upholding the constitutionality of t he Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement with the US.

Among those who filed the motion were former senators Rene Saguisag and Wigberto Tañada, among the Magnificent 12 who voted to boot out American military bases from the country in 1991, former University of the Philippines president Francisco Nemenzo Jr., and several activist groups affiliated with the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan.

After several deferments, the high court, voting 10-41 on January 12, ruled that the EDCA is an executive agreement, and not a treaty requiring Senate concurrence.

The SC ruled that Article XVIII, section 25 of the 1987 Constitution allows the president to enter into an executive agreement on foreign military bases, troops, or facilities if: (a) it is not the instrument that allows the presence of foreign military bases, troops, or facilities, or (b) it merely aims to implement an existing law or treaty and holding that the EDCA is one such executive agreement.

However, the motion for reconsideration pointedly called the SC decision wrong, faulting the tribunal for a “strict textual approach” while “ignoring relevant colonial historical and contemporary events” in interpreting the Constitution and the Mutual Defense Treaty and Visiting Forces Agreements, the pacts the EDCA is supposed to implement.

Parsing the arguments of the motion for reconsideration, Rachel Pastores, managing counsel of the Public Interest Law Center, which represents Bayan, said in a separate statement: “Divorced from history, the Supreme Court’s decision on EDCA fails to address the stark reality that the President has committed serious breach and violation of the constitution.”

She said the high court disregarded “clear provisions” of the Constitution “in favor of a stretched-out argument to expand the powers of the president.”

“The decision lacks legitimacy, especially in light of the Senate’s demand to submit EDCA for deliberation by the legislature,” she said. “Neither the Court nor the executive (branch) has the monopoly of discussion on the presence of foreign military personnel and their war weapons and bases. The Constitution clearly accorded unto the Senate, by representation the Filipino people, the power to decide on the return of foreign military bases.”

“If the SC does not reverse its decision on EDCA,” Pastores said, “we will repeat the errors and horrors of our military bases experience.”