Senators call for scrapping of EDCA

MANILA, Philippines (Xinhua) - Two former senators urged today the Philippine Supreme Court to stop the implementation of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) signed by the Philippines and the United States at the end of last April.

In a petition for certiorari and prohibition, former Senators Rene Saguisag and Wigberto Tanada asked the Supreme Court to declare the EDCA as unconstitutional as they believed that the US- Philippine agreement violated the provisions of the 1987 Constitution. Joining them in the Petition were several well-known academicians, activists and lawyers.

This was the first time that the constitutionality of the agreement has been questioned before the court.

The two countries signed the agreement, which would pave the way for the return of US military presence in the country for a period of 10 years, just a few hours before the arrival of US President Barack Obama in Manila for his two-day visit to the Philippines last month.

The petitioners lamented that the signing of EDCA is an indication of the Aquino government's lack of resolve to uphold and protect the country's sovereignty and national interest.

They claimed that government clearly disregarded the nationalism shown by Filipinos in 1991 during the term of Aquino's mother, the late President Corazon Aquino, in resisting the US military presence in the country.

"This agreement will allow the US government to use Philippine military bases, essentially allowing them to build structures, store as well as preposition weapons, defense supplies and materiel, station troops, civilian personnel  and defense contractors, transit and station vehicles, vessels, and aircraft. This will effectively allow them to establish and operate defacto military bases anywhere on Philippine soil, minus the cost of paying for one," they added.

Saguisag and Tanada were among the "magnificent twelve" senators led by Senator Jovito Salonga who voted to kick the US military bases out of the Philippines in 1991.