‘Vague EDCA provisions require sub-IRR’

MANILA, Philippines — Concerned that vaguely written provisions in the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) may put the Philippines in a compromising situation in the future, former national security adviser Clarita Carlos has called for new implementing rules and regulations (IRR) that clearly define the country’s military partnership with the United States.

“I am sure, in the future, in the very near future, there would be a conflict in interpretation. And that is where Satan works – in the interpretation,” Carlos, speaking partly in Filipino, said in an interview with “The Chiefs” on Cignal TV’s One News channel Thursday night.

Carlos, a political scientist, noted that the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) signed in 1951 and ratified in 1952 is the main treaty implemented by the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) of 1998.

The EDCA of 2014, she said, is the one further implementing the VFA but the EDCA needs to be clarified, considering how the US and the Philippines have now agreed to put up four additional EDCA sites in the country that American troops can have access to.

Carlos recalled that in November last year, President Marcos ordered her to head a study group and, after three meetings, she asked the VFA Commission to let her visit a camp for an ocular inspection last January, but was told that there is no such EDCA camp.

“What does it mean? It means that both the Philippines and the US did not pay attention to EDCA,” she said, noting that the agreement had been on for eight years as of 2022. “They were only paying attention to that (EDCA) recently when the geopolitical situation changed.”

In stressing the need for a sub-IRR for the EDCA to avoid confusion later on, Carlos cited the case of Lance Corporal Daniel Smith in the 2005 Subic rape case, wherein the US embassy was able to take custody of the American soldier while he was on trial because of the vague definition of “adequate jail facility” in the VFA, which at the time had no IRR yet.

“The same thing will happen under EDCA if we do not explain the ‘prepositioning’ or explain ‘exclusive jurisdiction’ of their equipment,” she pointed out.

“They are the ones who use that, but then the one deploying them, of course, are the commanders – Filipino commanders,” she added.

However, that is not spelled out because the provisions under the EDCA as written are “very vague,” claimed Carlos.

“We really need that sub-IRR. Let’s not wait for an incident that undermines us just because we did not give the operational definition of these terms,” she said.

Carlos said she hopes to be invited by the VFA Commission to help draft a sub-IRR where it should be repeatedly made clear that the laws that will govern US troops in EDCA sites are Philippine laws, and that nothing happens in EDCA sites without the permission of Philippine authorities.

US intentions

Speaking in Washington, Marcos clarified yesterday that the US never intended to use the EDCA sites as staging areas for offensives against any country.

“To be fair, the United States has never brought up the possibility that we will use – that the United States will use the EDCA sites as staging (areas) for any offensive action against any country. And I think we are in lockstep with the US with that and they understand the concerns that the Philippines has and are sensitive to the reasons why we have those concerns,” the President said at a forum organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. — Alexis Romero, Artemio Dumlao