Miriam sets Visiting Forces Agreement review Thursday

MANILA, Philippines - The Senate hearing on the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) between the Philippines and the United States is set on Thursday as Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago questioned the apparent overstaying of American forces helping the military fight terrorists in the south.

Santiago said she would invite the secretaries of the departments of foreign affairs and defense along with the representatives of other government agencies and concerned sectors to attend the public hearing.

“We will have the leftists and student organizations vocal against VFA,” she said.

Santiago, chair of the Senate committee on foreign relations and the Legislative Oversight Committee on the VFA, said she called for a hearing because “we want to hear why they (US troops) should (still) be here when the VFA itself says in its title that it’s a mere Visiting Forces Agreement.”

“They are overstaying their welcome. We all know if you’re a visitor in a house you should not stay more than a few days because your host will lose patience with you and you will become dependent on them. We say in international relations we are in effect surrendering our capacity to control the presence in our territory of foreigners because it appears in the interpretation of the administration and the US administration that VFA is open ended, it can go on to infinity,” Santiago said.

Santiago said the accord should be called “Permanent Visiting Agreement” that would in effect be a violation of the constitutional prohibition against foreign military bases in the country.

“If we in the Senate had known they would stay like this I think I would have changed my vote. I voted at that time for a VFA not knowing that after 10 years they would stay here. Plus the mere fact they’re extending their stay is in itself a concession of failure on their part. That means we’ve not trained our soldiers well because until now we still have that problem of insurrection in Mindanao, that was why they came here in the first place,” Santiago said.