AFP: Philippines-Japan naval drills are legal

• Source: http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2015/07/29/1482284/afp-philippines-japan-naval-drills-are-legal
• Wednesday, July 29, 2015 4:19 pm

By Alexis Romero

MANILA, Philippines - The military insisted on Wednesday said that there is nothing illegal in the naval drills conducted by the Philippines and Japan last month because they were held in international waters.

“We believe that the exercises were conducted with firm basis on our existing policies and laws, which will be clarified thoroughly when we bring this matter up to the Supreme Court,” Armed Forces spokesman Col. Restituto Padilla told reporters in Camp Aguinaldo.

Padilla said while the absence of a defense treaty with Japan prohibit the entry and movement of Japanese troops in the Philippines, port calls and drills in international waters are permitted.

“Port visits are not prevented and the conduct of the exercises was actually done in agreed areas that are international waters,” the military spokesman said.

The Philippine Navy and the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force held joint drills off Palawan from June 22 to 24 to improve their interoperability and to enhance their disaster response capabilities.

The joint trainings were held six months after the Philippines and Japan signed the Memorandum on Defense Cooperation and Exchanges, a deal that aims to strengthen the two countries’ defense ties.

The legality of the agreement, however, has been challenged by the Alliance for Concerned Teachers, (ACT) before the Supreme Court.

In its petition, ACT said the deal violates Article 18 Section 25 of the Constitution, which states that foreign military troops and facilities can enter the country if there is a treaty with concurrence by the Senate.

“The substance of the Memorandum and the Joint Declaration, given that they bring the presence of Japanese military troops in the Philippine territory, require that they be via treaty,” ACT said in its petition.

“Being merely in the form of non-binding agreements, and not having been submitted to the Senate for concurrence and to Congress for deliberation on whether the treaty requires ratification by the people in a national referendum, they should be held unconstitutional, insofar as they are being used as legal bases for the holding of military exercises with the Japanese military,” the teacher’s group added.

When asked whether the military intends to hold another exercise with Japan, Padilla said such activities should be planned carefully.

“We have a strategic relationship with Japan and we continuously improve it. We have a good relationship with them but we have to do it slowly because we have laws to consider,” Padilla said.

“All these activities are governed by policies and other laws that we need to be mindful of before we commit to certain activities that Japan and the Philippines would like pursue in the future so it’s always a slow process,” he added.

Last month, President Benigno Aquino III and Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed to begin discussions on a visiting forces deal, a move seen as a response to China’s aggressiveness in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea).

The two countries have also agreed to begin talks on transferring Japanese military hardware and technology to the Philippines, one of the weakest in the region in terms of defense capabilities.

Defense officials, however, admitted that a visiting forces agreement with Japan may not be approved within Aquino’s term because the draft deal has to undergo a long legal process.