By Ankit Panda
A U.S. Marine accused of murder has called broader U.S.-Philippines cooperation into question.
During his tour of Asia in April this year, U.S. President Barack Obama stopped over in the Philippines, long a U.S. partner, to oversee the conclusion of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which would allow U.S. troops to return to Filipino military bases on a temporary basis. That agreement built on the 1998 Visiting Forces Agreement, which generally allowed U.S. forces to join major military exercises in the Philippines. Recently, the legal basis for military cooperation between the United States and the Philippines has come under fire after a U.S. Marine was accused of killing a transgender Filipino this month. The incident has led to a bilateral scuffle amid criticisms from the Filipino opposition that Benigno Aquino’s government is unwilling to amend the terms of the 1998 agreement to better suit Filipino interests.
On Thursday, the Philippines’ Foreign Secretary Albert Del Rosario noted that aspects of the Visiting Forces Agreement were “imperfect.” “It’s not a perfect agreement. It’s an imperfect agreement but given that, it’s not plausible for us to amend (it) at this time,” Del Rosario remarked. “We need to abrogate and if we abrogate, it interrupts the benefit of the mutual defense treaty with regards to joint exercise[s] between our two armed forces. It consequences the modernization, the joint training, the inter-operability,” he added.
The case involving the U.S. Marine highlights the imbalanced custody provisions of the U.S.-Philippines Visiting Forces Agreement. Critics note that the agreement states that U.S. military suspects accused of having committed a crime under Philippines’ law will remain in U.S. custody until legal proceedings are completed — an affront to the Philippines’ sovereignty. Sovereignty concerns have long been of interest to Filipino politicians. Similar concerns led to the United States military giving up its permanent bases in the Philippines in the early 1990s.
Read the full story at The Diplomat