Party-list group asks SC to stop further PH-Japan military drills

From InterAksyon (Jul 16): Party-list group asks SC to stop further PH-Japan military drills

A party-list group on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to issue a temporary restraining order or a writ of preliminary injunction to stop the government from further conducting military exercises with the Japanese military saying that it violates a Constitutional prohibition.

In asking the High Tribunal to issue the injunction, ACT Teachers party-list Representative Antonio Tinio said the respondents committed grave abuse of discretion when they initiated and signed the Memorandum on Defense Cooperation and Exchanges between Japan’s Ministry of Defense and the Philippines’ Department of National Defense as well as the Japan-Philippines Joint Declaration: A Strengthened Strategic Partnership for Advancing the Shared Principles and Goals of Peace, Security, and Growth in the Region and Beyond.

Named respondents were President Benigno Aquino III, Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin, Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Hernando Iriberri and Philippine Navy Flag Officer In Command Vice Admiral Jesus MIllan.

Tinio and the other petitioners, namely ACT for sovereignty spokesman Carl Marc Ramota and ACT Private Schools Vice Chair Mark Benedict Lim, said the Philippine government allowed the presence of Japanese troops during the joint military exercises in Palawan despite the Constitutional prohibition on the presence of foreign troops, bases and facilities in the country.

"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. 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,” they said in their petition.

“The conduct of military exercises with the Japanese armed forces on our territory—without the permission of the Filipino people—is a brazen violation of this prohibition.  This unconstitutional act embodies President Aquino’s endorsement of the militaristic path of the Abe administration, proof that he is all too willing to act as an enabler of a resurgent Japanese militarism,” the petitioners further said.

They said the High Tribunal should issue an order stopping the government from conducting any further military exercises with Japanese troops like the one held last month between the navies of the two countries in Palawan.

They stressed that such military drills showed that the respondents allowed Japanese military forces to enter the country’s territory without securing the right to do so by way of a treaty following the Constitution's requirements.

“Petitioners seek the writs of certiorari and prohibition on the ground that the Respondents committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction when they entered into the assailed agreements and implemented the same, mainly through the conduct of joint military drills in Philippine territory with the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, that is, the service branches of the Japanese military,” they explained.

At the same time, the petitioners said that in as much as they want the country to develop its own defense capability in the face of Chinese aggressive actions in the West Philippine Sea, including the forging of alliances with other countries, “this must be done within the bounds of the Constitution and existing laws.”

“Pursuing an alliance is one thing, but transforming the Philippines into a base of operations for Japanese military forces would be a humiliating act of subservience. For a country formerly occupied by Japan to host Japanese military forces on its territory would be unprecedented in post-World War II history, and President Aquino will earn the ignominy of making it happen,” they said.

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/114280/party-list-group-asks-sc-to-stop-further-ph-japan-military-drills