Court rejects call for renegotiation of VFA

Manila: The Supreme Court has rejected a lawyer’s call for the renegotiation of a portion of the Philippine-United States Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA).

The move comes after an American serviceman was convicted in 2009 for raping a Filipina woman in a former US naval base in Olongapo, Zambales, northern Luzon in 2008, a court spokesman said.

The Apex Court ruled that rights lawyer Harry Roque should file his motion with the “court of origin,” said Supreme Court spokesman Theodore Te.

Roque’s request lacked merit, Te quoted the High Tribunal’s ruling as saying, but did not explain if Roque was asked to file his motion to the lower regional trial court of Makati City where US Navy man Daniel Smith was convicted of raping Suzette Nicolas.

In response, Roque said he would seek clarification from the High Tribunal.

Explaining the content of his petition filed at the Supreme Court earlier, Roque said he requested the High Court to execute its ruling on February 11, 2009, when it ordered a renegotiation of the VFA.

It was then in response to former Senate President Jovito Salonga and Roque who had questioned the constitutionality of the agreement entered into by former Philippine Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo and then US Ambassador Kristie Kenney on December 19 and 22, 2009, which allowed the transfer of Smith, the accused US Navy man, from a Philippine jail to the US Embassy.

The agreement was “not in accordance with the VFA,” the Supreme Court ruled at the time, adding this ruling remains until the two countries concerned renegotiate VFA’s specific provision about the custody of erring US servicemen in the Philippines.

Insisting that the Supreme Court and not the Makati Regional Trial Court has the “sole discretion to hear and rule” on his motion, Roque said the petition he filed at the Supreme Court did not originate, in the first place, from a lower court in Makati City, nor was it filed in the same court where the rape case was heard in 2008.

The Supreme Court can always issue a writ of execution to enforce its own decision which originated solely from its final judgment of a petition filed before it by former Senator Salonga, explained Roque. He served as Salonga’s lawyer at the time.

Nationalists were joyous and emotional when the American serviceman was convicted of rape at the time.

They were disappointed when the woman recanted her testimony after winning her case, which allowed the Court of Appeals to release the American serviceman from incarceration.