Drilon: Foreign policy should be ‘shared power’ between President, Senate

Senate Minority Leader Frank Drilon on Sunday said the President’s “ever-changing and shifting stance on the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA)” validated his position that foreign policy should be a shared power and responsibility between the chief executive and the Senate.

“Foreign policy is not exclusive to the President. It is a shared power with the Senate. It cannot be left to the President alone since it involves policy issues, and Congress is the policy making body in our system of government,” he stressed.

Drilon said the latest decision of the President to recall the termination of the VFA, after much hemming and hawing, proves that foreign policy is a function that cannot be left alone to the President.

After unilaterally terminating the VFA on February 11, 2020, the President recalled his decision several times in June 2020, in November 2020 and in June 2021 until he decided to retract the termination last Friday.

Drilon noted that “the President’s latest action comes on the heels of the Supreme Court landmark ruling involving the President’s withdrawal from the Rome Statute, wherein the Supreme Court affirms the need for Senate’s concurrence in the withdrawal from treaties and international agreements.”

In Pangilinan v Cayetano, the Supreme Court held: “The President cannot unilaterally withdraw from treaties that were entered into pursuant to the legislative intent manifested in prior laws, or subsequently affirmed by succeeding laws. Treaties where Senate concurrence for accession is expressly premised on the same concurrence for withdrawal likewise cannot be the subject of unilateral withdrawal.”

That termination of the VFA must be with the concurrence of the Senate is an issue now pending in the SC, Drilon noted.

In 2020, several senators including Drilon asked the Supreme Court to render a decision declaring that the withdrawal from or termination of a treaty or international agreement requires the concurrence of the Senate.

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Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)