EDCA, Constitutional or not?

There is less than one year left before our President’s term ends. Regardless of the time left, he still is not safe from the issues haunting such high position being the Chief Executive and Commander-in-chief of our armed force. The latest issue is the international agreement, Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement EDCA. I am not a supporter of the Aquino administration but I think it is one of the things that they have done right.

In light of the petitions against it, the Supreme Court has recently decided on its Constitutionality. It was amazing to see how they were able to tackle on such a sensitive issue, an issue that may result in the violation of the powers of a co-equal branch of government. They have carefully explained how the power of the Executive is so broad but without the infringing on the Legislative’s, and without the Supreme Court violating the two.

Petitioners were contending that the agreement was against the Constitution regarding the presence of foreign military forces and that it should have been brought to the Senate for ratification.

They carefully tackled valuable aspects of the issue. They showed how the Executive and Legislative powers may overlap in this kind of matters of the state by explaining that the EDCA as an Executive Agreement, is not a treaty but rather an adjustment to it without violating the treaty itself. Because a treaty by its nature is an agreement by at least two states and gains a statute status after the concurrence of the Senate. They briefly discussed the historical relationship of the Philippines with the US, on how our military forces started out on helping each other. This brief discussion also showed how the present Constitution came into being and how it molded the different powers of the Executive and Legislative up to the present.

They have explained how important that the President, as the sole organ in conducting foreign relations, should be given broad discretion but still making sure that the sovereignty of the Filipino people is given paramount importance. Further explaining that these discretion should still be in consonance with what is mandated by our Constitution, that it is being able to exercise these powers together with that of Congress.

The Supreme Court had also explained how the President as the Commander-in-chief has the need to protect the people from any violence or attack, internal or external, that his duty is to make sure that our armed forces are always ready and better equipped to face anything that arises. But still these power is limited as it still needs the help of Congress.

The responsibility of the Supreme Court is not an easy task especially in questions of Constitutionality and those which involve the powers of the other two co-equal branches, that they should be able to separate Political questions with Judicial ones. Here is one of the examples that they have managed to do it.