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C. Geography
The Philippines is an archipelago which means it is composed of islands that is surrounded by waters.
The Filipino people have a hard time on practicing the democracy because of the different ethnic groups which
separated the Filipinos by their culture, business, and way of living.
A. Pros
- Enhance our countrys capability specifically our military capabilities. (Capacity building
towards AFP modernization; Strengthening AFP for external defense; Maritime Security;
Maritime Domain Awareness)
- Improve our countrys response and humanitarian assistance mechanism.
- Interoperability with the U.S. (At the strategic level, interoperability is an enabler for coalition
building. It facilitates meaningful contributions by coalition partners. At this level,
interoperability issues center on harmonizing the world views, strategies, doctrines, and force
structures. Interoperability is an element of coalition willingness to work together over the long
term to achieve and maintain shared interests against common threats.)
- The Philippines will also benefit from more exercises and more assistance from the U.S. and it
will elevate the Philippines to a major non-NATO ally in the Pacific.
- Benefit the Philippines economically.
B. Cons
- It will further antagonize the Philippines ties with China (Definitely the new Agreement,
whatever it may contain, will further antagonize China because in effect, we consent that the PH
should be listed under the American column, instead of the China column. If China reaches out
to Russia while the Ukraine issue continues to simmer, the U.S. will certainly call on PH to
fulfill treaty obligation under the PH-U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty. The PH executive branch
apparently adopts the attitude that the Mutual Defense Treaty will oblige the U.S. to
automatically come to the aid of PH if attacked by China. I respectfully dissent. For one thing,
the MDT does not define what is a metropolitan territory of each state. For another thing, the
MDF provides that U.S. will come to the aid of PH only after the issues has been passed through
U.S. constitutional processes, meaning that it is subject to open-ended debate in the U.S.
Congress.)
- There are at least three constitutional provisions in danger of being violated. (If this turns out to
be true, then the Agreement would set an extremely bad precedent. Thus, it would be a case of
interpreting the Constitution to accommodate the military program of a foreign state. That
eventuality defies all principles of constitutional supremacy.
There are at least three clear constitutional provisions that militate against the Agreement:
1. Foreign military bases, troops, or facilities, shall not be allowed in the Philippines, except
under a treaty duly concurred in by the Senate. . . . (Art. 18, Sec. 25)
2. No treaty or international agreement shall be valid and effective unless concurred in by at
least two-thirds of all the Members of the Senate. (Art. 7, Sec. 21. Emphasis added.)
3. The Philippines, consistent with the national interest, adopts and pursues a policy of freedom
from nuclear weapons in its territory. (Art. 2, Sec. 8))
- U.S. Military aid may not materialize because of reported cutbacks in the U.S. defense budget.
On the other hand, there is the possibility of corruption since the U.S. military aid may sum up to
$50 million dollars.