On the subject of the unilateral abrogation of the Visiting Forces Agreement arising

from President Duterte’s displeasure at the cancellation of Sen. Ronald dela Rosa’s US
visa, one of those who should be at the forefront of the issue is remarkably passive and
deferential. Sen. Koko Pimentel, chairman of the Senate committee on foreign relations,
thinks that the Senate has absolutely no say in the termination of treaties; “the President
may cancel it [VFA] with or without a reason,” he declared—despite the Senate’s
constitutionally mandated oversight role in the treaty-making power of the President.
The default tack, it appears, is to abdicate all responsibility to the chief executive.
Pimentel even goes so far as to rationalize, unpersuasively, the President’s bewildering
hijacking of the VFA vis-à-vis Dela Rosa’s visa: “It’s only timing,” Pimentel was
quoted as saying. “The VFA was already under review, and the President probably only
remembered that when he heard that Senator Dela Rosa’s US visa was canceled.”
(“Probably”?)
On other matters of national attention, Pimentel has been likewise muted. The country’s
dismal showing in the latest international corruption index? Silence. On the startling
dip in GDP, the lowest in eight years, and the self-rated poverty among Filipinos that’s
highest in five years? Or the royal welcome the Philippine Coast Guard laid out for the
“goodwill visit” of its Chinese counterpart, notwithstanding the many acts of
harassment and aggression by the China Coast Guard in the West Philippine Sea—
something that’s right along Pimentel’s alley as chief overseer of foreign relations in
the Senate? Crickets.

Something else appears to be preoccupying Pimentel’s mind these days. For instance,
just when it looked like it was now smooth sailing for the motorcycle-for-hire pilot run,
Pimentel tried to put a spanner in the works with an unusually belligerent call to declare
the CEO of motorcycle taxi pioneer Angkas, Angeline Tham, “persona non grata.” In a
Senate resolution filed Jan. 20 but released last Thursday, Pimentel called for nothing
less than a Senate investigation into the “the high-handed, arrogant and irresponsible
acts” of Tham, a Singaporean national, in a bid to “prevent similarly-minded persons
from bullying and misleading Philippine government agencies and officials.” Angkas’
staging of a “mass indignation” ride in December last year and its “social media
campaign [that] aimed to shame government agencies by providing false and
misleading information…” constituted “blatant transgressions of our laws, misleading
and bullying behavior targeting Philippine government officials that could only have
been done with the explicit complicity of Angeline Xiwen Tham,” huffed
Pimentel.There may well be basis for investigating possible violations by Tham and
Angkas, but Pimentel should be the last person to show indignation and call for a
taxpayer-funded probe, given what appears to be his less-than-impartial interest in this
issue.