We must already see the merit behind the broadening call for the review of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA). Since its implementation in 1999, there have been two big “strikes,” in baseball parlance, against the continued application of the VFA, as presently worded. The first was registered in the 2006 Smith rape case and the second was in the January 2013 Tubbataha National Park incident. In both cases, protest actions resulted into ugly confrontations between militants and police authorities, followed by strident calls for a VFA review, if not abolition, from legislators, militants and civil society organizations.

The Smith case put to light the patent ambiguity in the language of the VFA, especially in so far as it relates to “criminal jurisdiction” of the local courts and “custodial authority” that impacts on the interpretation of the phrase “judicial proceedings.” Is appeal to be considered within its definition, as the US authorities argue? The exchange of diplomatic notes between the Secretary of Foreign Affairs and the US ambassador on the Smith situation apparently did not succeed in putting a satisfactory end to heated public debates on the issue. In fact, it can now be told that when I presented my letters of credence on December 8, 2006, coincidentally around the time when the Regional Trial Court convicted Smith, the very first concern President George W. Bush took up with me related to the legality of Smith’s custody by local authorities.

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