“HE IS who he is,” said Rep Adam Schiff about US President Donald Trump at the latter’s impeachment trial.
True. But he is also who he was. In November 2016 he won the US Presidential election. Nothing that he has done since he was elected comes as a real surprise. Those who voted for him in 2016 are likely to vote for him in November this year.
Trump’s Republican Party has a 53-47 majority in the Senate. For Trump to be ejected from office needs a two-thirds majority. This means 67 Senators need to vote against Trump’s acquittal. This also means all the Democrats and 20 Republicans. All the evidence suggests that this will not happen. Senators will vote according to party lines. Trump will “beat the rap” as Bill Clinton said triumphantly after he was acquitted in his 1999 impeachment trial.
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Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA)
President Duterte is considering whether to terminate the VFA.
The background is that in 1998 US Defense Secretary William Cohen visited President Estrada with the VFA proposal. Cohen said that as the VFA is an international agreement then Estrada had the authority to approve it. Quite rightly, Estrada demurred. The Philippine Constitution is quite clear that treaties or international agreements need Senate approval.
The Philippine Constitution differs from the US Constitution. The latter says that treaties need Senate approval but international agreements do not.
In any case, in 1999 Senate approved the VFA by 18 votes to 5.
The question then arises as to whether President Duterte has the authority to unilaterally cancel VFA or whether the cancellation requires Senate approval. Presumably the existing VFA specifies the mechanism by which it can be abrogated.
Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo reportedly said that President Duterte can cancel the VFA even without the approval of the Senate because the VFA is an executive agreement. This is not the case. The VFA required and received Senate approval in 1999. It all depends on what VFA says about abrogation.
At the time of writing Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra is submitting his recommendation relating to the procedure for terminating the VFA to President Duterte.
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The US Constitution was developed in 1787 as a result of its newly-acquired independence from Great Britain. At the time, the US was still smarting from perceived injustices, such as unilaterally imposed taxes it received from the British King George III.
Consequently, the US Constitution had as a prime objective the separation of powers between the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of government. A problem is that, in practice, wherever a US style Constitution has been implemented, power tends to gravitate towards the Executive branch.
A recent example in the Philippines concerned the mechanism for impeaching Chief Justice Sereno. The Constitutional process involving Senate as the relevant decision-making body was sidelined by the Solicitor General’s “Quo Warranto” petition based on the allegation that Sereno had omitted to submit a statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth almost thirty years earlier.
Around the same time, former Chief Justice Puno, on instructions from President Duterte, submitted to Senate a draft Constitution based on a Federal form of government. Senate, perhaps because it felt snubbed because it was by-passed on the Sereno impeachment, did not give Puno’s draft any visible consideration.
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No form of government is perfect. What we need is a decision-making process which respects the Constitution./PN
