{"id":195667,"date":"2018-12-29T04:34:36","date_gmt":"2018-12-29T09:34:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=195667"},"modified":"2018-12-29T04:34:36","modified_gmt":"2018-12-29T09:34:36","slug":"lorenzana-orders-review-of-67-year-old-us-ph-military-pact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/12\/29\/lorenzana-orders-review-of-67-year-old-us-ph-military-pact\/","title":{"rendered":"Lorenzana orders review of 67-year-old US-PH military pact"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_195668\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-195668\" style=\"width: 415px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/defense-sec-lorenzana.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-195668\" src=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/defense-sec-lorenzana.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"415\" height=\"260\" srcset=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/defense-sec-lorenzana.jpg 415w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/defense-sec-lorenzana-300x188.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 415px) 100vw, 415px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-195668\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u201cI have just directed our lawyers to start looking into it,\u201d Lorenza said in a Palace press briefing. (PNA File Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>MANILA &#8212;<\/strong>\u00a0Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said on Friday he has directed a review of the 67-year-old Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) between the Philippines and the United States, to see if it is still relevant to the Philippines&#8217; &#8220;national interest.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have just directed our lawyers to start looking into it,\u201d Lorenza said in a Palace press briefing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s 1951. It\u2019s a 67-year-old treaty. Is it still relevant to our national interest? That\u2019s what we should look at. Let us look at it dispassionately, without considering about past ties, about future ties\u2014dispassionately,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Lorenzana said the end goal of the review is either \u201cto maintain it, strengthen it, or scrap it\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>He said the provisions of the 1951 MDT should be reviewed whether it is \u201cstill valid or still relevant today\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s been a long time, 1951 against 2018 is a long time already,\u201d Lorenzana noted.<\/p>\n<p>When asked if the disputed West Philippine Sea will be part of the review, Lorenza replied: \u201cEverything, everything, everything. The dynamics going on all over the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lorenzana said even the National Defense Act of 1935 should be reviewed if it is still relevant to the country\u2019s history.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe National Defense Act of 1935 is still the law that is being followed by our military. It was 1935, for a long time, much has happened,\u201d Lorenzana said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, that is part of the law that I am trying to review also so that if we can, maybe, we could convince Congress to amend it, to align it with what is happening now in our life as a nation,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MANILA &#8212;\u00a0Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said on Friday he has directed a review of the 67-year-old Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":195668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-195667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-jelly-musico","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}