{"id":46541,"date":"2015-04-09T13:13:35","date_gmt":"2015-04-09T05:13:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=46541"},"modified":"2015-04-09T13:13:35","modified_gmt":"2015-04-09T05:13:35","slug":"no-us-transgression-of-ph-sovereignty-de-lima","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/04\/09\/no-us-transgression-of-ph-sovereignty-de-lima\/","title":{"rendered":"No US transgression of PH sovereignty \u2013 De Lima"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Justice<\/a>
Justice Sec. Leila De Lima at the Senate hearing on the Mamasapano Clash (Photo courtesy of Sen. Grace Poe’s Facebook page)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

MANILA — Justice Secretary Leila de Lima on Wednesday said the limited involvement of the United States in the January 25 secret police mission to get two wanted international terrorists holed up in Mamasapano was covered by existing bilateral agreements and did not transgress Philippine sovereignty.<\/span><\/p>\n

Appearing at the House joint probe into the Mamasapano incident, De Lima also pointed out that the U.S. participation, which was limited to intelligence sharing and medical evacuation of wounded Special Action Force commandos, was well within the bounds of the Constitution.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bottom line always is the ability of the Philippine government to determine the extent of U.S. involvement and the full exercise of its control in making the decisions as to what, who, when and how of a particular operation,\u201d De Lima told lawmakers.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo long as these considerations are met and absolute Philippine control is exercised all throughout, there can be no argument that U.S. involvement has transgressed any of the constitutional and legal boundaries on foreign participation in Philippine military and law enforcement activities under the facts so far established in any of the investigations,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

De Lima said the presence of the American troops in Mindanao was covered by the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) and the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) with the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cForeign affairs is the primary jurisdiction and core competence of the executive branch of government and therefore the President, as Chief Executive, may enter into agreements that do not need concurrence of the Senate as treaties for purposes of enhancing international cooperation in global law enforcement, specifically against terrorist threats and especially if such threats find sanctuary through the back doors of the country\u2019s largely unguarded coastal frontiers like Mindanao,\u201d she pointed out.<\/p>\n

The DOJ chief also cited the 2002 Supreme Court ruling in Lim vs. Executive Secretary which, she said, \u201cpainted the allowable activities for joint military cooperation in broad strokes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt states that the VFA contains no enumeration or limitation of what activities would be covered by the (agreement) and provides only the broad limitations that must be approved by the Philippine government and that they must not be inconsistent with the spirit of the agreement, which is cooperation,\u201d De Lima said.<\/p>\n

In the same hearing, De Lima insisted that President Benigno Aquino III is not covered by the chain of command within the Philippine National Police (PNP).<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my reading of the Constitution and law, the principle of chain of command does not strictly apply insofar as the President is concerned,\u201d De Lima said, noting that President\u2019s relationship or dealings with the PNP is not as commander-in-chief but only as chief executive.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is in the same manner as the chief executive over all executive offices and departments. We all know that in a civilian agency or in a civilian organization, chain of command is not there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 MANILA — Justice Secretary Leila de Lima on Wednesday said the limited involvement of the United States in the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":43394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,95,483],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news-ph","category-politics","mauthors-cielito-m-reganit","mauthors-philippines-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46541","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=46541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}