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Philippines reviews security deal with U.S. after rape case
MANILA | Tue Oct 26, 2010 5:55am EDT
MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine President Benigno Aquino has ordered a review of a security deal with the United States, seeking to avoid a repeat of a controversial case in which a U.S. Marine convicted of rape escaped a jail term. Executive Secretary Pacquito Ochoa said Aquino asked him to review the criminal and legal provisions of the Visiting Forces Agreement, which allows the U.S. military to be in the Philippines for training purposes and military exercises.
Diplomatic ties between Manila and Washington were strained in 2007 after the Marine was convicted of raping a Filipino woman and the United States said the terms of the agreement meant he would be held under U.S. jurisdiction rather than in a Philippine jail. That sparked demands from lawmakers and activists to end the agreement. Manila's embarrassment was compounded in 2009 when a Philippine court reversed the conviction and freed the marine, who had been held at the U.S. Embassy.
"We don't want that happening again, so we want to review it," Ochoa told reporters, referring to the fallout of the rape case, which prompted Washington to scale down its annual military exercises in the Philippines in 2007. "So, wherever and whoever you are and whenever you commit a crime in any country, you're subject to the criminal law of that land, that is without any exception."
The Visiting Forces Agreement was signed in 1998, six years after the end of a deal that allowed U.S. military bases in the country, and grants the Philippines' former colonial power an exemption to a provision in the Philippine constitution banning foreign troops. Since 2002, an average of 300 U.S. special forces have been deployed almost permanently in the southern Philippines to help train and advise local soldiers fighting Islamic militants.
Another 4,000 to 5,000 soldiers take part in annual war games on the main island of Luzon for up to a month. The frequency of U.S. warships, including carriers, making port calls has also increased since 2006. The Philippines has been one of Washington's longest security partners in the region along with Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Australia.
(Reporting by Manny Mogato; Editing by John Mair)
