PHL’s Reciprocal Access Agreement with Japan hurdles Senate committee

By John Victor D. Ordoñez, Reporter

THE SENATE Foreign Relations Commitee on Monday endorsed Manila’s Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) with Tokyo to plenary, as the deal aims to boost interoperability between their troops amid tensions with China in the South China Sea.

“In principle it was endorsed already to the plenary,” Senator Maria Imelda R. Marcos, who chairs the Senate foreign relations committee, told reporters after a hearing on the treaty.

“We are trying to iron out issues about jurisdiction and the privileges to be extended to the Japanese visiting forces as well as the civilian components.”

Senate Majority Leader Francis N. Tolentino supported the RAA, which he expects to facilitate military cooperation through joint military drills and other maritime security activities.

“I fully support this initiative, even as I acknowledge that it is our constitutional duty to really vet this agreement,” Mr. Tolentino said at the hearing, which was mostly held in executive session.

“I would have wanted in hindsight to have items such as support for fisheries technology be included, among others, for Filipino fisherfolk. This is considering the advanced stage of technology being employed by the Japanese fishing industry.”

Manila and Tokyo in July signed the agreement to ease the entry of equipment and troops for combat training from Japan.

Senate President Francis G. Escudero said in September that the chamber plans to ratify the RAA with Japan by year-end.

Defense Secretary Gilberto Eduardo Gerardo C. Teodoro, Jr. at the hearing said the agreement was in line with Manila’s strategic partnership with Japan and a “logical conclusion to interoperability” between the Japan Self-Defense Force and the Armed Forces of the Philippines, adding that the pact would boost exchange of technologies and mutual training programs between military forces.

“As you know, Japan is also a supplier of domain awareness capabilities to the Philippines, and it is also disallowed from offensive military activities just like the Philippine Armed Forces,” he said.

Citing Article 4 of the pact, Mr. Teodoro said at the hearing that the RAA is not a military basing agreement, which is against Philippine laws.

The agreement is the first of its kind to be signed by Japan in Asia and coincides with increased Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea, where Beijing’s expansive claims conflict with those of several Southeast Asian nations.

The Philippines has a visiting forces agreement with the US and Australia. Tokyo, which hosts the biggest concentration of US forces abroad, has a similar deal with Australia and Britain, and is negotiating another with France.

“Clarifying jurisdictional issues in the RAA is essential to avoiding problems that the Philippines had experienced with the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA),” Rommel C. Banlaoi, president of the Philippine Society for International Security Studies said in a Viber message.

The VFA provides the legal framework under which US troops can operate on a rotational basis in the country and experts say without it their other bilateral defense agreements, including the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT), cannot be implemented.

“This treaty will widen the strategic and economic cooperation between two of the most dynamic, democratic nations in the Indo-Pacific region,” Chester B. Cabalza, founding president of Manila-based think tank International Development and Security Cooperation.   

Senators are likely to back the treaty in plenary, he said.

China and the Philippines have been at loggerheads over confrontations near disputed features in the South China Sea, with Manila accusing China’s coast guard of aggression and Beijing furious over what it calls repeated provocations and territorial incursions.

The United Nations-backed Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague in 2016 voided China’s claim over the waterway for being illegal. Beijing has ignored the ruling.

About $3 trillion worth of trade passes through the South China Sea annually, and it is believed to be rich in oil and natural gas deposits, apart from fish stocks.

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa has said the RAA is not targeted against any country but aims to boost efforts towards peace and stability in the region.

Tokyo earlier committed to provide the Philippines with more patrol vessels and surveillance radar systems that it can deploy in the South China Sea.