Senate hearing on VFA review goes into executive session

MANILA, Philippines — The Senate foreign relations committee hearing on the review of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) went into executive session Thursday with top foreign affairs and defense officials to further discuss the likely repercussions of terminating the Philippines-US military pact.

“We will suspend and then go into executive session. We will suspend our hearing and we will resume inside the senator’s lounge,” Senator Aquilino Pimentel III, chair of the committee, said.

At the beginning of Thursday’s hearing on the VFA review and other defense agreements between the Philippines and the United States, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. expressed desire to discuss “highly sensitive” matters with senators behind closed-doors.

“We would have wished to respectfully request that in making this presentation the committee go on executive session owing to the highly sensitive nature of the topics to be discussed. But we in the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) are fine with any arrangement,” he said.

“My colleagues in the Cabinet, however, who are in charge of the nuts and bolts on the national defense would wish to have an executive session and I hope they are accommodated,” he added.

During the hearing, Senator Richard Gordon asked Locsin about the consequences if the Duterte administration pushes through with its plan to abrogate VFA.

In response, Locsin said: “Together perhaps in executive session, we can explore the possibilities.”

“There are things that should not be said in public because then it affects the outcome without meaning to,” he added.

Aside from Locsin, those who participated in the executive session were two DFA undersecretaries, National Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr., and other top defense officials.

The Senate committee is reviewing the VFA following President Rodrigo Duterte’s threat to scrap the bilateral military agreement if the United States does not rectify Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa’s canceled visa. Dela Rosa is a close ally of Duterte.