DEPUTY Speaker Lorenzo Tañada is urging his colleagues in Congress to take a look at the existing Visiting Forces Agreement between the Philippines and the United States.

According to Tañada, Congress should review the VFA to determine if the integrity of the national sovereignty is at stake.

“The integrity of our national sovereignty cannot be left at the mercy of a foreign state—no matter how altruistic it claims to be,” he said.

Tañada lamented that the VFA “obligates the Philippines to do too much for too little,” and “it just does not outweigh the risk of being a pawn in US foreign relations.”

The VFA was signed in 1997. It allows US troops to conduct Balikatan exercises in the Philippines jointly with Filipino soldiers.

But Tañada said the Armed Forces of the Philippines can handle the threat of terrorism even without the help of the US troops.

“I don’t see any real gains with the VFA that we could not achieve without it. We’ve managed to maintain a good economic relationship with China, but this is because we have such a long history of trading with them and because of our vibrant Chinese community,” he said.

“Also, the Ampatuan prosecution and the concern over the ARMM elections are signs of an earnest effort to clean up governance of the South, which is a far more sustainable approach to weeding out terrorist activity than force alone. We’ve been able to do all these ourselves, they had nothing to do with the VFA,” he added.

The solon added that even without the VFA, the AFP with the new leadership seems serious in cleaning up its ranks.

Tañada also pointed out that contrary to the VFA provision, there are reports of US troops engaging in combat in the South.

“The US snubs the Mutual Defense Treaty when we invoke it to protect our claim on the Spratlys.Why do we need the VFA again? It’s a mystery,” he stressed.

He said that junking the VFA will not result in a complete break with the US.

“I am sure we can continue our history of amity, but we definitely need another way to give it expression. We can give them a hand, and we should—we’ve always been friends. But I don’t see why we should give them the whole arm,” he said.