Treaty Termination and the Faults of Philippine Formalism
![handle is hein.journals/philplj93 and id is 740 raw text is:
TREATY TERMINATION AND THE FAULTS
OF PHILIPPINE FORMALISM*
RaphaelA. Pangalangan
ABSTRACT
The 1987 Constitution expressly requires Senate approval for
a treaty to become valid and effective but is silent on treaty
withdrawal. President Rodrigo Duterte has seized upon the
textual gap to withdraw the country from the Visiting Forces
Agreement with the United States of America, without Senate
approval. On March 20, 2020, the Senate majority bloc, for
the first time in history, opposed Dutertian rule and argued
that because the Constitution requires Senate concurrence for
treaty conclusion, senatorial imprimatur is likewise needed for
treaty termination. Neither of these views finds its place in
Philippine constitutional order. But while their ends conflict,
the error is shared: an overreliance on legal text. On one hand,
the Senate rightfully invokes the separation of powers, yet
unduly limits that constitutional principle to constitutional
provisions. On the other hand, the President ignores how the
gray in-betweens of black letter law have long been filled by
an unwritten yet time-honored principle. This paper provides
a third approach. By shifting the focus from the written text
to the unwritten tenet, the paper defines the limits to a
presidential treaty power free from the faults of Philippine
formalism.
Cite as Raphael Pangalangan, Treaty Termination and the Faults of Philippine Formalism,
93 PHIL L.J. 709, [page cited] (2020). The article was developed from the author's news column
with the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Mishearng Constitutional Silence , PHIL. DAILY INQUIRER, May
2, 2020, available at https://opinion.inquirer.net/130834/mishearing-constitutional-silence.
** Member of the Philippine Bar; Assistant Professor and Associate Dean, Jindal
Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University; LL.M., University of Cambridge (2020);
M.St. in International Human Rights Law, with Distinction, University of Oxford (2019);
Grad.D. in Advanced Studies on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, American University
(2017);J.D., University of the Philippines (2016); B.A. Philosophy, cum laude, University of the
Philippines (2012). Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect
the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company.
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Treaty Termination and the Faults of Philippine Formalism
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