By Robina Asido

The Department of National Defense (DND) expressed openness for a possible creation of a Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) between the Philippines and Japan.

"The Philippines would like to have a VFA in order for the Japanese troops to conduct exercises in the Philippines. Right now they cannot. They are just observers or we just have to conduct humanitarian assistance and disaster response (HADR) exercises. That is what is allowed without the VFA," Defense Officer-in-Charge Senior Undersecretary Jose Faustino, Jr. said in a press conference on Monday.

"We share common interest with Japan particularly in our interest in the West Philippine Sea and of course the borders that we share with Japan, so our goal really is to strengthen this cooperation, the defense cooperation with Japan," he added

DND spokesman Arsenio Andolong said the VFA is "an agreement that will have to be work out (by the) Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA)"

"We will be working with them and usually VFA's become a part of the evolution of our agreements but VFA requires a lot of work and we have to be careful on what we include in this agreement," said Andolong.

"We're open to it if it will eventually happen but we will have to study it," he said.

"I think it's something that both parties were really looking forward to and Japan is really active in this region so as the secretary said we are building our relation with everyone in the region," he added.

When asked how the possible VFA with Japan will be different from the Visiting Forces Agreement that the Philippine has with the United States, Andolong noted that every "VFA's are usually crafted and design base on the working relationship between the two countries"

"The VFA with the USA was done with the MDT (Mutual Defense Treaty) as the basis. We don't have an MDT with Japan," he said.

"Maybe they may formalize their participation in Balikatan already every year as a participant. It's anybody's guess but it will be designed based on what their requirements are and what are requirements for us," he added.

It can be recalled that last April 2022, In an interview with Daily Manila Shimbun, Japanese Ambassador to the Philippines Koshikawa Kazuhiko pointed out the importance of having a legal framework to facilitate reciprocal visits between the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Japan Self-Defense Forces (SDF).

He noted that the reciprocal access agreement is like a visiting forces agreement (VFA).

"We have been facilitating reciprocal visits to know each other. If we have the legal framework, we can promote much more frequent, more in-depth, joint drills, joint exercises and reciprocal visits," he said. DMS