JOLO, Sulu – Senate Defense Committee Chairman Rodolfo Biazon has pressed for the pullout of United States (US) troops from “conflict or combat-prone areas” like Sulu, Basilan and Central Mindanao to avoid a repetition of the September 14 incident here where US troops figured in “firing their weapons” that hit a government office and a mosque here.

Biazon, also co-chair of the Legislative Oversight Committee on the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), has filed Senate Resolution 1370 for the purpose, saying the US troops’ firing of guns at port area here “clearly manifest(ed) the possibility of Filipinos being injured or worst being killed by US soldiers.”

“This is not acceptable,” Biazon said, adding that a recurrence of the incident will strengthen the arguments of sectors that want the VFA abrogated.

Last Wednesday, Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, chair of the Senate Oversight Committee on the VFA, urged Malacañang to renegotiate or terminate the agreement because it was not ratified by the Senate, hardly known to the government and is in violation of the Philippine Constitution.

Santiago said the US, as the other contracting state, should have treated the VFA as a treaty and not as a mere executive agreement.

“Only the preamble, not the text, of the VFA mentions the ancient Mutual Defense Treaty, which does not even provide for automatic US help in case of actual attack on the Philippines,” Santiago said in her privilege speech.