From the Philippine News Agency (Jul 8): De Lima asked to issue legal opinion on proposal allowing US, Japan to use military bases in PHL
http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=1&sid=&nid=1&rid=542113
A fisherfolk group Monday asked Justice Secretary Leila M. De Lima to issue a legal opinion that puts question on the constitutionality of the proposal to allow the United States government and other military allies of the Philippines
In a three-page letter to De Lima dated July 8, 2013, members of the Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas, through its vice chair Salvador France and Peter Gonzalez, chair-Southern Tagalog, said they believe the Justice Department is "constitutionally, politically and morally obliged to issue a legal opinion that questions the legality of such proposal."
"We ask the honorable chief of the justice department to break her silence and tell the people in Malacanang that the proposal to give greater access to US, Japan and other junior partners of Washington DC for rated-A military intervention and aggression all over the country is a flagrant violation of the 1987 Constitution and grand affront to the sovereign rights of more than 100 million Filipinos," they said in their letter.
President Benigno S. Aquino III defended the plan to give the US and Japan access to the former US bases in the Philippines
The government dismissed reports the Philippines planned to build a new air and naval bases that US forces could use to counter China 's creeping presence in the West Philippine Sea .
http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=1&sid=&nid=1&rid=542113