The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of the Philippines-US Visiting Forces Agreement, allowing convicted rapist Lance Corporal Daniel Smith to remain at the custody of the US embassy.

Voting 9-4, the Tribunal junked the petition of former Senators Jovito Salonga and Wigberto Tanada to declare the VFA unconstitutional on the ground that it supposedly derogates on the exclusive power of the SC to promulgate rules of procedure in courts.

Those in the minority were Chief Justice Reynato Puno and Justices Antonio Carpio, Alicia Austria-Martinez and Conchita Carpio-Morales.

In upholding the VFA, the magistrates sustained the Court of Appeals ruling allowing Smith to be detained inside the US embassy. The CA argued that the courts “may not directly intervene in the exercise of diplomacy by the appropriate political organ of the government.”

The petitioners included retired CA Justice Jose dela Rama, lawyers Romeo Capulong, Hary Roque and Florin Hilbay and Makati Regional Trial Court Benjamin Pozon, who convicted Smith. Smith was found guilty of raping a 23-year-old woman at the Subic Bay Free Port on Nov. 2005. His case is on appeal at the CA.

The Court resolved two principal issues on the petitions namely:

1. whether the right to custody of Smith during the pendency of his appeal belongs to the Philippine government or the US authorities and
2. whether there was contempt of court committed in the transfer of accused Daniel Smith from the custody of the court to that of the US authorities pending appeal.