Philippines rejects calls to end U.S. military pact

MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippine government has rejected calls by some lawmakers to abrogate a treaty with Washington allowing U.S. troops to train local soldiers in their fight against Muslim militants, officials said on Thursday.

The United States has poured an average of 2 billion pesos ($40 million) in security, economic and humanitarian aid to the Philippines since 2000 when relations were strengthened by the military-to-military pact, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita told reporters.

"For the moment, we are for the stay of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA)," Ermita, a retired army general, told reporters after a legislative hearing on security relations with the Philippines' former colonial ruler.

"It is in the interest of the Philippines that we have the VFA, an agreement under the Mutual Defence Treaty since 1951. It provides proper security balance and stability in the Philippines."

Since 2002, an average of 300 soldiers from the U.S. Special Operations Command have been deployed in half a dozen locations in the southern Philippines, helping train and advise Filipino troops in the fight against Islamic militants with ties to al Qaeda.

But some lawmakers claimed the U.S. troops had extended their presence to actual combat against the Abu Sayyaf, a small Islamic militant group engaged in bombing and kidnapping activities on two remote southern islands.

U.S. troops are allowed to defend themselves if attacked but are forbidden from offensive operations, according to the agreement.

Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, head of the foreign relations panel at the upper house of Congress, said the government must end and renegotiate a new security deal with the United States because the current treaty violates the country's constitution.

"If the U.S. wants to use Philippine territory in its alleged war on terror, they will have to negotiate a treaty with the Philippines," Santiago said in a statement.

"In the meantime, in my humble view, the presence of U.S. troops in Mindanao, and even worse, their participation in combat operations, are illegal."