‘Duterte wants DFA to send notice of VFA termination’

Duterte to call Trump

MANILA, Philippines — President Duterte is bent on abrogating the country’s Visiting Forces Agreement with the United States, his spokesman said yesterday, and wanted the notice of VFA termination sent to the US government.

Chief Presidential Legal Counsel and spokesman Salvador Panelo said that Duterte’s order to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) would be relayed through Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea.

As of last night, Medialdea told The STAR he had yet to receive the order from Duterte.

The other day, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. told a Senate panel that he had prepared the notice of VFA termination but had not sent it yet to the US, adding, “I will send it upon the direct personal order of the President and no one else.”

Locsin said the VFA needed a “vigorous review” as he warned of the consequences to the country of its abrogation.

Last night, Panelo said, referring to Duterte, “The instruction is, he said, ‘I will instruct the executive secretary to tell the SFA (secretary of foreign affairs) to send the notice of termination to the US government.”

Panelo also disclosed that Duterte would soon be talking by phone with US President Donald Trump.

“Yes, we are expected to talk,” Panelo said, quoting Duterte.

Panelo said Duterte might simply congratulate Trump over his acquittal in his impeachment trial.

Duterte specified no agenda in the phone conversation, Panelo said as he noted that the two leaders are friends: “Wala naman siyang sinabi na agenda. Hindi ba magkaibigan naman yung dalawang yun?”

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said yesterday that Duterte had also made it clear to him that he was determined to scrap the VFA.

“The President said he is terminating the VFA. I asked for clarification and he (is not changing his decision),” Lorenzana said in a text message to reporters.

Although the US has yet to be officially notified of the President’s decision, the defense chief said that everything else now has become irrelevant in view of Duterte’s firming up his position.

“The President, as the ultimate authority on foreign relations, has decided. And whatever he decides on this matter has my unqualified support,” Lorenzana said.

The defense chief noted that the Philippines has greatly benefited from the VFA in terms of better military equipment, training and humanitarian disaster response (HADR).

He stressed that until the VFA is terminated, all planned joint military exercises between the two countries would go on.

Formal termination of the VFA takes effect 180 days upon receipt of official notice by the US.

There are ongoing military exercises between Filipino and US Special Forces in several locations in Palawan.

The Senate committee on foreign relations began Thursday its review of the VFA and the country’s other defense arrangements with the US – the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA).

Results of the review will be discussed in the next round of Mutual Defense Board-Security Engagement Board (MDB-SEB), said Lorenzana, clarifying reports that quoted him as saying that the US has rejected a review of the decades-old defense pact.

“I did not say that they rejected it. Initially, they said they prefer that we do not touch the document. But a low-level review is ongoing on both sides and the result will be discussed in the next MDB-SEB,” Lorenzana said.

Two years ago, Lorenzana himself ordered lawyers of the Department of National Defense to review the 1951 MDT – forged at the height of the Cold War – to clear ambiguities in the alliance.

He issued the order amid China’s aggressive activities in the South China Sea.

“I want to clarify what is really covered by the MDT because for them Scarborough Shoal is not part of the metropolitan Philippines. For us, ever since the Spanish time, it’s part of our territory,” Lorenzana was quoted in a report as saying.

MDT is viewed as the mother of all Philippine-US defense agreements. President Duterte vowed to have the VFA terminated in response to the US cancellation of Sen. Ronald dela Rosa’s visa.

The US did not cite its reason, but it was widely believed that it was because of Dela Rosa’s active role in the Duterte administration’s bloody drug war when he was national police chief.

Under the VFA, US forces are free to enter the country on rotation basis.

EDCA, meanwhile, allows the US military to preposition its equipment and logistics inside its own established facilities to be located within key camps of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.