MANILA, Philippines — President Duterte was right about ruling out another Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with other allies after serving a notice of termination of the defense arrangement with the United States, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said yesterday.
“President is right. No more VFAs even with other countries. We stand by our own guns by buying our own with a defense budget commensurate to the threats to our sovereignty,” Locsin tweeted.
“The US protected us from Soviet/Chinese communism, stopped the fall of the Philippine domino by fighting like hell in Vietnam and deterred another round of reef-grabbing. Time to pay our own way to our own sovereign defense. Then US will be even more dependable ally,” he said.
On orders from Duterte through Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, Locsin signed on Tuesday the notice of termination and announced on Twitter that the notice was received the same day by Deputy Chief of Mission John Law of the US embassy in Manila.