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MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte “is in no immediate rush” to finally repeal the country’s Visiting Forces Agreement with the United States, his spokesman said Wednesday, as the suspension of termination will end next month.
Duterte suspended his decision to leave the pact in June because he “saw that tensions in the South China Sea were hampering a united response to the COVID-19 crisis,” Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said previously.
“That has the option of extending further for another six months. So I think maybe the president will invoke the second six-month deadline to finally repeal the VFA,” his spokesman Harry Roque told CNN Philippines.
“But anyway, what I am saying is that there is no immediate rush for the president to decide because the notice we send to Americans gives them at least a year of margin before it is repealed.”
The rescission was initially made on February 11, 2020. According to the VFA, which governs the conduct of US troops in the country, the repeal of the pact takes effect 180 days after the US government receives the notification. .
An extension of the revocation would boost the life of the deal until the final year of Duterte’s single constitutionally-ordered term, which ends in June 2022.
The pact, which came into effect in 1999, is key to the broader military alliance between the United States and the Philippines, supporting hundreds of joint military activities per year, as well as rapid disaster relief and ongoing counterterrorism efforts.
The Philippine Army receives significant US training and equipment, garnering $ 554.55 million in US security assistance between 2016 and 2019.
US President Donald Trump had dismissed the concerns about the VFA, saying, “Okay, we’ll save a lot of money.”
–With reports from Agence France-Presse
Rodrigo Duterte, Harry Roque, Malacanang, VFA, Visiting Forces Agreement, VFA Extension, PH-US VFA
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