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MANILA: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte told the United States on Saturday that he would go ahead with his plan to terminate the 1998 Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) unless he could provide vaccines to the coronavirus-ravaged country.
Duterte ordered the termination of the VFA earlier this year, but suspended the six-month countdown in November before the military agreement expired. The agreement allows US soldiers to conduct military exercises in the Philippines.
“If they can’t administer a minimum of 20 million vaccines, they better leave. If there is no vaccine, don’t stay here,” Duterte said during a meeting.
If the United States wants to provide vaccines, it should do so without making “so much noise.”
He noted that the United States was struggling to produce vaccines for its people, with the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer “up to its neck producing them for everyone.” And yet, he said, it was promising to provide many countries with vaccines against the virus.
With more than 469,000 infections and 9,060 deaths, the Philippines has the second highest number of Covid-19 cases and victims in Southeast Asia, after Indonesia.
The Philippines also approved measures on Saturday to curb the spread of new, more infectious coronavirus variants, with Duterte warning of a second lockdown if cases spike before vaccines start.
He extended the existing ban on flights from Britain for two weeks until mid-January and said the Philippines would impose travel restrictions in countries with local community transmission of the variant.
In an emergency meeting with health experts and government officials, Duterte also ordered a 14-day quarantine for passengers who came to or transited through Great Britain, and from countries where the most infectious variant of Covid-19 identified for the first time was detected. there, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, and Japan.
“If (in the meantime) the severity in the numbers demands that we take immediate corrective measures, then we should return to the lockdown,” he said. – PHILIPPINE DAILY INVESTIGATOR / ANN, REUTERS
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