PRESIDENT Duterte’s inclination to get the public pulse before making a final decision on the move to terminate the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with the United States is a welcome development to Senate President Vicente Sotto III, who has urged him to keep it.
In fact, Sotto said senators are even looking to expand VFAs with Japan and other allies amid continuing incursions by China in the West Philippine Sea. “We need to preserve the VFA, we cannot readily abrogate it,” Senate Vicente Sotto told DWIZ over the weekend, speaking partly in Filipino.
He added that Duterte was probably studying the matter well because of the implications.
The President, who has been critical of the US and blamed it for not weighing in against China in the Scarborough Shoal standoff in 2012, had sent notice to Washington of its intent to terminate the agreement, which defense experts deem vital to keeping the spirit of the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT). During the pandemic, however, Duterte caused issuance of a notice of suspension of the abrogation process.
The Senate leader surmised the President may just be airing an option knowing that there is a need for prior notice before the decision can be finalized. “The President knows there are still 90 days, or maybe 130 days of notice before it can be finalized; maybe he wants to study it well.”
Sotto added in the DWIZ interview, “As I see it, it is not the time to do it, in the first place…we need more allies” Sotto said, suggesting instead that a VFA be forged as well with Japan.
Sotto disclosed he was recently in talks with the Japanese Ambassador, “and they are very willing.” He added, “We need allies; we need a Visiting Forces Agreement with Japan.”
This, even as he stressed the need to maintain the VFA with the US, setting aside criticisms over continued US military presence in the country. The benefits of the VFA with Washington are “substantial,” adding that those who focus on the negative aspects of US presence in the country would do well to consider what would happen “if we are attacked in the West Philippine Sea. Can we do something about that? None. Maybe the brave ones can face the enemy first. But we in the Macho Bloc will look for someone to match” the Chinese might.
“We will have America face them,” Sotto said, and likened the situation to facing bullies in high school, when, during instances that he cannot deal with someone bigger than him, “I would call my big brother and they will run away.”
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