(Eagle News) — Senator Leila de Lima on Wednesday, Jan. 29, slammed the government’s move to terminate the Visiting Forces Agreement, calling it “irrational.”
“To be clear: canceling the VFA is not the best move for the Filipino people and Philippine interests. It can only be good for certain foreign interests,” De Lima said, without elaborating.
She said in the first place, “decisions on matters of national interest should not be based on one man’s pursuit of personal grudge, his bruised ego, or his attempts to look tough when, in truth, he has failed to fulfill his campaign promises and has been, for the last three years making up excuses and crises to cover up his failures.”
She was apparently referring to President Rodrigo Duterte, who had threatened to scrap the VFA, which allows US bases in the country, after the US cancelled Senator Ronald dela Rosa’s US visa.
Dela Rosa had said he believed the cancellation was because of his role in the Philippines’ drug war, which the US has repeatedly criticized.
He said Duterte’s threat was all about “one-sided foreign relations.”
According to De Lima, Duterte’s threat reminded her of “how the Chinese government acted in the early days of the Wuhan outbreak in which it punished the health workers and journalists who were attempting to warn the public about the spreading disease instead of addressing the growing problem.”
“That irrational move not only failed to solve the problem, it made it so, so much worse. A clear example of how irrational tyranny poses a danger to everyone around them,” she said.
“Duterte, instead of addressing the issues of human rights abuses, extrajudicial killings, weaponization of the rule of law, and the surrender of Philippine sovereignty to his foreign overlords, is wasting precious time and resources by lashing out against innocent people…” she added.
Following Duterte’s threat, the Department of Justice said it was asked to study the process of terminating the VFA.
It later said it was told to expand its study to include the impact of terminating the agreement between the Philippines and the US.
