Philippines’ military chief backed President Rodrigo Duterte’s termination of the 1998 Visiting Forces Agreement and said doing so would allow the Philippines to expand its modernisation programme and its engagement with Australia and Japan. — Reuters pic
“You know these sentiments of soldiers, we are all high morale,” he told reporters. “It will make us more eager to build up our own capabilities.” Duterte’s spokesman Salvador Panelo said US disagreement with the firebrand president’s move was motivated by its own strategic interests, and that it was time for the Philippines to be militarily independent.
The VFA is the legal framework for the thousands of rotating US troops involved in as many as 300 joint exercises a year in the Philippines. Some lawmakers hope it can be saved in the 180 days before the termination takes effect, and worry that without it, two other US military agreements will be irrelevant.
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