Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano said that the Philippines will no longer accept new grants from European Union as he believed that to continue accepting assistance from the EU is tantamount to allowing it to interfere in the country’s domestic affair.
“We have an issue about how we are treated as a sovereign nation, and these are donations or grants but usually there are agreements, but they use it as an excuse to criticize us on certain aspects of our governance,” said Cayetano.
According to him, President Rodrigo Duterte insisted on this decision even as EU denied that the recent visit of a group who claimed to be of them and lambasted the administration’s war on drugs was not an official mission from the Union.
“The whole point of his speech is we have a problem on drugs, but certain groups are giving wrong facts, fake news. Our image is being destroyed all over the world, so that’s why he’s decided to not accept new grants from EU for now,” Cayetano said.
However, he assured that the trade will not be affected even if Philippines would reject EU’s new grants.
DAILY NEWS ROUND UP FOR 10/ 19 /17