{"id":246578,"date":"2020-02-29T06:15:02","date_gmt":"2020-02-29T11:15:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=246578"},"modified":"2020-02-29T06:15:02","modified_gmt":"2020-02-29T11:15:02","slug":"sotto-says-majority-of-senators-not-in-favor-of-dutertes-vfa-abrogation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/02\/29\/sotto-says-majority-of-senators-not-in-favor-of-dutertes-vfa-abrogation\/","title":{"rendered":"Sotto says majority of Senators ‘not in favor’ of Duterte’s VFA abrogation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In a media forum in Quezon City on Saturday, February 29, Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III\u00a0said, “Majority, I believe, I\u2019m not sure of the number, perhaps, 12 or more are not in favor of abrogation.” (File Photo<\/a>: Senate of the Philippines\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A “majority” of senators were not approved of the decision of President Rodrigo Duterte to terminate the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with the United States.<\/p>\n

In a media forum in Quezon City on Saturday, February 29, Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III\u00a0said, “Majority, I believe, I\u2019m not sure of the number, perhaps, 12 or more are not in favor of abrogation.”<\/p>\n

The Senate chief said his colleagues were opposing the termination of the two-decade-old military pact because most of them believe that the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT), Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), anti-terrorism, and anti cybercrime and cybersecurity relationship between the Philippines and the US “might be in peril.”<\/p>\n

Sotto also agreed with Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson who earlier said that some members of Duterte’s Cabinet were against the VFA abrogation, although he refused to name them.<\/p>\n

“I’ve heard the same concerns from the Cabinet members themselves so I agree with Senator Lacson,” the Senate President said.<\/p>\n

Lacson’s claim, however, was contrary to Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo’s statement on Friday that “all” Cabinet members were supportive if the Chief Executive’s decision.<\/p>\n

[READ: All Cabinet execs back Duterte\u2019s VFA abrogation<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles, in an interview with CNN Philippines, shared the same sentiment with the Panelo, saying, “‘Pag sinabi ni Pangulo, nagdesisyon na siya na ganiyan, i<\/i>-terminate\u00a0ang<\/i>\u00a0VFA,\u00a0lahat po kami, miyembro ng gabinete ay susuportahan si Pangulong<\/i>\u00a0Duterte (If the President says that he is already decided to terminate the VFA, all of us members of the Cabinet will support President Duterte).”<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, the Philippines, through the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), sent its notice of termination of VFA to the US government, leading to a 180-days countdown until the deal would be formally scrapped.<\/p>\n

US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, shrugged off the Philippines’ decision to terminate the military pact. In fact, it was “fine” with him since America will be able to “save a lot of money.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A “majority” of senators were not approved of the decision of President Rodrigo Duterte to terminate the Visiting Forces Agreement …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":202808,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-joanna-belle-deala","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246578"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":246592,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246578\/revisions\/246592"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}