{"id":247039,"date":"2020-03-04T21:23:56","date_gmt":"2020-03-05T02:23:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=247039"},"modified":"2020-03-04T21:23:56","modified_gmt":"2020-03-05T02:23:56","slug":"dutertes-stance-on-vfa-termination-unchanged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/03\/04\/dutertes-stance-on-vfa-termination-unchanged\/","title":{"rendered":"Duterte\u2019s stance on VFA termination \u2018unchanged\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
FILE: President Rodrigo Roa Duterte at Fort Bonifacio in Taguig City on January 13, 2020. KING RODRIGUEZ\/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 President Rodrigo Duterte would not be swayed by anyone to overturn his decision to revoke the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) between the Philippines and the United States, Malaca\u00f1ang said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo told Palace reporters that Duterte\u2019s position remains \u201cunchanged,\u201d despite supposed efforts by Washington to save VFA.<\/p>\n

\u201cHindi<\/em>. Unchanged\u00a0na ang<\/em>\u00a0position\u00a0niya<\/em>\u00a0(No, his position is unchanged),\u201d Panelo said, when quizzed if Duterte would change his mind about his move to abrogate VFA.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Duterte said the US is trying to make amends with his administration following the termination of the military pact.<\/p>\n

Duterte\u2019s pronouncement came after he met with US Ambassador to the Philippines Sung Kim.<\/p>\n

Panelo said it was \u201cnatural\u201d for the US to seek a dialogue with Philippines because the revocation of VFA puts Washington at disadvantage.<\/p>\n

\u201cNatural\u00a0lang yun kasi \u2018di ba<\/em>\u00a0(It was natural because) I\u2019ve been saying all along that it\u2019s at their disadvantage that we abrogated it. So the initiatives are also coming from them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The VFA, signed between Manila and Washington in February 1998, allows American soldiers to visit the Philippines without passport and visa to pave the way for their participation in joint military drills.<\/p>\n

The Philippines, however, sent a formal notice of termination of VFA to the US on February 11.<\/p>\n

The military pact is deemed revoked 180 days after the receipt of the termination notice.<\/p>\n

Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose Manuel Romualdez earlier bared that there are ongoing talks between Manila and Washington to craft a new deal that is \u201csomething similar\u201d to VFA.<\/p>\n

Panelo, however, said the plan has \u201cno blessing\u201d from Duterte.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 President Rodrigo Duterte would not be swayed by anyone to overturn his decision to revoke the Visiting Forces Agreement …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":242077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-ruth-abbey-gita-carlos","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247039","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\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247039"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":247040,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247039\/revisions\/247040"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}