President tells Cabinet not to visit U.S. amid blacklist
MANILA — President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered all members of his Cabinet not to travel to the United States after Washington blacklisted his former national police chief over the government’s drug war, which has left thousands dead, a top aide said Thursday.
The order comes as Duterte has ratcheted up his threats against the U.S., the Philippines’ longtime military ally, including with warnings of reduced cooperation between the armed forces of the two countries.
“Last night, the president issued a directive for Cabinet members not to travel to the U.S.,” Interior Secretary Eduardo Ano told an annual breakfast forum of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines. “We will abide with the instruction of the president.”
He said that Duterte had issued the directive after his former national police chief, Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, recently learned from the U.S. State
Department that his visa was revoked.
Dela Rosa said he had not been told the reason for the denial, although he suspected that it was because of his part in carrying out the drug war under Duterte’s direction.
That campaign has resulted in the deaths of nearly 6,000 suspected addicts and drug dealers, and, rights groups say, some innocent civilians.
Dela Rosa subsequently retired but was among several Duterte allies who won a seat in the Philippine Senate last year.
The brutality and brazenness of the killings has shocked many in this largely Catholic country, with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch leading a campaign to help families of the victims take their case to the International Criminal Court.
But Duterte last year moved to undo a treaty that recognized that court’s jurisdiction and insisted that he would not be tried by a foreign court.
Washington has for decades been one of the Philippines’ most reliable partners. The two are bound by a 1951 mutual defense treaty that calls on each to come to the other’s defense in the face of foreign aggression.
But Duterte has recently warned the United States that he would abrogate a defense agreement, the Visiting Forces Agreement, which allows for largescale U.S. military exercises in the Philippines, unless Washington “corrected” its visa denial of dela Rosa.