Palace: Time for U.S. to save VFA

It is the “right time” for the United States to accept President Rodrigo Duterte’s demand for payment so it could keep the decades-old Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with Manila, Malacañang said Thursday.

Presidential spokesperson Secretary Harry Roque said the American government should take Duterte’s recent pronouncement as an opportunity to convince the Philippine leader to keep the military accord.

“It’s the right timing when the President said they have to pay up now. It’s because the President already decided that he wants VFA revoked,” Roque said.

“If they want VFA to continue, now is the chance because another signing of the deal is needed. Perhaps, they can say how much they can give. If they have nothing to pay, that’s fine,” the official added.

Last week, Duterte said the US should pay up if it wants to keep the VFA to remain in place, a remark that Vice President Leni Robredo and Senator Panfilo Lacson slammed, saying it could be taken as “extortion.”

The president, who has sought closer ties with Beijing and Moscow, also lamented the supposed unfulfilled promises of the US as he accused Washington of taking “so much from us,” even if “so much” of Philippine demands “were not delivered at all.”

He said he once told former President Donald Trump that the Philippines needed US-made guided rockets, but he claimed it remains unheeded and “still in the air.”

It was not immediately clear how Duterte wants the US to pay a certain toll, but his remarks came after Beijing’s top legislative body passed a law which empowers its coast guard to use “all necessary means” to deter threats posed by foreign vessels in waters “under China’s jurisdiction.”

Philippine officials said discussions were scheduled to take place this month to discuss whether it would keep the accord, a year after the administration first announced it was unilaterally terminating the troops’ deal.

Duterte’s initial decision to abrogate the deal was his response to the US visa cancellation of his ally Sen. Ronald de la Rosa, who led his notorious war on drugs.

The withdrawal period has been twice extended to create what Philippine officials have said is a window for better terms to be agreed on.

Signed in 1998 and ratified a year later, the VFA allows American forces to enter the Philippines without passport and visa to allow them to participate in joint military drills in the country.