Sotto: Reconsider VFA if US will pass bill suspending security aid to Philippines

From GMA News Online (Sep 24, 2020): Sotto: Reconsider VFA if US will pass bill suspending security aid to Philippines (By DONA MAGSINO)

Senate President Vicente Sotto III on Thursday said the Philippine government should reconsider its Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with the United States if the latter will pass a law suspending police and military aid to the country.
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"We should reconsider the VFA if they pass that... It's actually a big IF. If they pass a bill suspending security aid to us, then what will the VFA stand for?" Sotto, a strong proponent of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, said in a message.

Pennsylvania Representative Susan Wild introduced the Philippine Human Rights Bill to the US Congress in response to the passage of the controversial Philippine anti-terror law which she saw as an attack against activists and political dissenters of the Duterte administration.

Senate committee on national defense chairperson Panfilo Lacson acknowledged that the filing of the bill was within the US lawmakers' rights as members of their own Congress but he warned that the US would also be at stake of losing something if it would approve the measure.

"If adopted and approved, it will not only be our loss but theirs as well considering that a major part of the security assistance being extended to the Philippines is used to combat terrorism which knows no borders nor timing, and they know that for a fact," Lacson, principal sponsor of the anti-terror law, said in a statement.

"And since the RP-US Visiting Forces Agreement is still existing, they may have to resolve that as a legal issue in their deliberations," he added.

After formally seeking the termination of VFA in February, the Philippine government backpedaled and suspended for six months the abrogation of the treaty which governs the presence of US soldiers conducting military exercises in the country.

Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin previously said the suspension of the military accord's abrogation was made in light of "political and other developments in the region."

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/757000/sotto-reconsider-vfa-if-us-will-pass-bill-suspending-security-aid-to-philippines/story/