Tuguegarao City, Cagayan – Since previously deciding to terminate the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with the United States of America in February of 2020, President Rodigro Roa Duterte has made his decision to recall the cease in agreement on Friday, July 30.
Philippines Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said that Duterte’s decisive turn on the agreement resulted after the President’s meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III on Thursday, July 29.
Lorenzana clarified that the agreement with the United States will resume as if it never was terminated.
“The President decided to retract the termination letter for the VFA, and is in full force again, there is no termination letter that is pending,” Lorenzana said.
The Defense Secretary of the Philippines also bared that the Philippine Ambassador to the U.S. Babe Romualdez and Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. may have contributed to the President’s move to halt the cancellation of the VFA.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and threats in the South China Sea, the process of the termination of the VFA was suspended last June 2020.
President Duterte was also thanked by the Pentagon for now retaining the two decade old agreement between PH and the U.S. TNF