Malacañang said on Wednesday the revocation of the country's Generalized Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+) status perks is a long shot as the European Parliament has no power to do that.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque made the statement after European lawmakers recommended in a resolution to revoke the tariff perks for Filipino goods over "serious" human rights violations in the country.
In an interview with CNN Philippines, Roque said the European Parliament has no power to revoke a country's GSP+ status.
"That's a far shot kasi ang (since the) European Parliament wala silang ganyang kapangyarihan (doesn't have that power)," he told "The Source" on Wednesday.
"It's like really a barangay council asking the Department of Foreign Affairs, through a resolution, recommending the doing of something. It's not within the functions of the European Parliament," he added.
Even if the European Parliament can do such a thing, Roque said the Philippines cannot do anything about it. He reiterated his challenge to the European Union (EU) to just get on with it.
"Even if they were to push through with this decision, wala naman tayong magagawa, eh (There's nothing we can do about it)," he said.
"If that's really their decision, if they want to impose additional hardships on our people at the time of the pandemic, go ahead if that will make them happy," he added.
Roque reiterated that it will just be history repeating itself.
"We have suffered under the hands of European colonials for 400 years. History repeats itself but we will be uncowed. We will fight and we will uphold our independence," he said.
Meanwhile, Roque does not believe that it was necessary to declare as persona non grata the European lawmakers who pushed to revoke the Philippines's GSP+ status.
"I don't think we need to bring it to that extent. But the message is clear: We are no longer slaves of European countries. We are no longer slaves of any foreign country for that matter," he said.
"No one can dictate the manner by which we uphold the rule of law in the Philippines. No one can question our resolve to protect our people from the scourge of illegal drugs and terrorism," he added.