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Locsin: Time to look for mutual security with 'serious democracies' like Japan, Australia
Locsin: Time to look for mutual security with 'serious democracies' like Japan, Australia
Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said it was time for countries to look for mutual security with other democracies, citing the vanishing of decency in power among American authorities.
Locsin made the statement following reports that Louisiana State Police troopers joked in a group text about beating a Black man and giving him "nightmares for a long time" after a high-speed chase last year.
In a tweet, Locsin said it was probably time for countries all over the world to look for mutual security with other democratic nations.
"As decency in power—the benchmark of democratic societies— significantly vanishes from American life, it is time for other democracies to look for mutual security with the serious democracies that remain," he tweeted early Saturday.
Locsin, in particular, cited countries like Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Australia, and New Zealand.
The Philippines has a mutual defense treaty (MDT) with the United States of America (USA) signed in 1951 that binds the two countries to aid each other in case of foreign aggression.
Aside from the MDT, the Philippines and the US have two other agreements regarding security: the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA).
However, in February last year, President Duterte ordered the termination of the VFA after the US revoked the visa of his close ally Senator Ronald Dela Rosa and after the ban on the entry of officials supposedly behind the arrest and detention of Senator Leila de Lima.
In June 2020, President Duterte suspended the termination of the VFA due to "political and other developments in the region." In January this year, the government suspended the abrogation anew but negotiations continue.
In February, President Duterte said the US should pay up if it wants to keep the VFA with the Philippines, reminding them that they fell short in their part in what he called shared responsibility.
Malacañang has denied that President Duterte was extorting the US and, in fact, said that the Philippines should even be getting more than the amount it was receiving from the US in terms of security assistance, saying it was making the Philippines a "valid military target" of its enemies.
President Duterte, later on, said he was unsure what to do with the VFA anymore, leading him to seek the public's opinion about the situation.
The VFA, signed in 1998 and ratified the following year, allows joint trainings between American and Filipino soldiers in the Philippines and governs the conduct of US troops while they are in the country.