President Rodrigo Duterte believes United States President Donald Trump “deserves to be reelected” for understanding and respecting the Philippines’ decision to terminate the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), Malacañang said.
“PRRD (President Duterte) welcomes President Trump’s remarks and he is glad that the American President understands and respects his decision to end the Visiting Forces Agreement,” said presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo in a statement on Saturday, February 15.
“It is President Trump’s circumspect and judicious reaction to the termination of the VFA that made PRRD give the following remarks: ‘President Trump is a good President and he deserves to be re-elected,’” he added.
Trump on February 12 said he was “fine” with Duterte’s order to terminate the VFA with the country.
“But I — I really don’t mind. If they would like to do that, that’s fine. We’ll save a lot of money. You know, my views are different than other people. I view it as, ‘Thank you very much. We save a lot of money,’” the U.S. president said.
Panelo pointed out Duterte would have reacted the same way if he was in Trump’s shoes while musing that Trump would have also ordered to end the agreement if he was the Philippines’ leader.
“The president said that if President Trump were a Filipino and the Philippine president, given his character and principled stand on a matter of national interest, he would have done exactly the same thing he had done, and if he (PRRD) were the U.S. president, he would have given the same reaction,” Panelo said.
The spokesman also reiterated that Duterte is firm on the country being self-reliant when it comes to defense and security.
“The time to strengthen our defense capabilities has come. Reliance on another country to defend our motherland from whoever desires to threaten our territorial integrity as well as to assault our sovereignty will only further weaken and stagnate our already limited resources,” he said.
“As the president says in rationalizing why we have to stand alone and depending on our own resources in fighting the enemies of the state: ‘If not now, when ?’” he added.
PH support for Trump
Aside from Duterte, Filipinos largely also expressed support for Trump, according to a Pew Research Center survey released last month.
Results from the nonpartisan fact tank’s survey found that 77% of Filipinos said they are confident that Trump would do the “right thing” concerning world affairs, while 19% believed otherwise.
The Philippines showed the most positive review for the U.S. president among 32 other countries surveyed.
The Pew survey released in January was conducted across 33 countries from May 18 to October 2, 2019 using face-to-face interviews among 36,923 respondents.
