With abrogation of VFA, monitoring agency's proposed budget down to P12M

With the pending abrogation of the Philippines' Visiting Forces Agreement with the US, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. on Thursday said he cut the proposed budget of the Presidential Commission on Visiting Forces (PCVF) from almost P30 million to just P12 million.

Locsin in his presentation of the P21.96-billion proposed budget of the Department of Foreign Affairs before a Senate subcommittee indicated that P28.09 million was initially earmarked for the attached agency.

"The PCVF's budget must reflect the fact that we have abrogated the VFA, we have merely suspended it, so I think I cut it down to P12 million," Locsin said.

Asked if the an amount would be adequate assuming that the country needed counterpart expenses, Locsin answered in the affirmative.

In February, President Rodrigo Duterte unilaterally decided to abrogate the two-decade-old military accord which governs the conduct of visiting US personnel holding military exercises in the country.

This happened following the cancellation of Senator Ronald "Bato" Dela Rosa's US visa.

Dela Rosa is a close ally of the President and a former Philippine National Police chief who led the pilot implementation of the administration's controversial drug war.

A few months later, in June, the Philippines informed the United States that it was suspending for six months the termination of the VFA "in light of political and other developments in the region." 

Dela Rosa later announced that he got a call from the US embassy. He said he was told his visa could be restored..

Asked if he thought the move to restore his visa prodded the Philippine government to suspend the termination of the VFA, Dela Rosa said he didn't know. -NB, GMA News