Joma Sison supports Duterte move to end VFA

LUCENA CITY –– In a rare gesture, communist rebel leader Jose Maria “Joma” Sison supported President Duterte’s move to officially terminate the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with the United States.

“I tell Duterte, go right ahead,” Sison, Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder, said in an online interview from Utrecht in The Netherlands on Saturday.

However, Sison still doubted President Duterte’s determination to abrogate a 20-year military accord between the Philippines and the US.

Sison said: “It is a good step unless at some point you (Duterte) step back again.”

“Duterte is notorious for flip-flopping,” Sison said.

On Friday, President Duterte, in a display of decisiveness, instructed Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea to ask the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to send the US government the official notice to terminate the VFA.

But this was after Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr., during the Senate hearing on the VFA termination on Feb. 6, said Duterte supposedly ordered him to hold off transmittal of the termination notice.

A provision under the VFA states that the agreement would remain in force “until the expiration of 180 days from the date on which either party gives the other party notice in writing that it desires to terminate the agreement.”/lzb