Once again, President Rodrigo Roa Duterte vows to terminate the Visiting Forces Agreement with the United States if America will not correct its decision to invalidate the US visa of Senator Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa. The former Philippine National Police (PNP) chief turned politician just a shock of his life when his visa was cancelled by the United States government.

Let me get this entirely correct— this President is willing to sacrifice a very important component of the Mutual Defense of both the US and the Philippines just to defend his close and personal friend, Mr. Senator Bato? That Duterte is willing to compromise the defense of this country just because the United States decided to punish those responsible for what it perceives as the unjust detention of another senator, Senator Leila de Lima?

For one, there is some sense to the argument made forth by Bato that the De Lima affair is a domestic one. Government found what it perceived as pieces of evidence which directly links De Lima to the drug lords based in Muntinlupa. The case stemmed from evidence which reportedly show that De Lima benefitted from the electoral contributions made by drug lords at the Bilibid.

De Lima’s camp had subsequently and strongly denied the charge and defended her by saying that monies which they used in the electoral victory by De Lima six years ago were a combination of personal funds and contributions made by her former clients and supporters. It seems hard for Duterte’s minions to believe that such amounts could secure a seat for the former election lawyer since their bets spent close to half a billion pesos each, just to muscle their way to the Senate.

What made this De Lima affair an international one is the fact that it is now become an international case of human rights which the international community is now using against Duterte. Since this coincided and probably became the apex in the anti-drugs campaign of Duterte made the international community stand up and notice. Had it been that De Lima was charged in a separate occasion and not during the anti-drugs campaign, this could have been simply been treated as a normal criminal case.

Anyway, let’s go back to our main topic.

Is Duterte correct in again, threatening the United States with a punishment by cancelling the VFA? How important is the VFA for us, Filipinos?

The VFA is basically a means between the US and the Philippines to learn from one another though joint military exercises. Admittedly, these military exercises benefit our forces because these expose our soldiers to the latest military and war technologies. Frankly, the US does not benefit from us because they are already generations ahead of us when it comes to warfare, and we need such exercises to be able to at least become par with other militaries in the region.

Such exercises enable our security forces to engage militant terrorists in Sulu and elsewhere. It likewise give us a sense of security knowing that the greatest and the most formidable force ever in the world is there to defend us when push comes to shove. We have numerous external security issues to deal with, and knowing that such technologies are available for our disposal every, single, time, is a great thing.

Of course, there are legitimate concerns also with VFA, particularly in the issue of jurisdiction when it comes to criminal offenses. Yet balancing these with the benefits which our country gets from this agreement, makes VFA a very significant peg in the defense of our country.

Duterte knows this and may be probably be just bluffing when he urged the US government to talk about VFA. Yet, to link it with the cancellation of Bato’s visa is frankly, capricious and exposes the obviously highly personalistic way Duterte and his men treat foreign relations. We Filipinos should be better than this.