President Duterte said the Philippines should be free of foreign
troops in two years and he would abrogate executive agreements, if
necessary, in order to achieve this end.
Speaking before Japanese businessmen on Wednesday, Duterte detailed
his grievance against the United States for criticizing him over his war
on illegal drugs and explained why he wanted to move away from it.
“I have declared I will pursue an independent foreign policy. I want,
maybe in the next two years, my country [to be] free of the presence of
foreign military troops,” Duterte said at the Philippine Economic Forum
in Tokyo.
“I want them out and if I have to revise or abrogate agreements,
executive agreements, I will,” he added, an apparent reference to the
Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, or EDCA, with the US.
He said the recent war games between the Philippine and the US military would be the last.
“The US is a great country and has helped the Philippines in so many
ways. But it has also colonized the Philippines for 50 years,” he said.
“The Philippines can live without the US,” he said.
“We will survive without the assistance of America. There will be a
lesser quality of life, but as I said, we will survive,” he said.
“If there’s one thing I would like to prove to America and to
everybody is that there is such a thing as the dignity of the Filipino
people,” he added.
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