Malacañang has downplayed the warning of communist leader Jose Maria Sison that some pro-America officials in the military were planning to stage a coup d’etat against President Rodrigo Duterte.
“That’s wishful thinking. It’s a pipe dream. It will never come to fruition. Filipinos — the majority or overwhelming [number] of [them] — they are supportive of the President,” he told reporters.
Sison, who is in self-exile in The Netherlands, said Duterte had “aroused” the interest of some Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) officials, who were pro-United States after he terminated the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) between Manila and Washington.
He said the coup plotters were “quite a number” of military officials who were “assets” of the US Defense Intelligence Agency and Central Intelligence Agency, and were “loyal to their pocketbooks rather than to the Filipino people.”
“Just by giving the US a notice of terminating VFA, he has aroused quite a number of pro-US military officers to talk against him and curse him for prejudicing hundreds of projects under the VFA. Some of these officers have been talking about a coup,” Sison said in a statement on Saturday.
But Panelo shrugged off Sison’s claim, saying the termination of VFA would not prompt military officials to unseat Duterte.
“Wala ‘yun (That’s not an issue). The military is 100 percent in support of the President. The AFP has already expressed its support to the President,” he said.
US President Donald Trump has downplayed Duterte’s notice of termination of the VFA, saying the move would save the US “a lot of money.”
