VFA official says he's a scapegoat
By Nikko Dizon, Leila B. Salaverria, Inquirer
THE OFFICIAL who is about to lose his job with the proposed abolition of the Presidential Commission on the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFACom) said he was being made the "scapegoat" for the diplomatic debacle of the Subic rape case.
"For two years, I have been doing my job silently, quietly and efficiently until this rape case came along," Zosimo Paredes, the VFACom executive director, said in an interview Tuesday.
"Suddenly I'm the bad boy. They've made me the scapegoat, the sacrificial lamb," he said.
Paredes said he has yet to receive a formal communication on the abolition of the VFACom and the reported creation of a new body to replace it under the Department of Foreign Affairs.
He said he was "puzzled" why the VFACom had to be abolished only to be replaced by a new body which appears to have the same functions as the VFACom.
DFA spokesperson Gilberto Asuque has declined to comment on Paredes' statements.
The VFACom is the agency that monitors the implementation of the VFA, the treaty that covers the conduct of visiting United States soldiers. Not much was known of it until it broke into the newspaper headlines when six US servicemen were accused of raping a Filipino woman at the Subic Bay Freeport last November.
The US has refused to surrender custody of the four accused -- two soldiers were not charged -- to the Philippines citing a VFA provision which gives protection to US troops accused of crimes while taking part in joint war games here.
Paredes, who as VFACom head has been monitoring the rape case, believes the proposal to abolish the VFACom was the result of a vendetta against him by Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago.
Santiago and Cebu Representative Antonio Cuenco are co-chairs of the Legislative Oversight Committee on the RP-US Visiting Forces Agreement.
"I think it's personal. I think this is the continuation of the anti-Paredes barrage of Miriam Defensor Santiago that [Foreign] Secretary [Alberto] Romulo has continued for reasons I do not know," he said.
Santiago earlier castigated Paredes for allegedly making it appear that he had the authority to speak for Cabinet members on issues concerning the VFA.
THE OFFICIAL who is about to lose his job with the proposed abolition of the Presidential Commission on the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFACom) said he was being made the "scapegoat" for the diplomatic debacle of the Subic rape case.
"For two years, I have been doing my job silently, quietly and efficiently until this rape case came along," Zosimo Paredes, the VFACom executive director, said in an interview Tuesday.
"Suddenly I'm the bad boy. They've made me the scapegoat, the sacrificial lamb," he said.
Paredes said he has yet to receive a formal communication on the abolition of the VFACom and the reported creation of a new body to replace it under the Department of Foreign Affairs.
He said he was "puzzled" why the VFACom had to be abolished only to be replaced by a new body which appears to have the same functions as the VFACom.
DFA spokesperson Gilberto Asuque has declined to comment on Paredes' statements.
The VFACom is the agency that monitors the implementation of the VFA, the treaty that covers the conduct of visiting United States soldiers. Not much was known of it until it broke into the newspaper headlines when six US servicemen were accused of raping a Filipino woman at the Subic Bay Freeport last November.
The US has refused to surrender custody of the four accused -- two soldiers were not charged -- to the Philippines citing a VFA provision which gives protection to US troops accused of crimes while taking part in joint war games here.
Paredes, who as VFACom head has been monitoring the rape case, believes the proposal to abolish the VFACom was the result of a vendetta against him by Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago.
Santiago and Cebu Representative Antonio Cuenco are co-chairs of the Legislative Oversight Committee on the RP-US Visiting Forces Agreement.
"I think it's personal. I think this is the continuation of the anti-Paredes barrage of Miriam Defensor Santiago that [Foreign] Secretary [Alberto] Romulo has continued for reasons I do not know," he said.
Santiago earlier castigated Paredes for allegedly making it appear that he had the authority to speak for Cabinet members on issues concerning the VFA.
posted by OlongapoCity Zambales at
9:51 AM
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