According to the head of the Presidential Press Service, the Philippines plans to tighten restrictions on entry of U.S. citizens in case of sanctions imposed by Washington.
The Philippines has denied entry to two members of the U.S. Senate and plans to tighten restrictions on entry of U.S. citizens in case of sanctions imposed by Washington. This was reported by Reuters on Friday, citing a spokesman for the Philippine President Salvador Ponello.
It is noted that the already adopted bans were imposed on Senators Richard Durbin (Democrat from Illinois) and Patrick Leahy (Democrat, from Vermont). According to the head of the presidential press service, measures against all American citizens will be taken in case the United States will impose restrictions on any Filipino official for the arrest of opposition presidential administration Rodrigo Duterte deputy Leila de Lima. “We will not sit idly by if they [the United States] continue to interfere in our affairs as a sovereign state”, – Ponelo added.
It is noted that this step is a response to the U.S. Congress’s adoption of the 2020 budget provisions for sanctions against Filipinos involved in the arrest and imprisonment of De Lima. Senator Leila de Lima of the Philippine Parliament is in jail for violating the drug trafficking law. She has been one of the most active critics of the hard-line policy of incumbent President Rodrigo Duterte on the war on drugs.
Under the current agreement between Washington and Manila, American citizens can stay on the territory of the island state without a visa for 30 days. According to the Philippine government, in the first nine months of 2019 the country was visited by more than 792 thousand Americans, which amounted to about 13% of the total number of foreign visitors.