USAID continues programs in PH despite Duterte tirades

WASHINGTON—Despite President Duterte’s public pronouncement that the Philippines could survive without US development assistance, his administration continues to work with the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

“We continue to have programs with them and no one has asked us to leave or to discontinue … We continue to work together,” said Gloria Steele, acting assistant administrator for Usaid’s Bureau for Asia.

In fact, the USAID team in Manila held its first meeting with its Philippine counterparts last January under the administrations of Mr. Duterte and US President Donald Trump.

Health Secretary Paulyn Ubial was expected to meet with USAID officials here, as well as her counterparts in the Trump administration, Filipino journalists learned at the meeting with Steele and her Usaid colleagues in Washington.

Representatives of media organizations were on a two-week US State Department-sponsored Foreign Press Centers reporting tour.

USAID administers the US government’s socioeconomic development assistance to other countries.

Steele said the Duterte administration had requested Usaid to continue with its programs that range from education to health to promoting resiliency in the face of disasters.

“I think on the implementation level, they have asked us to continue because there is unfinished business. There is work to be done. Like I said, our whole goal was to make this a sustainable program so that Filipinos could carry this on by themselves,” she said.