Tuesday 10 / June / 2025
Manila: The Philippines has banned government employees from travelling to Canada as a row between the two countries escalates.
Officials at the presidential palace confirmed a memorandum had been signed banning government trips to Canada.
According to the presidential palace, President Rodrigo Duterte made the decision following the north american country's delay in retrieving 69 containers of trash dumped by a Canadian company in the Philippines in 2013.
Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea signed the memorandum directing “all department secretaries and heads of agencies, government-owned and controlled corporations and government financial institutions to refrain from issuing travel authorities for official trips to Canada.”
The memo also directed heads of government agencies to “reduce official interaction with representatives of the Canadian government.”
“We maintain that these directives are consistent with our stance on the diminished diplomatic relations with Canada starting with the recall of our Ambassador and Consul-General in that country in light of Canada's failure to retrieve its containers of garbage unlawfully shipped to the Philippines,” said Panelo in a statement.
On 16 May, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr ordered the recall of Philippine envoys due to Canada's failure to retrieve its waste.
Panelo said Palace has also rejected the offer of the Canadian government to ship out the trash by the end of June.
Earlier, Panelo announced that Duterte was willing to pay a private shipping company to return the garbage to Canada.
Panelo also threatened that if Canada did not accept the trash, the Philippine government would “leave the same within its territorial waters or 12 nautical miles out to sea from the baseline of any of their country's shores.”
