Senator Risa Hontiveros on Tuesday, April 13, said Malacañang should stop tolerating China’s “duplicitous strategy” and bullying by ditching its “special friendship” with Beijing in favor of protecting the country’s assets in the West Philippine Sea and it’s over-all sovereignty.
At the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) forum on the West Philippine Sea (WPS), Hontiveros said it is imperative for the Duterte administration to assert the country’s rights to its own exclusive economic zones (EEZ) and tell Beijing to withdraw its ships in the Julian Felipe Reef and other maritime territories of the Philippines.
“The Chinese like to tell others to refrain from irresponsible behavior—but their recent behavior has been far from honest or responsible. The Chinese like to tell others to avoid actions that threaten bilateral relations as well as the peace and stability in the region—but it is Chinese greed for territory, power and hegemony that threatens to suck the world into a regional conflict,” Hontiveros said at the forum.
“To convince us of its good intentions, China has given us its vaccines – possibly for free, or perhaps - as many people fear – in exchange for our waters. As I’ve said in previous statements, we must not allow China to shake our hands on vaccines and procurement, but stab us in the back on the West Philippine Sea. But Malacañang has tolerated China’s duplicitous strategy,” she lamented.
Even after the most recent incident at the Ayungin Shoal where the Chinese Navy harassed a boat carrying a team of Filipino journalists, the opposition senator said Malacañang still “likes to call China our friend, likes to talk about our special friendship with China.”
“But this isn’t how a friend treats you. This isn’t even the act of a good neighbor. This is how imperialists have treated their vassals and client states since time immemorial,” Hontiveros pointed out.
“By talking about this so-called ‘special friendship,’ the Palace is telegraphing its incapacity—or, unwillingness—to defy Beijing, further emboldening the latter’s imperial ambitions. Moreover, by letting Beijing demean and abuse our country, the President is only signaling that we are weak; that we will not stand up for ourselves and our interests,” she said.
The Palace, she said, should learn from Indonesia, which was able to acquire COVID-19 vaccines and Chinese investments, while resisting its encroachment into its territory.
She said she believes that China’s aggressive territorial expansion in the WPS and its territorial disputes with other Asian countries in the region is its way of threatening “to draw the whole world into a wider conflict."
“The recent conduct of the Chinese Coast Guard as well as the People’s Liberation Army Navy, or PLAN, make it clear that our freedom of navigation within our own waters has been severely impaired,” Hontiveros noted.
“Our government must rethink its current alliances – and perhaps its allegiances. We must be consistent and firm in standing up for our national interests. We should hold China accountable for the damage she has done to fragile marine ecosystems within our EEZ,” she said.
“We should ensure that our environmental laws, and not China’s, are the laws being implemented and enforced in the WPS,” she appealed.
Hontiveros said she will press the Senate to take up the two resolutions she filed seeking to address China’s construction of artificial islands and to demand compensation for the ecological damage caused by their artificial islands.
“I intend to make these resolutions a priority once the Senate resumes its sessions in May,” she said, referring to Senate Resolution Nos. 369 and 509, respectively.