While President Rodrigo Duterte may consider his statements about the West Philippine Sea issue during the May 2016 elections a joke, Senator Panfilo Lacson said such pronouncements are no laughing matter.
Duterte, on Monday night, admitted that his promise to ride a jet ski to Spratly Island, one of the maritime territories being claimed by China, as just a “pure campaign joke.”
Lacson, in an ANC Headstart interview on Tuesday, May 11 said he views Duterte’s latest pronouncements as problematic.
“It’s very hard to read his mind. He may be sending mixed signals such that we don’t know if he’s serious or joking. His spokesperson would say he is joking, but there are times he seems serious in his statements. We don’t know anymore. We have a very big problem in our hand," Lacson said.
“When he addresses the nation, we don’t know when he is joking or serious. Is it up to us to understand which is which? It's really hard for Filipinos,” he added.
Lacson, who chairs the Senate Committee on National Defense and Security, also said that even some members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) are also getting confused with the President’s foreign policy statements while China continues to make incursions into the country’s territories in the WPS.
Lacson reminded that key issues like the country’s sovereignty in it is own exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the WPS region is significant as it also involves the nation’s food security.
“In the meantime, our fishermen are harassed in our own EEZ. We cannot fish and we’re losing billions and that affects our economy. China has become of late very aggressive to the point they rammed a commercial fishing vessel owned by Filipinos though, of course, they compensated,” he said.
“We buy galunggong from China but the fish came from our waters. Isn’t it an irony we own the fish we are buying?” he pointed out.
Lacson reiterated it is high-time that the Philippines strengthen its ties with its natural allies such as the United States, Japan, Australia and European countries.
These countries, he said, also knows that if China controls the maritime lanes in the West Philippine Sea, they too, would be “economically affected.”
“Each country works in its own interest. We should take advantage of that, that they have their own national interest to pursue in the WPS,” he said.