A ranking official from the Chinese embassy in Manila said it would eventually release the recording of a supposed phone call between its diplomat and a Philippine military official who agreed to a "new model" in the management of the dispute in the West Philippine Sea.
The official, who requested anonymity, said in an interview Tuesday, May 7, that the supposed recording would gradually come out as the Philippine government repeatedly denied the truthfulness of any agreement that the Philippines allegedly entered into.
Wiretapping—or the recording of a communication, among other acts—is illegal under the Philippine law.
But diplomats have "immunity from the criminal jurisdiction of the receiving state," according to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, a United Nations' treaty that the Philippines, among other countries, ratified.
The official and his team let Manila Bulletin and one other media outlet hear the purported conversation, which ran for about two minutes.
They also provided the purported phone call's transcript that identified the official from the Philippine side as "AFP WESCOM (Armed Forces of the Philippines Western Command) chief" and from the Chinese side as "Chinese diplomat."
The phone call, according to the diplomatic source, happened in January 2024.
The purported conversation between the two sides was straightforward. It was about "technicalities" of deployment to the contested water.
"Technicalities" was the term used by the Chinese embassy official, who had also a set of reporters on April 25, when he first disclosed that it was the AFP WESCOM chief that agreed to the new model.
Manila Bulletin is still trying to verify with the AFP WESCOM, the Department of National (DND) and the National Security Council (NSA), the veracity of the information as well as the recording.
Meanwhile, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) refused to make any comment.
Previously, various government agencies already warned of narratives that China has been creating supposedly to spread misinformation over the West Philippine Sea—a part of the South China Sea that it contests to be its own.
DND Secretary Gibo Teodoro, on May 5, said DND is not a party to any new model and China's claim is only a "devious machination." Beijing is also only trying to "advance another falsehood in order to divide our people and distract us from their unlawful presence and actions in our EEZ [exclusive economic zone]," he said.
National Security Adviser Eduardo Año said China's claim of a new model "is absolutely absurd, ludicrous and preposterous," and the timing of the such a claim "is clearly meant to distract us."
The DFA also made it clear that it is only the President who can approve or authorize any agreement pertaining to the West Philippine Sea.
DFA added that "no cabinet-level official of the Marcos administration has agreed to any Chinese proposal."