Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 27) — President Rodrigo Duterte put the matter to rest as far as raising maritime disputes in a coming leaders’ summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is concerned.
In an ambush interview on Thursday afternoon in Malacañang, Duterte said he would not be bringing up the arbitral ruling, which favored the Philippines against China’s sweeping claim in the South China Sea, because the issue was between Manila and Beijing — and not for the regional leaders to discuss on Saturday.
“We will skip… I will skip the arbitral ruling. It is not an issue here in the ASEAN. Code of conduct, maybe. But arbitral, it’s only between China and the Philippines.” he said.
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Duterte said coming up with the code would be an issue because it involved the use of South China Sea as passageway for trade.
When asked if his decision to leave out arbitral talks was prompted by China, the 72-year-old chief executive said no.
“Nobody tells me what to do or what to say.”
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Another reason, the President pointed out, was bringing up the matter would lead to nowhere.
“China said he’s completely ignoring the arbitral. So what more can you ask of it? Make noise? For what?”
Regarding China’s reclamation activities in the Spratlys, Duterte said this too could not be an issue anymore because “nandyan na yan” [it’s already there].
“What could be the purpose also of discussing it kung wala kang magawa [if you could do nothing about it]?” the President said.
He pointed out again that if there was one country who could have stopped China’s activities in disputed waters, it should have been the United States — adding it would be “suicide” for the Philippines to go into battle with China.
“Stop dreaming about arbitral, arbitral. You cannot… Unless we are prepared to go to war,” Duterte said.
The President said that as chairman of this year’s ASEAN summit, he would rather focus instead on other matters like trade, livelihood and exchange of rice and food technology.
