Palace confident PHL-China ties will remain strong
Malacañang does not expect the country's relationship with China to sour despite the Department of Foreign Affairs' (DFA) decision to bring the long-standing territorial dispute to international arbitration.
“Let me emphasize that this is not the end-all and be-all of RP-China relations,” presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said at a briefing Wednesday.
DFA's decision to bring the issue to the UN arbitration body was the strongest step taken by the Aquino administration against perceived Chinese aggression in the West Philippine Sea.
But according to maritime laws expert Prof. Jay Batongbacal of the UP Law Center, the government can only "hope" that what the DFA did will not have adverse effects on Philippine-China relations.
In an interview on "24 Oras" aired on Wednesday, Batongbacal said DFA's move "can possibly increase tension."
"Sinabi na nila (China) last year na they may not like this and they may consider it a provocative act," Batongbacal said. "We can only hope that this will not affect trade, this will not affect cultural exchanges, etc."
Lacierda said the Philippines and China have relationships in many levels.
"We have an active engagement with China in other matters, in other fields, and so we abstract this issue of the West Philippine Sea from our RP-China relations as a whole and we believe that we can continue to move forward in our people-to-people engagement, in our trade relations with China,” he said.
Lacierda believes Chinese officials share his opinion.
"This is not the crux of our RP-China relations and China itself does not intend to view the RP-China relations as the West Philippine Sea [as] our only issue. When we visited [China], for instance, both [Interior and Local Government] Secretary Mar Roxas and Mr. Xi Jinping agreed on that this is not the end-all and be-all of China-RP relations,” he said.
For security expert Rommel Banlaoi, it all boils down to proper explanation by the Philippines to China.
"Dapat maipalawag natin sa China na we value our relationship, na we recognize China as our important neighbor, an we value the role of China as a major power in the maintenance of regional peace and instability," he said in the "24 Oras" report.
"But at the same time, we have difference sa issue ng South China and we want to settle this in a peaceful manner and that is why we are putting that in international arbitration
Lacierda, meanwhile, touted China’s recent declaration of the Philippines as the most romantic destination for tourists.
“By the way, China just called us the ‘most romantic’ destination. So we are very romantic and we will continue to spread the romance to our Chinese friends,” Lacierda said, implying that tourist arrivals will not be affected despite the pending case between China and the Philippines.
The Philippines and China have been locked in a territorial dispute over the Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal since April.
Both countries are also among six claimants to the Spratly Islands, which China calls Nansha Islands. The other claimants include Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Vietnam.
The Aquino administration earlier favored peaceful negotiations and country-to-country relations with China in resolving the dispute. It elevated the issue to the international arbitration in protest of China’s so-called nine-dash claim to almost the entire South China Sea, including the West Philippine Sea. — Patricia Denise Chiu/KBK, GMA News
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