Palace exec defends plans to buy arms from China
AMID improving ties between the Philippines and China, a Malacanang official on Thursday defended President Duterte’s plan to look to China as a source for military equipment despite the chief executive earlier statement questioning the quality of firearms that came from there.
Presidential Communications Office Secretary Martin Andanar said not everything sourced from China was defective.
Many items that Filipinos are using are made in China, and they have had no problem with these, Andanar noted.
“For me, it depends on the product. Maybe the China-made products that the President mentioned were the ones that were defective,” he said in a press briefing.
In a speech at the AFP Medical Center last month, Mr. Duterte indicated that firearms sourced from China were substandard or could have been sabotaged.
He made the statement as he promised to procure the best equipment for soldiers, and said he wanted government to government procurement.
The President’s spokesperson Ernesto Abella also said on Thursday that while Mr. Duterte had directed defense officials to study the option of sourcing equipment from China or Russia, “they’re not closing the options to these two alone.”
Abella, who took note of the statement of Chine’s Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin that ties between the two countries were at a “new turning point,” said the conversation between the two countries was “friendly.”
“You could almost say getting to know you. The whole purpose is to be able to establish warmer relationships,” Abella said.
He said he was unaware if there were any preconditions to the two countries’ conversation, but said there was an “openness” between them.
The pronouncement of improved relations comes as the two countries attempt to schedule talks on overlapping claims over the South China Sea, which Beijing is claiming almost in its entirety.
The Philippines had secured a victory in the arbitral tribunal, which declared China’s claim to the area had no historical basis. But China has refused to recognize the ruling.
Mr. Duterte had said that he would insist that talks with China be based on the tribunal’s decision.
The President’s plan to look to China and Russia for new military equipment also came at a time of strained relations between the Philippines and the United States.
Mr. Duterte earlier lashed out at United States President Barack Obama over reported attempts to raise human rights concerns with him, and then said American soldiers must leave Mindanao as they would become targets of extremists.
But on Tuesday, he said the Philippines would not cut its “umbilical cord” with its allies, including its military alliances.
Malacanang said the President was crafting an independent foreign policy, which means it would not be beholden to any country.
