MANILA, Philippines — Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. on Monday took a swipe at those “desperate for publicity” and want to “show off” before the United Nations as he stood firm on his opposition against protesting China’s new coast guard law before the international organization.
“There’s too many desperate people who want to run for office and want to show off at the United Nations and defend us. Please, there’s nothing to defend, we already won. Tama na [Enough],” Locsin said in an interview over ABS-CBN News Channel.
“You know what you can do? You can do Covid work. Those desperate members of the opposition, please go to the frontlines, swab people. That’s how you show. But don’t you dare—this was actually the achievement of Noynoy Aquino. [Retired Supreme Court justice Antonio] Carpio was there, [former Foreign Affairs Secretary] Albert del Rosario. God, don’t throw it away because you’re desperate for publicity,” he added.
The foreign affairs chief was asked about Carpio’s suggestion that the Philippines and other Southeast Asian should run to a United Nations tribunal to declare China’s coast guard law as void.
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China claims nearly the entire South China Sea, including waters within the exclusive economic zones of Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines (the West Philippine Sea), Vietnam, and Taiwan.
In July 2016, the Philippines sealed a historic win against China before the United Nations-backed Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, Netherlands, which invalidated China’s nine-dash line claim, a ruling that Beijing refuses to recognize.
“I have a high respect for Tony Carpio. I respect his mind—No. Everybody wants to enter a show, everybody wants to show off at the United Nations. Well, I’m not gonna go back there because the coast guard law has some claims as to the extent of their territory. That will reopen the arbitral award and I’m not gonna give them a chance to do that,” Locsin said.
“Chinese diplomacy has been effective to most of the members of the United Nations and I’m not gonna throw our victory into that and let them decide…We’re not doing it, because my brain tells me it’s wrong,” he added.
The foreign affairs chief already filed a diplomatic protest against the China law, which allows the Chinese Coast Guard to fire at foreign vessels in Chinese-claimed reefs.
“While enacting law is a sovereign prerogative, this one—given the area involved or for that matter the open South China Sea—is a verbal threat of war to any country that defies the law; which, if unchallenged, is submission to it,” he previously said.
The Chinese Embassy in Manila, meanwhile, slammed “false accusations” against Beijing’s coast guard law, insisting that it conforms with international conventions and is not targeted at any specific country.