MANILA, Philippines — Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. on Wednesday said a billboard along Edsa bearing his face and his warning about China was paid for by a Filipino-Chinese supporter.
Teodoro also said that he had nothing to do with the billboard, which reads: “If we don’t stop [them], China is going to creep and creep into what is within our sovereign jurisdiction, our sovereign rights, and within our territory.”
“I have nothing to do with those billboards,” Teodoro said in a Kapihan sa Manila Bay media forum.
“I did that statement during a TV interview and one of our supporters, who is a Filipino-Chinese by the way, found it [to] be resonant and started posting it on electronic billboards,” he noted.
He also stressed that the billboard is not a political ad.
READ: Teodoro to China: Stop ‘invasion’ through harassment, structure build-up in WPS
“If it was supposed to be a political ad, number one the most telling thing I wouldn’t have used complicated language, I would have said it in Tagalog, Ilocano, or Bisaya,” he said.
Teodoro also said he stands by what he said, adding that he does not owe any explanation to “foreign entities.”
“This a country that prides itself and cherishes freedom of speech. What I said was the truth, and if the truth hurts, so be it.
“I said it in an interview, it was flashed on a billboard without my doing, and if there will be consequences I’m ready to face them, but I just said the truth.
“I do not owe any explanation to any foreign entity for that,” the Defense chief continued.
Teodoro recently unleashed a salvo of attacks against China as it repeatedly rejected the country’s sovereign rights in the West Philippine Sea.
READ: Teodoro says China a ‘squatter’ in West PH Sea
China insists that it owns nearly all of the South China Sea, including the WPS, citing its 10-dash line, which used to be a nine-dash line.
But in 2013, Manila questioned Beijing’s nine-dash line before the Permanent Court of Arbitration, but the 2016 Arbitral Award effectively dismissed China’s sweeping demarcation.
READ: DND’s Teodoro scorns China’s ‘propaganda’ on West PH Sea: ‘Katawa-tawa’