Duterte: China can help secure south seas

President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, in his departure speech at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila on January 24, 2018, announces that he will discuss matters on fighting regional terrorism during his attendance to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-India Commemorative Summit in India. TOTO LOZANO/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) may have to seek China’s help to put an end to piracy and other security problems in the Celebes and Sulu seas, President Rodrigo Duterte said on Wednesday in his speech at the Ninoy Aquino International Airpot (Naia) before his departure for India.

Duterte said he was attending the Asean-India Commemorative Summit in New Delhi because he would want to impress on his fellow leaders the need to resolve the security problems plaguing the waters off southern Philippines.

“The waters contiguous to the archipelago of the Philippines are getting dangerous,” the President said.

“I will tell you, if we can’t do it, we just have to call China to come in and blow them off, just like [in] Somalia, that Aden Strait there. Were it not for the presence of the Chinese, the piracy there would not have been stopped,” he added.

The President said he would maintain a hardline policy against the pirates.

“Blow them up in the high seas. Destroy them … Otherwise, if we do not do the extreme measure, we’d always be at the mercy of criminals,” he added. —Philip C. Tubeza