Duterte: PH, China work together to fight criminality, illegal drugs

President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, in his speech during the opening ceremony of Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) Annual Conference 2018 at the BFA International Convention Center in Boao, People’s Republic of China on April 10, 2018, invites responsible businesses to invest in the country as he assures the investors that the government is strengthening the policy framework for businesses to thrive. SIMEON CELI JR./PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO

President Rodrigo Duterte said that the Philippines and China cooperate with each other to combat criminality and illegal drug trade.

“Bilaterally, the Philippines has shown how complex relations are, but not a bar to positive and mutually beneficial engagement,” Duterte said in a speech during Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2018 in Hainan, China.

“We are shoulder to shoulder in the fights against terrorism and violent extremism. Make no mistake, there can be no progress without stability in Asia’s lands and waters,” he added.

Speaking before other leaders of state and business elites, the President said the Philippines has made “considerable headway” in improving peace and order situation, sustaining the battle against corruption in the country, and strengthening the policy framework for businesses to prosper.

“To me, along with the illegal drug trade and terrorism and corruption, which are pernicious and rotten social disease that devours my country,” he stressed.

With good governance as a basis of a sound economic policy, Duterte said: “The Philippines will do more to increase investments in the country, particularly in infrastructure, innovation and interconnectivity.”

Despite the Philippines’ territorial dispute with China over the West Philippine Sea, Beijing expressed its understanding of the Philippine government’s effort to eliminate illegal drugs.

China even funded 150-bed drug rehabilitation center in southern Philippines’ Sarangani province called Dangerous Drug Abuse Treatment and Rehabilitation Center in January 2018. It also funded a similar drug facility in Agusan del Sur province.

Beijing has expressed its support to the Philippines’ war on drugs and its decision to withdraw from the Rome Statute, a treaty that created the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The Philippine government said that its decision to pull out from the tribunal body was a “principled stand against those who politicize and weaponize human rights.”

Supporting this resolve, China Foreign Ministry maintained that the ICC should “act cautiously” and avoid being used as a “political tool.”

“China believes that a sovereign country has the right to say no to political manipulation under the cloak of law,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said in a news briefing on March 28.

The Chinese government defended Duterte’s crackdown against illegal drugs, stressing that the campaign improved public security in the Philippines.