Manalo to Beijing: PH actions in WPS based solely on nat’l interest

By Joyce Ann L. Rocamora, Philippine News Agency

Manalo issued the reaction after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi described the country’s actions to assert its rights over the region as a “plot” in some foreign force’s “screenplay” to discredit China. (PNA photo by Robert Oswald P. Alfiler)

MANILA – All Philippine actions in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) are solely based on national interest, Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo reaffirmed on Saturday to counter claims by China that they are part of a foreign-backed agenda.

Manalo issued the reaction after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi described the country’s actions to assert its rights over the region as a “plot” in some foreign force’s “screenplay” to discredit China.

The issue over WPS, Manalo said, is being “cast in the light of the strategic rivalry among the big powers, when actually the issue is really an issue of Philippine interests.”

“The Philippines has no connection to any kind of strategic rivalry among the big powers — it should not be viewed that way,” he said in an interview on the sidelines of his meeting with British Foreign Minister David Lammy MP in Taguig City.

“If that’s unfortunately the way they view it, then certainly it won’t really lead to any productive talks. So, we really hope that we look at this as an issue which concerns Philippine interest specifically, and not any other country,” he added.

On March 7, Wang said during a press briefing that “for every move on the sea by the Philippines, there is a screenplay written by external forces, the show is livestreamed by Western media, and the plot is invariably to smear China.”

China claims a huge swath of the South China Sea, including on areas within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

In a 2016 decision, the Arbitral Tribunal ruled that Beijing’s expansive claims beyond its internationally-recognized maritime zones in the South China Sea, then called nine-dash line, have no legal basis and are contrary to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.