{"id":151803,"date":"2018-02-09T01:04:43","date_gmt":"2018-02-09T06:04:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=151803"},"modified":"2018-03-05T00:45:07","modified_gmt":"2018-03-05T05:45:07","slug":"west-ph-sea-expert-calls-duterte-admin-naive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/02\/09\/west-ph-sea-expert-calls-duterte-admin-naive\/","title":{"rendered":"West PH sea expert calls Duterte admin \u2018na\u00efve\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"(Photo<\/a>
Gregory Poling, Asia Maritime Transparency (AMTI) Director (Photo by Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An international expert on the West Philippine Sea (WPS) or South China Sea branded the Duterte administration as \u2018na\u00efve\u2019 when it came to its tactics in dealing with China’s moves in the WPS.<\/p>\n

In a February 2 interview with Rappler, Gregory Poling, Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) Director called the government \u201cwell-intentioned but na\u00efve,” adding that “the facts on the ground don\u2019t support the notion that China\u2019s acting in good faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poling was referring to how the Palace has been handling China\u2019s militarization, in which Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque, Jr. has reiterated in several statements that the Philippine government is relying on good faith.<\/p>\n

Apart from this, he also countered defenses that Duterte was only being \u2018practical\u2019 in his administration\u2019s stance.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think that’s practicality. I think that’s defeatist,” Poling told Rappler.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a bully keeps punching you over and over and over, it is na\u00efve to think he\u2019s all of a sudden going to stop and behave nicely,\u201d he added, this time referring to a more recent statement of Roque saying that the Philippines will thank China in the future when they leave.<\/p>\n

(Read: PH to thank China for man-made islands when they \u2018leave\u2019 \u2013 Roque<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly, eventually, those artificial islands will be ours if we can ask China to leave the islands,\u201d Roque said in an interview on February 7, posted on his Facebook page.<\/p>\n

Speaking about legality, Roque said, \u201cThere will come a time when China\u2019s might had ceased, when we will have to thank them for the islands because it is only the Philippines the can legally build on those artificial islands.\u201d<\/p>\n

An AMTI report also negated one of Roque\u2019s statement in regards to China\u2019s militarization.<\/p>\n

(Read: Report negates Palace statement on China militarization<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I said this militarization, if you can call it militarization, did not happen during the Duterte administration alone. It\u2019s been long militarized and the question is, \u2018what can we do?\u2019 What did the past administration do and what can we do?\u201d Roque said in a recent press briefing.<\/p>\n

Contrary to his statement, AMTI\u2019s report in December 2017 states the developments started in early 2017.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese facilities account for about 72 acres, or 290,000 square meters, of new real estate at Fiery Cross, Subi, and Mischief Reefs in the Spratlys, and North, Tree, and Triton Islands in the Paracels,\u201d it read.<\/p>\n

The report further read that the Fiery Cross Reef was the most constructed, covering 27 acres or about 110,000 square meters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An international expert on the West Philippine Sea (WPS) or South China Sea branded the Duterte administration as \u2018na\u00efve\u2019 when …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":151831,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[45966,420,46190,15350,2444],"class_list":["post-151803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-asia-maritime-transparency-initiative","tag-china","tag-gregory-poling","tag-harry-roque-jr","tag-rodrigo-duterte","mauthors-bea-kirstein-t-manalaysay","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}