{"id":152426,"date":"2018-02-12T02:36:38","date_gmt":"2018-02-12T07:36:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=152426"},"modified":"2018-02-12T02:36:38","modified_gmt":"2018-02-12T07:36:38","slug":"ph-china-to-hold-2nd-wps-dialogue-in-manila","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/02\/12\/ph-china-to-hold-2nd-wps-dialogue-in-manila\/","title":{"rendered":"PH, China to hold 2nd WPS dialogue in Manila"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"FILE:<\/a>
FILE: Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque Jr. ( YANCY LIM\/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— The Philippines and China will meet for the second bilateral consultation mechanism (BCM) on Tuesday (Feb. 13) to tackle their ongoing dispute on the South China Sea (West Philippine Sea), Malaca\u00f1ang said Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe second meeting of this Philippine-China bilateral consultation mechanism on the South China Sea will be held here in Manila tomorrow, February 13, 2018,\u201d Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque Jr. said in a Palace briefing.<\/p>\n

Earlier, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said that the BCM was initially scheduled December 2017 but was postponed to February.<\/p>\n

The first meeting of the Philippines-China BCM on the South China Sea was held in Guiyang, Guizhou Province in China last May 19, 2017.<\/p>\n

Roque said that the Philippine delegation will be led by DFA Undersecretary for Policy Enrique Manalo while the Chinese delegation will be led by Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou.<\/p>\n

\u2018Not soft\u2019 on China<\/strong><\/p>\n

Roque, meanwhile, reiterated that the Philippines is not taking a softer stand on China\u2019s continued militarization in the disputed waters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not being soft on China. There are ongoing bilateral talks as far as contentious South China Sea issues are concerned,\u201d Roque said.<\/p>\n

He pointed out that the Philippine government under the Duterte administration has been consistently filing protests.<\/p>\n

Moreover, he said that he will present a list of protests to the media this week to set the record straight that the government has in fact been protesting.<\/p>\n

\u201cI confirm we have protested not only the building of the islands but also the alleged militarization of the islands and therefore<\/p>\n

contrary to claims of critics, we have long protested the military use of the artificial islands in the South China Sea,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

To date, Roque said that the current foreign policy of the Philippines with China is for issues that are non-contentious such as investments and trade to \u201cproceed as soon as possible\u201d and for contentious issues such as the South China to \u201cproceed on the basis of bilateral negotiations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the BCM, officials from Philippine and Chinese foreign ministries and maritime affairs agencies will meet once every six months.<\/p>\n

Roque said that the BCM was established based on the joint statement issued after President Rodrigo R. Duterte\u2019s landmark visit to China in Oct. 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— The Philippines and China will meet for the second bilateral consultation mechanism (BCM) on Tuesday (Feb. 13) to tackle …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":146495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[46457,420,9396,16366,15350,343,1039,3370],"class_list":["post-152426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-bilateral-consultation-mechanism","tag-china","tag-department-of-foreign-affairs","tag-enrique-manalo","tag-harry-roque-jr","tag-philippines","tag-south-china-sea","tag-west-philippine-sea","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152426","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=152426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}