{"id":153553,"date":"2018-02-20T06:20:37","date_gmt":"2018-02-20T11:20:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=153553"},"modified":"2018-02-20T06:20:37","modified_gmt":"2018-02-20T11:20:37","slug":"duterte-on-china-artificial-isle-militarization-not-intended-for-ph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/02\/20\/duterte-on-china-artificial-isle-militarization-not-intended-for-ph\/","title":{"rendered":"Duterte on China artificial isle militarization: Not intended for PH"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"President<\/a>
FILE: President Rodrigo Roa Duterte SIMEON CELI JR.\/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While the Chinese government has been militarizing its man-made islands along the West Philippine Sea, the Philippine President does not find threats in it, saying that it is not intended against the Philippines.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not intended for us. The contending ideological powers of the world or the geopolitcs has greatly changed. It\u2019s really intended against those who the Chinese think would destroy them and that is America,\u201d President Rodrigo Duterte said in a speech during the 20th<\/sup>\u00a0anniversary of the Chinese Filipino Business Club, Inc.<\/p>\n

According to Duterte, Chinese President Xi Jinping is an honorable man he respects, after claiming talks that China assured that they will not build anything in Scarborough.<\/p>\n

The President then went on and pointed fingers to the Aquino administration, saying, \u201cWhat were they doing during their time? Why did they not start to build things there, structures that China is doing now?\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this February, Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque, Jr., just like Duterte, turned his eyes to the past administration.<\/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.<\/p>\n

Contrary to his statement\u00a0though, Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI)\u00a0reported\u00a0in December 2017 that the developments started in early 2017.<\/p>\n

(Read:\u00a0Report negates Palace statement on China militarization<\/a>)<\/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

The Aquino administration filed a case in 2013 to oppose China\u2019s claim in the South China Sea, but did not stop China\u2019s militarization.<\/p>\n

In another statement, Roque also said that one day the Philippines will be grateful to the Chinese for these man-made islands once they ‘leave.’<\/p>\n

(Read: PH to thank China for man-made islands when they ‘leave’ — Roque<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While the Chinese government has been militarizing its man-made islands along the West Philippine Sea, the Philippine President does not …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":147178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[420,15350,2444,10052],"class_list":["post-153553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-china","tag-harry-roque-jr","tag-rodrigo-duterte","tag-xi-jinping","mauthors-bea-kirstein-t-manalaysay","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153553","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=153553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}