{"id":222523,"date":"2019-07-11T20:10:08","date_gmt":"2019-07-12T00:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=222523"},"modified":"2019-07-11T20:13:10","modified_gmt":"2019-07-12T00:13:10","slug":"ph-control-of-china-occupied-islands-in-wps-doable-palace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/07\/11\/ph-control-of-china-occupied-islands-in-wps-doable-palace\/","title":{"rendered":"PH control of China-occupied islands in WPS \u2018doable\u2019: Palace"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Panelo, however, said regaining control may be possible since the Philippines and China continue to engage in bilateral negotiations to resolve the maritime dispute. (File Photo: PTV\/Website)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— The Philippines can definitely regain control of Chinese-occupied islands in the West Philippine Sea (WPS), Malaca\u00f1ang said on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo made this reaction after the Social Weather Stations (SWS) released another survey result, showing that 93 percent of Filipinos believe that it is important that the government regain control over China-occupied islands in the disputed waters.<\/p>\n

\u201cDapat nga<\/em>\u00a0100 percent.\u00a0Lahat ng Pilipino dapat<\/em>\u00a0(It should be 100 percent. It should be all Filipinos)\u2026 would want to have control over the areas that are supposed to be ours,\u201d Panelo said in a Palace briefing.<\/p>\n

Panelo pointed out the reality that China insists on its \u201cnine-dash line\u201d claim, which covers nearly the entire South China Sea – including the Philippine-claimed Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the reality is,\u00a0may problema tayo doon<\/em>\u00a0(we have a problem there) because China claims to own it too,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Panelo, however, said regaining control may be possible since the Philippines and China continue to engage in bilateral negotiations to resolve the maritime dispute.<\/p>\n

\u201cBakit hindi? Sinasabi na nga may<\/em>\u00a0negotiations\u00a0eh. Kung pumayag ang ka-<\/em>negotiate\u00a0mo, o eh \u2018di<\/em>\u00a0done (Why not? We\u2019re saying there are negotiations. If who you\u2019re negotiating with agrees, then it\u2019s done),\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cKung hindi naman pumayag, o \u2018di mag-usap pa uli<\/em>\u00a0(If they don\u2019t agree, then we\u2019ll negotiate again),\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Asked about the chances that bilateral talks will be effective, Panelo said there is no way to find out unless the government tries.<\/p>\n

\u201cEh, hindi natin alam kung anong<\/em>\u00a0(We don\u2019t know what are the) chances but we\u2019re doing it,\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n

He also insisted that President Rodrigo Duterte will stand pat on diplomatic negotiations to settle the sea row.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, he dismissed the idea that the survey results showed that the Duterte administration has had a shortcoming in asserting its territorial claims.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot necessarily.\u00a0Ang tanong naman eh,<\/em>\u00a0is it important \u2013\u00a0\u2018yun ang tanong eh. Eh kung iyon ang tanong, \u2018di siyempre<\/em>\u00a0100 percent\u00a0dapat ang sagutin \u2018<\/em>yes (The question is, is it important — that\u2019s the question. If that\u2019s the question, of course 100 percent should say yes),\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n

In the survey, 74 percent of the respondents said it is \u201cvery important\u201d that the control of the islands that China currently occupies in the West Philippine Sea is given back to the Philippines.<\/p>\n

Nineteen percent said it is \u201csomewhat important\u201d, 1 percent answered \u201cnot at all important\u201d and 4 percent were undecided on the issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— The Philippines can definitely regain control of Chinese-occupied islands in the West Philippine Sea (WPS), Malaca\u00f1ang said on Thursday. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":165962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-222523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222523","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=222523"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":222525,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222523\/revisions\/222525"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}