{"id":238963,"date":"2019-12-02T17:27:17","date_gmt":"2019-12-02T22:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=238963"},"modified":"2019-12-02T17:27:17","modified_gmt":"2019-12-02T22:27:17","slug":"prrd-declines-hack-proof-cellphone-from-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/12\/02\/prrd-declines-hack-proof-cellphone-from-china\/","title":{"rendered":"PRRD declines hack-proof cellphone from China"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
FILE: President Rodrigo Roa Duterte at the Malaca\u00f1an Palace on November 28, 2019. TOTO LOZANO\/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday bared that he declined a hack-proof cellphone offered to him by the Chinese government acknowledging the country\u2019s ability to commit espionage.<\/p>\n

Duterte made this remark allaying fears over China\u2019s co-ownership of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), a private consortium that manages and operates the Philippines\u2019 power grid.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, they (China) are listening to us, satellites, without using the grid, the spies, they know, I know because I have talked to him (Chinese President Xi Jinping),\u201d Duterte said in an interview over GMA\u2019s Unang Hirit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey offered to give me a cellphone that could not be hacked,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

He said he declined the hack-proof cellphone because he did not want Filipinos to suspect he was hiding anything from them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not want the people suspect that I have secrets,\u201d Duterte said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Duterte reiterated that the public should not be alarmed over China\u2019s co-ownership NGCP emphasizing that it was purely done for \u201cbusiness\u201d and no plans to stop the power grid\u2019s operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will ask China now. I\u2019d like to address myself, respectfully to President Xi, what could be the reason because I do not believe that they will do,\u201d Duterte said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if there is, what could be the reason for you to cut. What could be the possible reason that China would spy or cut the grid?\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Duterte pointed out that there is no basis for China to take actions that are detrimental to its ties with Manila.<\/p>\n

While he considers China as a \u201cfriend,\u201d the President would not hesitate to pick a fight against China, in case it shuts down the transmission lines.<\/p>\n

Currently, Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said there is no directive from the President to investigate China’s co-ownership of the NGCP.<\/p>\n

He said the executive branch would let the Department of National Defense and the National Security Council assess whether the issue can be considered as a “pressing national concern.”<\/p>\n

China\u2019s State Grid Corp. controls 40 percent of the NGCP, which supervises the management and operation of the country\u2019s power transmission lines owned by state-owned National Transmission Corp.<\/p>\n

Last week, former Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio warned of Beijing\u2019s co-ownership of the NGCP due to its capability to shut down the Philippines\u2019 power grid.<\/p>\n

The NGCP clarified the State Grid Corporation of China\u2019s role is limited to being a \u201ctechnical adviser\u201d while Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said such claim was \u201ccompletely groundless.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday bared that he declined a hack-proof cellphone offered to him by the Chinese government …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":238714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238963","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\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238963"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":238965,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238963\/revisions\/238965"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}